Japan in the World War 1914-19
Germany began moving their reservists from all over China to Qingdao in early August 1914, and Winston Churchill sent a note asking the Japanese Navy to destroy German ships. Foreign Minister Kato persuaded Prime Minister Okuma, his cabinet, the elder statesmen (genro), and the Emperor to enter the war. On August 15 the Imperial Council demanded that Germany surrender Qingdao by September 15. The ultimatum expired on August 23, and on that day an Imperial Rescript declared war on Germany. The Army was mobilized to attack Qingdao, and the Navy blockaded the harbor. Japanese troops landed at Longzhou on September 2. China protested this violation of neutrality and declared the Shandong peninsula a war zone. A British contingent arrived on September 24 and was put under Japanese command. The garrison of 4,000 Germans surrendered on November 7. Only 199 Germans had been killed compared to 415 Japanese and only 13 British, who were accused of being slow to advance. The Japanese also took over the German railway that ran 240 miles from Qingdao to Jinan. Meanwhile the Japanese fleet was pursuing German cruisers and occupying the Caroline, Marshall, and Mariana islands even though this area had been assigned to the Australian Navy. Kato announced that Japan would retain all the islands north of the equator in perpetuity.
On January 7, 1915 China cancelled the Shandong war zone and asked that the Japanese troops be withdrawn. One week later Ambassador Hioko Eki presented Japan’s infamous 21 Demands to China’s President Yuan Shikai with the warning that they be kept secret, but within a few days the American ambassador Paul Reinsch made them known. They included Japan taking over Germany’s rights in Shandong and being given the right to construct a railroad there, recognizing Japan’s position in eastern Inner Mongolia and extending its lease in southern Manchuria to 99 years, giving a Sino-Japanese company a mining monopoly in the Yangzi River Valley, and preventing any coastal area of China from being ceded or leased to any other power. Group Five was a wish list for the imperialists that included the Chinese government employing Japanese advisors, joint Chinese and Japanese police forces, China purchasing half its arms from Japan or establishing joint Chinese-Japanese arsenals using Japanese engineers and materials, and granting Japan the right to construct railroads in southern China. In responding to diplomatic inquiries, Japan summarized the first four groups and denied the fifth existed. After seven weeks Japan sent 7,000 more troops to Manchuria and Shandong.
After the Seiyukai majority refused to pass the budget, Okuma dissolved the Diet and called for new elections. In March 1915 he became the first prime minister to campaign actively in an election. The Doshikai spent money buying votes and increased their representation from 99 seats to 150 while Seiyukai fell from 185 to 104 seats. For the first time campaign expenditures were reported, and the total was nearly 5 million yen. The number of bribery cases reported increased from 1,338 in 1908 to 3,329 in 1912 and to 7,278 in 1915 before jumping to a peak of 22,932 in 1917. After the 1915 election the Diet approved the two new divisions for the Army. Yamagata, who wanted to support Yuan Shikai, called a meeting of the cabinet and elder statesmen in early May to complain that Japan’s 21 Demands were offending China and were not honorable. They removed most of Group Five and gave Yuan a 48-hour ultimatum on the rest. Under the threat of invasion he was forced to accept, and an agreement was signed on May 25. Japan returned Qingdao on the conditions that it be an open port with a Japanese settlement. China declared May 25 National Humiliation Day and began a national boycott of Japanese goods.
Inoue and the elder statesmen demanded that Kato resign. When it was learned in July that the Home minister Oura Kanetake had bribed officials to rig the March election, Okuma had both Oura and Kato resign. Okuma publicly refused to send German arms captured at Qingdao to the Chinese rebels, but secretly he ordered the Army to do so. Mitsui provided the ships to smuggle the arms to Manchuria. The cabinet continued to support covertly the effort to overthrow the Yuan regime. Japanese officers trained a thousand men in Qingdao and used the railway to transport them to Jinan while refusing permission for Chinese government troops to go the other way. Japan and Russia signed a fourth agreement recognizing each other’s interests on July 3, 1916. In the secret portion Japan promised to supply Russia with 300 million yen worth of weapons, including 700,000 rifles; but this was exposed after the Soviets took power and revealed all of Russia’s secret treaties.
Okuma, who had already lost a leg, was the target of another terrorist attack, and in October 1916 Yamagata and the House of Peers persuaded him to resign. Okuma wanted Kato as his successor; but Yamagata managed to select General Terauchi Masatake, who had been governing Korea. Yamagata and Terauchi believed the Germans would win the war, and they had their ambassadors talking in Stockholm since 1915. In February 1917 the intercepted Zimmerman telegram made known a shocking German-Japanese-Mexican plot to help Mexico recover the territory it had lost to the United States if the latter entered the war.
Nishihara Kamezo ran a textile importing company, and in January 1917 Terauchi sent him to Beijing, where he began by arranging to loan China three million yen for secret consideration in gaining contracts for telegraph service. Copper coins served as collateral and were shipped to Japan, where they were melted down and sold for twice their monetary value. Eventually Japan extended eight loans of 145 million yen to the warlord Duan Qirui to pay for his civil war. All this was done without informing the Foreign Ministry, and Japan was paid back only five million yen. Ishii Kikujiro was sent to Washington and on November 4 signed an agreement with US Secretary of State Robert Lansing that recognized that “Japan has special interests in China.” Also in 1917 Giichi Tanaka spent two months in China and Manchuria and wrote a report on “The Exploitation of China’s Resources.”
The Doshikai party had joined with two minor parties to become the Constitutional Association (Kenseikai), and after a no-confidence vote Terauchi dissolved the Diet. In the April 1917 election Seiyukai gained about fifty seats while the Kenseikai lost eighty seats. After the price of rice doubled between January 1917 and July 1918, rice riots began in northern Honshu and spread across Japan. The disturbances that summer involved 700,000 people. Police could not stop the rioting, and the Army arrested 25,000 people. About a thousand were injured or killed. Of the 700 who were prosecuted 71 were sentenced to ten years or more. The Government tried to suppress the newspapers.
In September 1918 Premier Terauchi was forced to resign, and the commoner Hara Kei became prime minister. For the first time the prime minister and a majority of the ministers in the cabinet were from the same party, and the era of real party government in Japan had begun. Hara promoted the military, education, industry, and communications. He reduced the voting qualification from ten yen to three yen.
Yoshino Sakuzo was a Christian who taught at Tokyo University. He developed a theory of democracy that called for “government for the people” (mimponshugi) rather than “government by the people” (minshushugi). In December 1918 Yoshino inspired students to organize the New Man Society (Shinjinkai) to work for universal male suffrage and national reforms to help the people. He gave speeches to rallies and formed the Reimeikai (Dawn) party that combined socialism with Christian and Confucian morality; but after the suffrage bill was blocked in 1920, his party collapsed. The conservative law professor Uesugi Shinkichi opposed the ideas of Yoshino and advocated imperial power. Also in 1918 the eight Special Higher Schools multiplied by four, and the University Law gave more specialty schools university status.
Japan’s economy boomed while exporting during the Great War. Japan’s national debt was 1.5 billion yen when the war began, and by the time of the armistice four years later Japan had built up a surplus of 2 billion yen. Japan’s real gross national product rose 40%, and by 1919 its manufacturing output had risen by 72%. Japan’s exports jumped to 708 million yen in 1915, and in 1918 they were 1.96 billion yen. The Japanese emphasized quantity more than quality, and their products got a reputation for being shoddy. Prices increased by 130%, but wages actually went down by 32%. Although strikes and unions were illegal, sixteen trade unions were formed in 1919 which led to 497 strikes by 63,000 workers in shipyards, railways, mines, and other industries for more pay and better working conditions. The Christian social worker Suzuki Bunji had founded the Fraternal Association (Yuaikai) in 1912, and it grew into the All Japan Federation of Labor. In 1919 they used work slow-downs to win the eight-hour workday at the Kawasaki shipyards in Kobe.
The number of Japanese in Manchuria increased from 3,800 in 1900 to 26,600 in 1910 and to 133,930 by 1920. Yamagata urged Prime Minister Terauchi to back the warlord Zhang Zuolin to govern northern China, but six princes who advised Taisho plotted against Zhang. In 1916 Prince Babojab of Mongolia invaded western Manchuria with Tatars advised by Japanese officers. They attacked the railroad between Beijing and Mukden and kept Zhang busy and unable to invade China. Prince Kanin visited Mukden on October 15. After a terrorist bomb killed five bodyguards, Zhang escaped by fleeing on a horse.
After the Russian revolution the Japanese government sent weapons and 49 Japanese advisors to the anti-Bolshevik resistance led by the Cossack Grigory Semenov in Siberia. Admiral Kato Kanji reached Vladivostok on January 12, 1918, two days before the HMS Suffolk and a month before the USS Brooklyn. Tanaka set up a secret Siberian Planning Committee on February 28 to coordinate the military expedition, and Nishihara held up loans until China agreed to let Japan deploy forces in northern China to fight the Bolsheviks. After three Japanese clerks were killed during a robbery in a Vladivostok store, the Japanese navy landed marines. Yamagata wanted them withdrawn, and on April 23 Emperor Taisho ordered them back to their ships. Two days later Vladivostok formed a Soviet government. Foreign minister Motono Ichiro resigned, and Yamagata made sure that Goto Shimpei was appointed. Nishihara forced China to accept military and naval agreements on May 19, giving Japan a free hand in Manchuria.
An army of 50,000 Czechs was stranded when Russia withdrew from the war, and they traveled east along the Trans-Siberian Railroad. A third of the Czechs reached Vladivostok by May, and Allied ships took them to Europe. England and France asked Japan to help the others. In July 1918 the United States sent 7,000 men into Siberia to help the Czechs and secure the 300,000 German, Austrian, Turkish, and Bulgarian prisoners of war. Japan sent 30,000 troops in August and eventually deployed 72,000 soldiers there. By the spring of 1919 the Japanese controlled both the railways east of Irkutsk. About a third of the 300,000 war prisoners died of starvation and disease. By 1920 the zaibatsu (conglomerates) Mitsui, Mitsubishi, and Suzuki had moved into Vladivostok, Khabarovsk, Harbin, Chita, and Nikolaevsk with about 50,000 settlers. The Japanese installed White Russian regimes in the larger towns. In May 1920 a Japanese community of 700 in Nikolaevsk was wiped out when Soviet troops raped, tortured, and murdered them. The Japanese reacted by occupying Vladivostok and invading northern Sakhalin to grab coal, oil, and timber. The Japanese troops stayed in Siberia until June 1922 when international and domestic pressure forced their withdrawal by October except from Sakhalin. The Siberian adventure had cost Japan 700 million yen.
At the Versailles peace conference the Japanese demanded racial equality, but Australian prime minister Hughes blocked a vote from being unanimous. Japan also restricted immigration, and what they really wanted was to keep Shandong. They argued that the 21 Demands had been accepted and that China signed the loan agreements. Britain and France had promised their support in the secret treaties of 1917. Italy had gained Fiume by threatening to stay out of the League of Nations, and Japan used the same tactic to persuade US President Woodrow Wilson. As a result Japan was allowed to keep its lease on Qingdao and received mandates on the Pacific islands north of the equator, and they promised to withdraw from the territories they occupied on the Shandong peninsula and in Siberia.
On March 1, 1919 an independence movement erupted in Korea, and it took the Japanese two months to suppress the revolt. Japanese officials reported only 1,962 Korean casualties and 12,000 arrests, but scholars estimate that more than 7,000 Koreans were killed and about 46,000 were arrested in 1,500 demonstrations that involved two million people. Hara appointed Admiral Saito Makoto to be governor-general. Officials and teachers no longer wore swords, but the number of police in Korea was greatly increased. Japan’s economic exploitation of its Korean colony continued with large rice imports arriving to feed Japan’s rapidly growing population.
Japanese Progress 1920-30
In 1920 the population of Japan reached 56 million. Although parties gained more political power in the 1920s, they were still dominated by the aristocrats, upper bureaucrats, conservative politicians, big business, rural landlords, and the military. The tenant farmers, industrial workers, white-collar workers, journalists, educators, and other intellectuals were generally in opposition. By 1920 about 40% of agricultural land was under tenancy, and rents were about half the yield. Many farmers depended on producing raw silk, and that year the price dropped from 4,000 yen per hundred pounds to 1,000 yen. Student demonstrations in 1919 had raised the issue of universal suffrage, which was supported by workers. In February 1920 the Kenseikai (Constitutional) and Kokuminto (Nationalist) parties submitted a bill for universal suffrage; but Premier Hara refused to allow a vote, and the Diet was dissolved. In the election the Seiyukai party won 279 seats to 108 for the Kenseikai and 29 for the Kokuminto. This enabled Hara to add funding for the navy, railroads, telephone, telegraph, and roads.
Nitobe Inazo had studied in the United States, and in 1900 he wrote in English Bushido: The Soul of Japan on samurai ethics. He was a law professor at Kyoto Imperial University and then at Tokyo Imperial University. When the League of Nations was established in 1920, Japan was one of the four nations given a permanent seat on the Council, and Nitobe was an Under-Secretary General and the first director of the International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation, which later became UNESCO. After attending the 13th World Congress of Esperanto in August 1921, he made a report to the General Assembly of the League; but a proposal for the League to use Esperanto as its working language was vetoed by the French delegate.
In 1920 Hiratsuka Raicho and Ichikawa Fusae organized the New Women’s Association to work for equal rights for women and to protect mothers and children. Their efforts led in 1922 to women being permitted to sponsor and listen to political speeches, but they still could not join a political party. Hiratsuka also advocated banning men with venereal disease from getting married. Ichikawa traveled to the United States, where she met Alice Paul. In 1924 Ichikawa founded the Women’s Suffrage League of Japan. The number of middle schools for girls rose from only 52 in 1920 to 576 in 1924.
The postwar depression put labor on the defensive. May Day demonstrations began in 1920 and called for a minimum wage law, an eight-hour workday, solving unemployment, and repealing the Police Regulation Law. The Japan Socialist Federation was formed in December, but the Government banned the organization in May 1921. At Kobe 35,000 dockyard workers went on strike in 1921. Several hundred people were arrested, but after six weeks the strike was suppressed. In September 1921 Asahi Heigo in order to encourage revolution assassinated Yasuda Zenjiro, who had founded the Yasuda conglomerate. Peasants joined the Japan Farmers Union organized by Kagawa Toyohiko and other Christians in 1922; they renounced violence and promoted mutual aid, growing to 150,000 members by 1926. The untouchable Eta class that was condemned to doing menial work formed the Equality Society. The Japan General Federation of Labor favored Bolshevist action over the strikes of the syndicalists, who failed to form an alliance in September 1922. The first Japanese Communist party was founded that year by Tokuda Kyuichi, Osugi Sakae, and Arahata Kanson; but in 1923 the police used a membership list they got from an informer to arrest the leaders.
The Government reacted by setting up the Capital-Labor Harmonization Society under a textile magnate with an endowment of ten million yen. Members of Toyama’s Ex-Ronin Society joined the ultranationalist Japan National Essence Society that Kita Ikki and Okawa Shumei had founded in 1919. Okawa had written the 8-volume Fundamental Principles for the Reconstruction of the Nation that recommended martial law, restricting capital, profit sharing between employers and employees, friendship with the Americans to develop China, and hostility to Russia and Britain. They used violent tactics to help the police crush rallies and strikes.
A young right-winger assassinated Prime Minister Hara on November 4, 1921, and Finance minister Takahashi Korekiyo succeeded him as the Seiyukai party leader. He was unpopular and resigned in June 1922. Yamagata had died, and so Saionji chose as premier the nonpartisan Admiral Kato Tomosaburo, who selected most of his cabinet from the House of Peers. Japan was represented at the Washington Naval Conference by its ambassador Shidehara Kijuro and Kato in late 1921 and early 1922, and the Seiyukai managed to push through the naval restrictions agreed upon. Japan was limited to warships with 60% of the tonnage that British and American ships were allowed. Japan shifted naval spending to submarines, naval aircraft, and torpedo boats that were not covered by the treaty, and budget cuts included the Army. The Anglo-Japanese Alliance was expanded to include France and the United States, and the Nine-Power Treaty agreed on the Open Door Policy for China. Japan promised to withdraw its troops from Shandong but retained its economic privileges. Japan also insisted on no foreign fortifications within 2,000 miles of Japan in the Pacific. No new bases were to be built in the Pacific Ocean except in Japan, Singapore, and Hawaii.
California had passed the Alien Land Law in 1920, and fifteen other states followed their lead. In 1922 the United States Supreme Court ruled the Japanese were ineligible for citizenship. Ambassador Hanihara Masanao warned the US Congress not to exclude Japanese in the Immigration Act of 1924 because there would be “grave consequences.” Senator Henry Cabot Lodge called this a “veiled threat,” and it passed easily, offending the Japanese.
On September 1, 1923 the great Kanto earthquake in Tokyo and Yokohama caused extensive fires and killed about 140,000 people while destroying more than 576,000 homes. Property damage was estimated at about five billion yen, and a quarter million people lost their jobs. Some blamed Koreans, and the immigrants were hunted down and slaughtered; the police reported that 231 Koreans were killed, but Yoshino Sakuzo calculated it was 2,613. About 1,300 socialists were arrested. Captain Amakasu Masahiko strangled the anarchist Osugi Sakae and his wife and nephew, and he was paroled after three years. Kato Tomosaburo had died on August 24, and during the three days of fires Admiral Yamamoto became premier with only the support of Inukai’s Kakushin Kurabu party. On December 27 the anarchist Namba Taisuke tried to avenge Osugi’s death and shot at Regent Hirohito; but he missed and after a trial was executed. Yamamoto took responsibility and resigned. Kiyoura Keigo was selected and also formed his cabinet from the House of Peers, making him disliked by both parties. The Diet was dissolved, and in June 1924 the opposition parties united to win the election, causing Kiyoura to resign.
Kenseikai’s Kato Komei (Takaaki) formed a coalition with Inukai’s Nationalists and became prime minister, beginning eight years of party government. He chose his cabinet from the three parties as well as experienced nonparty men such as Shidehara Kijuro for Foreign minister and General Ugaki Kazushige for War (Army) minister. The budget was cut, and they imposed tariffs on imported luxuries. On January 20, 1925 Japan agreed to withdraw from Sakhalin in exchange for oil and mineral concessions, and Shidehara established diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union despite objections by the Privy Council. After the conservatives in the House of Peers were mollified by the Peace Preservation bill that outlawed “dangerous thoughts” that advocated such things as changing the government or abolishing private property, they passed a bill granting the vote to all males over the age of 25 who were not indigent, increasing the electorate from 3.3 million to 12.5 million.
When General Tanaka Giichi became president of the Seiyukai party, the coalition broke up. Seiyukai merged with the Nationalists and challenged Kato’s cabinet. Kato cut back the Army from 21 divisions to 17 to reduce the Chosu influence. Many of the military officers moved into the schools which expanded military training, and others were transferred into a tank corps, machine-gun squads, research into new weapons, intelligence, air and anti-aircraft regiments, and military academies. Japan refused to sign the 1925 Geneva Protocol banning the use of chemical and bacteriological weapons, and they established the Narashino School of Chemical Warfare on the small Okuma-Jima island, which was left off maps. Military spending, which had been 42% of the budget in 1922, was reduced to 29% in 1925 and to 28% in 1927. The Kato ministry also passed the Factory Law, the Labor Disputes Mediation Law, and the National Health Insurance Law, and the provision used against unions was abolished. Rebuilding after the earthquake had weakened the yen and caused inflation as new bonds were issued. In December 1925 students at leading universities were arrested for “dangerous thoughts;” 37 were jailed for ten months before being tried and expelled from school.
Kato Komei died on January 30, 1926 and was succeeded by Wakatsuki Reijiro. After the conglomerate Suzuki became insolvent, its creditor, the Bank of Taiwan, was given an emergency loan of 200 million yen by the Government without the Privy Council’s approval. Bank panics ensued, and many smaller banks went out of business. The Government sponsored low-interest loans so that qualified tenants could buy land. Farmers and industrial workers tried to get together by forming the Labor-Farmer party, but Tanaka’s government banned the party in 1928. Tenant unions increased from 1,530 in 1923 to 4,582 unions with 365,322 members in 1927.
The Taisho Era ended when the Emperor died on December 25, 1926, and the Showa Era of “Enlightened Peace” was proclaimed as the regent Hirohito became emperor. After a year of mourning the enthronement ceremonies began in January 1928 and culminated in December, promoting Hirohito’s imperial image and divinity, encouraging morality, and propagandizing that the national essence of Japan (kokutai) is compatible with modern science. Newspaper editorials suggested that Japan had a global mission to command and lead the world. In the name of the Emperor the Government granted amnesty to 16,878 prisoners, commuted the sentences of 26,684, and reduced those of 32,968 criminals.
Wakatsuki’s government had to resign in April 1927. The Seiyukai party regained power, and Tanaka Giichi became prime minister. Tanaka had diverted 3 million yen from secret Army funds to his party. Takahashi Korekiyo was appointed Finance minister, and he declared a twenty-day bank moratorium. The Government issued a billion yen in currency to prop up the economy; they set higher standards for deposit reserves, and bank mergers were encouraged. Tanaka’s regime supported cartels and protected Japanese industry and agriculture by restricting imports.
Jiang Jieshi (Kai-shek) visited Japan in the fall of 1927 and renewed the deal that Sun Yat-sen had offered which promised Japan control of Manchuria north of the great wall. Prince Konoe began the Tuesday Club clique which promoted an alliance with Jiang for a united Asia under the Japanese empire. The Kenseikai party changed its name to the Democratic Constitutionalists (Rikken Minseito) party in June 1927, and 12,409,078 men voted on February 20, 1928 . The Seiyukai won 218 seats to 217 for the Minseito while the other thirty seats were divided between the splinter parties and independents. Japan agreed to the Kellogg-Briand Pact that outlawed war in August 1928, though the Privy Council president Ito Miyoji insisted that their ratification declare that Japan had not renounced its right of self defense and that they objected to the phrase “in the names of their respective peoples.” Also that year Tanaka refused to endorse an international protocol that banned chemical and biological warfare.
Tanaka’s imperialist rhetoric provoked resistance in China. To counter Jiang and the Guomindang, Tanaka offered the Manchurian warlord Zhang Zuolin a loan for building railways. When Zhang was losing, Tanaka sent troops to Shandong with the rationale of protecting the 2,000 Japanese residents in Jinan and to keep Jiang from marching north to Beijing. On May 7 the Japanese opened fire on Chinese troops, and in the next week they massacred about 7,000 Chinese while destroying much of Jinan. After 2,200 Japanese troops landed at Qingdao on May 30, both Zhang in Beijing and Jiang in Nanjing protested. The Japanese imposed martial law and did not withdraw until 1929.
Zhang Zuolin was warned to withdraw from Beijing and disarm or be caught between Jiang and the Japanese army in Manchuria, but American diplomatic pressure persuaded the Japanese to cancel the enforced disarmament. Colonel Komoto Daisaku sent a team that blew up a train, killing Zhang Zuolin, Governor Wu, and seventeen retainers on June 4, 1928. The story put out was that rogue Chinese soldiers were the assassins, but soon Minseito leaders learned the truth. Tanaka also learned the cause of Zhang’s death and made a report to the Emperor on December 24. Five days later Zhang’s son, Zhang Xueliang, the new ruler of Manchuria, united his territory with Jiang’s Nationalist government. On January 10, 1929 Zhang Xueliang murdered two officers he suspected of plotting with Tokyo. One week later Emperor Hirohito urged an investigation of the late Zhang’s assassination; but in February the Prime Minister refused to accept responsibility, and the cabinet decided to let the Army cover it up. Finally Hirohito insisted that Tanaka resign in July, and in doing so he aroused resentment in the Seiyukai party. Meanwhile Jiang’s victorious Nationalists had entered Beijing, and he announced that he would not renew their trade treaty with Japan.
In 1925 unions led by Communists broke away from the Japan Federation of Labor and formed the Labor Council. In 1926 a second Communist party called for abolishing the imperial system and the Diet, redistributing wealth, and following a Soviet foreign policy. Tanaka tried to keep Communists from winning elections, but eight socialists were elected in February 1928. He reacted by having suspected Communists and anarchists arrested. On March 15 the police conducted midnight raids and arrested 1,568 suspected radicals, including five professors from the imperial universities. In June an Imperial ordinance was promulgated that made penalties heavier, even authorizing capital punishment, for plotting against the Government. Mass arrests of Communists continued into the 1930s until most had renounced their ideology or kept quiet.
Minseito had accused Seiyukai of being a “Mitsui cabinet,” and the Seiyukai called them a “Mitsubishi cabinet.” Minseito leader Hamaguchi Osachi became premier in July 1929 and aimed to improve the economy and international cooperation. He reduced the budget but could not get approved 10% pay cuts for the military and bureaucrats. He put Japan back on the gold standard; but effects of the American stock market crash reduced Japanese exports fifty percent by 1931, and Japan’s gold reserves fell by even more. The international market for silk was devastated. In twenty years the number of Japanese factories with power machinery had increased from 9,155 to 48,555 in 1929 as the number of factory workers had more than doubled to 1,484,000. In 1930 an especially large crop caused the price of rice to fall to 10 yen per 5 bushels even though the price of production was 17 yen. By 1930 Japan had thirty universities that were graduating 15,000 students a year. Periodicals had to register under the Newspaper Law, but the number that did so rose from 3,123 in 1918 to 11,118 in 1932. The daily circulation of the Osaka Mainichi grew from 260,000 in 1912 to 1,500,000 in 1930. Most newspapers could not afford to be shut down and so were very cautious. In 1930 Japan recognized Jiang’s Nationalist government in China.
Wakatsuki persuaded the London Naval Conference in 1930 to let Japan have 69.75% of what Britain and America were allowed on heavy cruisers and 100% of their allowance on submarines. Captain Yamamoto Isoroku made sure there were no limits on naval aircraft. Japan already had four experimental aircraft carriers. Hamaguchi managed to limit the Navy budget to 374 million yen. He was severely criticized, and eighty Army officers led by Col. Hashimoto Kingoro formed the Cherry Blossom Society (Sakurakai). On November 14 Sagoya Tomeo, who objected to the treaty on Navy limits, shot the Prime Minister near the same place in the Tokyo railway station where Hara had been killed. Hamaguchi was hospitalized, and Shidehara filled in as prime minister. After several difficult surgeries Hamaguchi died on August 26, 1931. Sagoya was not kept in jail until a trial condemned him to death three years later; but three months after that, Emperor Hirohito gave him amnesty, and he was a popular speaker at right-wing gatherings.
In the 1920s Kuroshima Denji (1898-1943) wrote anti-war stories set in Siberia, and his novel Armed Streets (Buso seru Shigai) came out in 1930. Authorities immediately seized the books. Even when it was published in 1945, scenes critical of the Europeans and Americans in China had to be expurgated. Armed Streets did not become well known until it was published in its original form in 1970, but it has been recognized as an outstanding example of the proletarian literature movement of the 1920s. The Japanese force Chinese children to work in a match factory in Jinan and withhold their wages so they will not run away. The hero Kantaro feels sympathy for the Chinese workers and is hated by the other Japanese. He sells drugs to the Chinese and is addicted to heroin. When Jiang’s Nationalist forces take the city, the Japanese commanding officer has the Japanese who sympathize with the Chinese killed.
A more famous example of the proletarian literature is The Factory Ship (Kani Kosen), which young Kobayashi Takiji wrote in 1928 and published in Battle Flag the next year. He had read a news story about workers who had been brutalized on a cannery ship and then sued the captain. Kobayashi portrayed a group of workers as a collective hero. The book was banned but only after it had sold 15,000 copies. Kobayashi also wrote the autobiographical Life as a Party Member (To Seikatsusha); but he did not complete it because he was arrested by a police agent on February 20, 1933 and was tortured to death.
Japan Takes Manchuria 1931-33
Most of Japan’s million subjects in Manchuria were Korean, and Manchuria provided 40% of Japan’s trade with China. In April 1931 Hamaguchi tried to return to work as prime minister, but he was replaced by Wakatsuki Reijiro. Like Shidehara, he favored peaceful diplomacy and international trade. Emperor Hirohito and his advisor Saionji were also cautious about Manchuria while small patriotic groups were pressuring for military action. The One Evening Society (Issekikai) had been formed in 1929 and included the military officers Komoto Daisaku, Nagata Tetsuzan, Tojo Hideki, Yamashita Tomoyuki, Doihara Kenji, Itagaki Seishiro, and Ishiwara Kanji. Mori Kaku planned a coup d’état with Army activists and Okawa’s patriotic societies for March 20, 1931. They plotted to seize the Diet and appoint a new cabinet led by General Ugaki; but after a disappointing rally in early March drew only 4,000 people, Ugaki refused to approve the plan. Ugaki was sent to govern Korea. The new War minister Minami Jiro called a conference in June that produced A General Outline of a Solution of the Manchurian Problem. Godfather Toyama merged his Society for the Ultimate Solution of the Manchurian Question with others to form the Japan Production Society with Black Dragon leader Uchida as president.
In the late spring a conflict over water rights between Koreans and the Chinese led to clashes around the Manchurian border, killing 109 people. In July anti-Chinese riots in Korea resulted in 127 Chinese being killed. The Chinese reacted by starting a boycott of Japanese goods. The Tokyo General Staff sent Captain Nakamura Shintaro with an assistant and two interpreters to spy in northwestern Manchuria. In late June they were arrested carrying opium and 100,000 yen. The Chinese executed them, and the Japanese learned of it on July 20. Zhang Xueliang promised an investigation while Foreign minister Shidehara imposed a press embargo. The story leaked, and those promoting action in Manchuria called it an “outrageous provocation.”
Guandong Army chief Honjo Shigeru called a commanders conference in early August, and they planned military action in Manchuria without informing the Emperor or Chief of Staff Kanaya Kenzo or War minister Minami. On September 4 Minami told the press that the Army would act “in accordance with the wishes of the people,” whom Mori and Okawa had clamoring for action in Manchuria. That day Shidehara cabled Mukden consul-general Hayashi Kyujiro “to control these adventurers.” Hirohito asked for special precautions regarding the Guandong Army in Manchuria. The Chinese delegate in the League of Nations called for sanctions against Japan. The Guandong Army conspirators sent Amakasu Musahiko to Harbin with 30,000 yen to sponsor incidents that could provide pretexts for intervention. Zhang’s investigator arrested the commander responsible for Nakamura’s death.
War minister Minami sent Gen. Tatekawa Yoshitsugu with a letter to restrain the Guandong Army commanders; but Tatekawa told Col. Hashimoto, who sent a telegram to warn Col. Itagaki to act quickly. On September 18, 1931 at 10:20 p.m. part of the Japanese 2nd Railway Battalion blew up a yard of track north of Mukden one mile from where Zhang Zuolin had been killed. The Japanese quickly repaired the track, and an express train passed by at 10:40. They blamed it on the Chinese, and at 11 Col. Itagaki, the Guandong chief of intelligence, ordered the 2nd Battalion to attack Chinese barracks and Mukden’s fortifications. Consul-General Hayashi called and demanded the fighting be stopped, but Itagaki ignored him. Lt. Col. Ishiwara passed the false report on to Commander Honjo, who faced with unanimity among his staff, approved the action at 11:30 but in Mukden only. Using a 9.5-inch cannon, they attacked the airfield. By the next morning the Japanese had taken over towns from Port Arthur 500 miles north along the railway. The Japanese had killed 400 Chinese while losing only two men.
Hayashi Senjuro commanded the troops in Korea and sent Tokyo a telegram that he was going to move them across the border; but Chief of Staff Kanaya ordered him to wait for an Imperial order. Japanese troops were greatly outnumbered by the Chinese forces in Manchuria, but Hirohito agreed with the cabinet’s decision to limit the conflict. Although Prime Minister Wakatsuki considered it an “outrage,” the Korean Army crossed the Yalu River into Manchuria on September 21. The Chinese delegate demanded that the League of Nations take immediate action, and its Council asked the Chinese and Japanese “to withdraw troops immediately.” Foreign minister Shidehara and Finance minister Inoue Junnosuki protested Hayashi’s unauthorized action, but on September 23 the cabinet approved the necessary funds for the soldiers. The next day the Japanese government announced that its action was taken in self-defense.
The army conspirators planned to create an “autonomous” state with the four provinces of Manchuria and Jehol from Mongolia under the last Manchu emperor Puyi, and they set up “independence” leaders in each province. Doihara Kenji, who was called “Lawrence of Manchuria,” was appointed mayor of Mukden. Japanese diplomats told the League of Nations that Japan had no territorial designs on Manchuria; the Assembly was mollified by that and adjourned until October 13. On October 8 the Guandong Army dropped 75 bombs and leaflets on Jinzhou, where Zhang had his headquarters. The Chinese army fired on the planes and were bombed also. On October 13 the League Council called on Japan to withdraw its troops by November 16. Doihara managed to transport Puyi from Tianjin to Port Arthur and Mukden before that deadline. Another plot to overthrow the government by Hashimoto’s Cherry Blossom Society was discovered, and eleven young officers were arrested on October 18. Hashimoto and Cho Isamu were held under house arrest for twenty days, but the other nine conspirators were only lectured and released.
In the north the man the conspirators selected to govern Heilongjiang led an expedition on October 15, and the Chinese army led by Ma Zhanshan burned two bridges of a railway the Japanese had built. On October 30 General Honjo ordered the invasion of north Manchuria as far as the Chinese Eastern Railway (CER). On November 17 Lt. Col. Ishiwara Kanji led an attack on Ma’s army that captured Qiqihar north of the CER two days later. When the Japanese attacked Jinzhou again on November 23, United States Secretary of State Henry Stimson issued a warning. The next day Hayashi moved the Korean Army in to aid the air attack, and on the 26th the Japanese turned the town over to the puppet Manchurian army.
Prime Minister Wakatsuki had offered his resignation after Mukden was taken, but Hirohito persuaded him to stay in office until the League of Nations made a decision. Japan had proposed a Commission of Inquiry, and after Chinese acceptance the League of Nations appointed five commissioners under Lord Lytton on December 10. The entire cabinet resigned the next day, and on December 13, 1931 Inukai Tsuyoshi of the Seiyukai party became prime minister. He immediately took Japan off the gold standard, restoring the embargo on gold. Mitsui and other conglomerates quickly made a paper profit of 60 million yen, and this stimulated an export boom. Japan was the first of the world’s industrial nations to recover from the Depression that had caused severe hardships among peasants, workers, shopkeepers, and businessmen. Real wages of workers had dropped 30% in five years, and the number of labor disputes rose from 1,420 in 1929 to 2,456 in 1931. From 1926 the price of rice fell two-thirds by 1931. Northeastern Japan and Hokkaido suffered a rice crop failure in 1931. Children begged in the street; suicide and infanticide increased; girls were sold as prostitutes; and crime doubled in seven years.
Inukai had opposed the London Naval Treaty and approved the actions in Manchuria, and he asked the Emperor’s permission to send reinforcements into Manchuria. Hirohito appointed his great uncle Kanin Kotohito Army chief of staff, and two months later he appointed his wife’s cousin Fushimi Hiroyasu as Navy chief of staff. On December 21 the Japanese launched a major advance on Jinzhou. Zhang retreated behind the Great Wall, and the city fell on January 3. The Americans, British, and French complained that Japan was violating the Nine-Power Treaty on an open China, and Stimson announced that the United States would not recognize any political change in Manchuria that violated international treaties.
On January 8, 1932 Hirohito issued an imperial rescript praising the Guandong Army for its “self-defense” against Chinese bandits, and on that day a Korean tried to kill him with a grenade. The Emperor declined to accept the new cabinet’s resignation. The next day the Minkuo Daily News and other newspapers in Shanghai commented that “unfortunately the bomb had missed its mark.” Japanese residents protested this by attacking Chinese newspaper offices. Major Tanaka Ryukichi gave his mistress Eastern Jewel $6,000 to bribe Chinese laborers at a towel factory. On January 18 they attacked five Nichiren monks, and one died the next day. The Japanese held a mass meeting, and Tanaka asked Japan for a force to protect them. Admiral Shiozawa Koichi sent in marines on January 28, but they were outnumbered eight to one and were defeated by China’s 19th Route Army of 33,500 men. The next day Shiozawa sent in seventy planes from two aircraft carriers to bomb the Chinese in Chapei. They also used machine guns, and thousands of Chinese civilians were killed in the first systematic aerial bombing in history.
The Guandong Army attacked Harbin and occupied that city on February 5. The Nichiren priest Inoue Nissho gathered the Blood Brotherhood Band on January 31 and designated several assassins, two of whom accomplished their missions. The former Finance minister Inoue Junnosuke was killed on February 9 because he had enabled the Mitsui cartel to exchange yen for dollars before going off the gold standard. On February 11 Okawa organized the Jimmu Society to join the Imperial Road Association that was working to end the political parties. In the election on February 20 Inukai’s Seiyukai party won 301 seats to 147 for the Minseito party, gaining 127 seats. Also in February the Chinese general Ma accepted a check for nearly $2 million from the defeated warlord Zhang Xueliang to pay his troops. The Japanese bank agreed to cash it if Ma became war minister for Manzhouguo; but six weeks later he fled with most of the money.
Inukai got imperial permission to send two full divisions under General Shirakawa to Shanghai as reinforcements. Facing 70,000 Japanese troops, the Chinese forces retreated from Shanghai and agreed to a cease-fire mediated by the British on March 5 that also ended the Chinese boycott. On March 3 the Japanese Finance Ministry had announced they needed to borrow 22 million yen to pay for the fighting. Mitsui’s director-general Dan Takuma denied they had the cash to loan, and he was shot dead two days later by the Blood Brotherhood. Inoue Nissho was arrested on March 11, and later the assassins who had surrendered pleaded their causes in their trials. Saionji asked for the killing to stop, and Mitsui agreed to advance the loan.
On February 16 the Guandong Army command formed the Northeast Administrative Committee with leading Chinese collaborators, and on March 1 they proclaimed the new state of Manzhouguo. The Japanese cabinet was brought around to accept Henry Puyi as a chief executive but not a monarch, and he formally requested Japanese advisors, who ran the country. On March 11 the League of Nations Assembly pronounced that the new state was not recognized under international law. Japanese troops guarded the Lytton Commissioners; but in Manchuria, despite the arrest of thousands and petitions organized by the Japanese, about 1,500 letters got through to them, and only two did not oppose the new state.
Prime Minister Inukai withheld recognition of Manzhouguo and had sent a representative to negotiate directly with Jiang (Kai-shek). Inukai failed to get an Imperial rescript to restrain the Japanese army, and he was criticized for opposing large military budgets. Two naval officers assassinated Inukai in his office on May 15, 1932. On the same day Blood Brothers threw bombs or shot into the Seiyukai party headquarters, the Bank of Japan, the Tokyo police headquarters, electric power plants, and the home of Makino Nobuaki, Keeper of the Seal. The cabinet resigned, and the General Staff announced that they would not nominate a War minister to a cabinet led by a party politician. The elderly Saionji followed the Emperor’s wishes and chose Admiral Saito Makoto to be prime minister rather than the Seiyukai president Suzuki Kisaburo, thus ending the era of government by the political parties. Saito more than doubled the military budget in the first year, making it 70% of revenues, creating an annual deficit of nearly one billion yen. The value of the yen dropped from 2 to 5 against the US dollar. Saito also had the Diet pass a resolution to recognize Manzhouguo.
When the Lytton Commission visited Japan in July, Premier Saito said there would be no direct negotiations with China. The New Capitol (Xinjing) was built north of Mukden, and Puyi moved there in July. On July 27 Japanese troops ambushed 700 Chinese cavalry near the Russian border and reported that General Ma had been killed; but he escaped to Russia, traveled around the world speaking, and then joined Zhang Xueliang in Beijing. Prince Kanin had 25,000 Chinese and Manchu farm families relocated to make room for Japanese settlers. On September 15 the Saito cabinet signed the Japan-Manzhouguo Protocol by which Japan assumed responsibility for defending Manzhouguo, and a secret agreement gave Japan control over the state. The South Manchurian Railroad Company extended its tracks more than a thousand miles. The number of opium addicts tripled, and 70,000 Japanese and Korean prostitutes were brought to Manzhouguo in its first year. Every Manchurian cabinet minister was a puppet for the Japanese vice minister and his staff of Japanese secretaries. The militia had Japanese officers under the Guandong commander who reported to Prince Kanin. The commander of the secret police reported to the Tokyo secret police chief.
The Lytton Report was published on October 2 and found that Japan’s military operations were not in self-defense, that no independence movement had existed in Manchuria before September 1931, that Japan had forcibly seized Chinese territory, that all armed forces should be withdrawn, but that Japan could develop its economic interests. A committee led by War minister Araki Sadao drafted a reply which argued that China was no longer an “organized state.” General Muto Nobuyoshi was appointed commander of the Guandong Army, governor of Guandong, and ambassador plenipotentiary from Manzhouguo to Emperor Hirohito. Politicians, journalists, and intellectuals as well as the military criticized the League of Nations, international law, and the West. Some university professors were dismissed while thousands of “dangerous thinkers” were arrested, 2,200 on October 10, 1932. Torture was used. That year Sano Manabu and Nabeyama Sadachika announced their defections from Communism, and in the next month 614 of the 1,370 convicted also defected. Left-wing movements were all but eliminated as 18,000 dissidents were arrested in 1933, and many renounced their beliefs.
In early January 1933 the Guandong Army seized the town of Shanhaiguan in Jehol and slaughtered several thousand Chinese. In February the cabinet opposed the invasion of Jehol because of the League of Nations; but then they approved it as long as the army did not move south of the Great Wall. During this invasion on February 24 the League of Nations Assembly unanimously agreed to the recommendations in the Lytton Report; the votes of Japan and China did not count, and Siam, the only other East Asian nation that was not colonized, abstained. Matsuoke Yosuke walked out with the rest of the Japanese delegation. By March 4 the Japanese had taken over Jehol, where farmers were urged to rotate soy beans with poppy crops. On March 27 Japan formally withdrew from the League, deciding it could keep the mandated Pacific islands because of the secret treaties it had made with Britain and France.
