A History of Japan: From Stone Age to Superpower (60 page)

This economic upturn indicated that Japan in the 1930s had alternatives to military expansionism.
³⁵
The question was whether it wished to pursue them. Alternatively, it might use a stronger economy to make a stronger military, in the spirit of the Meiji slogan ‘rich nation, strong army’.

One problem was that although the economy seemed healthy at a national level, the benefits were not flowing through to enough people. The majority of people were still rural dwellers employed in agriculture, but rural incomes were the slowest to recover. By the mid-1930s they were still only around half of what they had been in the mid-1920s.
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Despite improved productivity agriculture was simply not as efficient as manufacturing, for its proportion of the workforce was more than double its proportion of the GDP. Within manufacturing, despite the export success of cotton piece goods, textile manufacturing was steadily losing ground to heavier manufacturing industries such as machinery.
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The fact that textile mills were often based in regional towns added to rural woes.

Urban workers were often little better off, owing to the increasing dualisation of industry. From the early 1930s the government deliberately followed a policy of industrial rationalisation that authorised cartels in important industries. This greatly helped the already rich and powerful
zaibatsu
to grow even more rich and powerful. By 1937 the two major
zaibatsu
alone, Mitsui and Mitsubishi, held between them almost one-seventh of all capital in commerce and industry.
³⁸
The average wage for workers in a large
zaibatsu
(more than 5,000 workers) was more than double that of workers in small companies (fewer than 30 workers).
³⁹

The link between government and the
zaibatsu
was not always one of unbounded trust. Many in the government felt the established
zaibatsu
had too much influence, were corrupt and decadent, and were difficult to control. They preferred not to rationalise to such an extent that only a few established
zaibatsu
dominated to the exclusion of all other large companies.
⁴⁰
This was a major reason why the government promoted the ‘new
zaibatsu
’ such as Nissan and Toyota, which were particularly active in areas such as vehicle production.

These companies in key industries were helped by a raft of laws from the mid-1930s, partly inspired by German example. These forced out foreign competitors by restrictions on foreign exchange and requirements
for Japanese managerial control before licences could be issued. Ford was a particular threat, and the provisions of the 1936 Automobile Manufacturing Industry Law were backdated to ensure its new 1935 Yokohama plant became effectively illegal. The same law gave assistance such as tax exemptions to companies which produced military vehicles, thus bringing those companies under government control. Similar laws were passed in industries such as petroleum, steel, machine tools, shipbuilding, and aircraft.

As the government tightened its control over industry, so too did the military tighten its control over the government. After the attempted coup of 26 February 1936 a new cabinet was formed under Hirota K
ki (1878–1948). Hirota was only in office for a few months but was very sympathetic to the military’s aims. He greatly increased the military budget, promoted the orientation of heavy industry towards a war effort, and reinstituted a former principle that only admirals and generals on active duty could serve as army and navy ministers.

In November that year, uneasy once again about Soviet intentions in Asia, Japan signed the Anti-Comintern Pact with Germany. Italy joined shortly afterwards. The pact was basically an agreement to assist each other, by exchange of information, against the perceived common enemy, the Soviet Union.

The next year Japan effectively went to war against China, following the Marco Polo Bridge Incident of 7 July 1937. The incident started when legally stationed Japanese troops on manoeuvres near Peking (Beijing) claimed to have been fired on by the Chinese. The situation, which may well have been deliberately provoked by the Japanese,
⁴¹
led to a localised clash of arms. Within a month it escalated further into all-out war, even though this was never formally declared.

Even if the initial clash had been accidental, there was no attempt by the Japanese government or the emperor to prevent the escalation.
⁴²
Far from it, new prime minister Konoe Fumimaro (1891–1945) actively promoted a belligerent attitude towards China.
⁴³
China for its part, under a revitalised Chiang Kai-shek, was in no mood to back down either.

Fighting spread to Shanghai in August, with the city falling in November. The Japanese then moved on to the capital, Nanking (Nanjing), which fell in December after only a few days of fighting. The collapse of the city was followed by widespread murder, rape, torture, and looting by Japanese troops in one of the world’s most infamous atrocities. Chinese casualties will never be known exactly, and have been placed as high as 340,000 by the Chinese and as low as 30,000 by the Japanese. What is certain is that many tens of thousands were killed, a great number of them civilians.

Some of the atrocities in Nanking were filmed.
⁴⁴
There has been remorseful public testimony by Japanese troops personally involved in the massacre.
⁴⁵
No less a figure than Prince Mikasa (b.1915), the emperor’s younger brother who was stationed in Nanking, acknowledged in an interview with a popular newspaper many years later that a massacre took place.
⁴⁶
Well-researched books have been published carrying gruesome detailed accounts (and photographs) corroborated by those at the scene.
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Nevertheless, even today the Nanking Massacre is still seriously played down or even denied by some Japanese, including some in high office. So too is the whole idea of Japan ever having been aggressive.

To the surprise of the Japanese, the Chinese did not capitulate after Nanking. Something of a stalemate eventuated, with Japan making a few gains but little substantial progress. Japan’s leaders started to worry that the China campaign might prove protracted and weaken Japan, exposing it to the Soviet Union. Such fears were not entirely groundless. The Soviets had openly expressed their support for China. There were also increasingly serious military clashes between the Soviet Union and Japan in the late 1930s, and the Japanese were coming out second best.
⁴⁸
The Japanese were further alarmed when Germany signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union in August 1939, in breach of the spirit of Japan’s own Anti-Comintern Pact with Germany.

Japan felt betrayed by Germany. Their faith in this former idol had been set back anyway by Hitler’s open proclamation of the superiority of the Aryan race and his description of the Japanese as a ‘second-class people’.
⁴⁹
Not a few Japanese feared that Germany might yet turn on Japan as a ‘Yellow Peril’, and even that some of the other western powers, such as the United States, might join Germany in such a cause. They were never to rid themselves of such doubts.
⁵⁰

Nevertheless, German successes in the early stages of the Second World War, which started the following month, September 1939, suggested to Japan that a pro-Axis (Germany and Italy) policy would be beneficial. As a result Japan signed the Tripartite Pact in September 1940. The main points of the pact included an agreement to come to each other’s aid should there be any attack by a power not currently involved in the war in Europe or the Sino-Japanese conflict. This meant, of course, the United States.

Japan’s interests in Asia were also recognised. These centred on the vision of a Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere (
Dai T
a Ky
ei-Ken
), led by Japan. It was an ill-defined vision, but the more idealistic versions of it even included countries such as Australia and New Zealand.

The Tripartite Pact gave Japan the confidence to extend its activities on the Asian mainland. Almost at the same moment the pact was being signed in Berlin, Japanese troops moved into the north of French Indochina. There was little resistance from an incapacitated France. The United States responded by limiting exports to Japan of items such as aviation fuel, steel, and scrap iron, but refrained from military action. There was considerable public indignation and alarm in the United States over Japan’s actions in Asia, just as over Germany’s actions in Europe and the signing of the Tripartite Pact, but in general the American people supported the official government policy of non-intervention.
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In June the following year, 1941, Germany reneged on its non-aggression pact and attacked the Soviets. At least with the Soviets now engaged with Germany, Japan felt reassured that its northern acquisitions in Manchuria would be safe. It could turn its attention to the south. In particular, Japan wanted to secure a base from which it could move into Malaya and the Dutch East Indies, which were rich in resources. On 22 July 1941 it moved further south in Indochina, even though it realised this would probably provoke a reaction from the United States.

The official American response was to freeze Japanese assets in America and impose a comprehensive export embargo on American goods to Japan. These goods included the vital commodity oil. Japan depended on imports for more than 90 per cent of its oil, and more than three-quarters of this imported oil came from the United States.
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Unofficially, President Franklin Roosevelt immediately agreed to an idealistic plan for the covert bombing of Japan. The plan had been proposed some seven months earlier by Claire Chennault, leader of a volunteer group of Chinese-based American pilots known as the Flying Tigers. The group were employed as mercenaries by the Chinese government in their fight against Japan. Chennault was keen to make pre-emptive strategic bombing raids on Japan itself. He had approached the American government for covert support, and had received some financial backing for his group but not approval for his plan. Then in May 1941 Roosevelt’s adviser, Lauchlin Currie, visited China and on his return revived the plan. Roosevelt and some of his senior staff, along with the British, were enthusiastic in spirit but felt it impractical. However, on 23 July – the day after the Japanese southward move in Indochina – Roosevelt and top military officials such as Admirals Hart and Turner put their signatures to Document JB 355 (Serial 691), titled
Aircraft Requirements of the Chinese Government
.
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Among other things, this authorised the use of 66 Lockheed Hudson and Douglas DB-7 bombers (other planes to be made available later) for the following clearly stated purpose: ‘Destruction of Japanese factories in order to cripple production of munitions and essential articles for maintenance of economic structure of Japan.’ As it happened, there was a delay in securing the planes, and other events were to overtake the plan before any bombing raids were attempted.