IB History – Paper 3
The Emergence of New Nationalism in Japan
1928-34
(Notes adapted from Herbert Bix, Hirohito and the Making of
Modern Japan, New York 2000)
The 1920s in Japan were a period characterized by democracy and pacifism. It has been
described as Japan’s “decade of good behaviour”. Emperor Taisho (1912-28) had
become insane and there was erosion of emperor worship.
Taisho’s death and the enthronement of Emperor Hirohito in 1928 created changes. The
year long enthronement of the new young emperor was used to indoctrinate people
about the sacred myth of Japan’s origins and a revival of the idea of the emperor as a
living god. Coupled with this was the revival of nationalism and Japan’s special destiny
in the world. The theme of “a youthful Japan poised to become the hub of the entire
world and to assume the mission of guiding all peoples” (Bix p. 200), was played in
newspapers and in the theatre. Memories of the Emperor Meiji and Japan’s glorious
victory Russo-Japanese War, 1904-05 were revived. (The 25th anniversary of the R-J
War in 1930 was celebrated with heroic over-the-top stories and plays of Japan’s
military glory).
These nationalistic tendencies emerged on the eve of the Great Depression, the
emergence of Italian fascism on the world stage and the surge in electoral support for
the Nazis in Germany. “Militarism, dictatorship, and the glorification of war, as well as
youth, spirit, moral regeneration, and national mission, were common elements
between Japan, Italy and Germany”, (Bix p. 201).
The powerful emotions released by Hirohito’s enthronement immediately came into
conflict with the democratic and pacific tendencies of the 1920s. “The monarchy was relaunched in ways that gave a more militaristic configuration to Japanese nationalism …
and was the springboard for the revival of the cult of emperor worship that
characterized the 1930s”, (Bix p. 202).
The spirit of international conciliation (the “Washington Sprit”) with the West lingered
on in the late 1920s in two main diplomatic projects:

The Kellog-Briand Pact (known in Japan as the No-War Treaty), August 1928 – by
signing this pact Japan accepted that the concept of “aggressive war” was a
recognized crime in international law. In the first of the pact’s two articles the
signatories pledged “that they would condemn recourse to war for the solution of
international controversies and renounce it as an instrument of national policy in
their relations with one another”. In the second article they agreed to resolve “by
pacific means…all disputes or conflicts of whatever nature or of whatever
origin…which may arise among them”. (The invasion of Manchuria in 1931 clearly
breached this No-War Treaty but the Diet argued that the treaty breached the
emperor’s sovereignty.)

The London Naval Treaty, April 1930 – the USA and Britain had hinted that they
might form a naval alliance against Japan if they did not comply with the
Washington Treaties (1922). The Hamaguchi government signed the London Treaty
restricting the number of capital ships and setting limits, for the first time, on the
number of Japanese cruisers at 69 percent of the number of American cruisers and
British cruisers. This move was deeply opposed by the Navy General Staff. Two
months after the signing Hamaguchi was shot dead in Tokyo Station by a right wing
thug.
The move from conciliation was clear when Japan failed to endorse an international
protocol banning chemical and biological weapons in 1928. And in 1929 they failed to
ratify the Geneva Prisoner of War Convention (1926). Japan complained that the clause
concerning treatment of POWs was too lenient and would not be implemented because
the emperor’s soldiers would never allow themselves to become POWs.
Critics of these treaties wanted to smash the restrictive Washington Treaty system,
“which they had come to view as an Anglo-Saxon ‘iron ring’ preventing Japan from
expanding abroad”, (Bix p. 226).
The Manchurian Crisis 1931-34
Incidents occurred in Manchuria in the early months of 1931 – fighting between
Koreans and Chinese in the Manchuria border area in August led to the deaths of 127
Chinese, this led to the boycott of Japanese goods in China; also in August a Japanese
Kwantung Army officer disappeared in Manchuria. These stories were whipped up in
the Japanese press.
“On the eve of the Kwantung Army’s explosion on the Mukden railway many influential
persons in Tokyo either knew or strongly suspected that the Kwantung Army was about
to start trouble…but they failed to counter the army’s mission, (Bix p. 232). The
explosion occurred on the night of 18 September 1931. The army then prepared to move
on the major population centres of southern Manchuria. “Once started, the Manchurian
incident set off a chain reaction of international and domestic crises that interacted and
fundamentally altered the whole trajectory of Japanese state development”, (Bix p. 236).
The court group decided Hirohito should approve the military’s action. Throughout the
entire Manchurian war they would never take a firm stand against the army.
Reinforcements from the Japanese army in Korea were sent to Manchuria to assist the
Kwantung Army. Hirohito’s position was crucial. He did not back the government of PM
Wakatsuki who wanted to control the military and stop the incident from getting worse.
The press and politicians rallied the people in support of the Kwantung Army and
denounced China and the LON.
A factional conflict broke out amongst army college graduates: the Imperial Way (Kodoha) group and the Control Group (Tosei-ha). Both groups aimed to establish military
dictatorship under the emperor and promote aggression abroad. The IW group would
use a coup d’etat and the CG leaned towards legal reform of government. These factions
became a permanent feature of Japanese politics in the 1930s.
Throughout the Manchurian crisis Hirohito, “never once said, publicly or privately, that
the Manchurian action of the army had been wrong. Instead, with excessive tolerance,
he ratified each expansion of the action while pampering and refusing to punish senior
officers who had committed criminal acts of insubordination. For young officers
throughout the army and navy the message went out that the emperor’s main concern
was success; obedience to the central command in Tokyo was secondary”, (Bix p. 245).
PM Wakatsuki resigned on 11 December 1931. He had failed to control the army or
contain the Depression. The court group decided the next government should be more
chauvinistic. The new PM, Inukai, had publicly rejected the LON’s recommendations on
Manchuria and declared, “Japan should escape from the diplomacy of apology”.
However Inukai fell out with the military and tried to limit their actions in Shanghai.
Young navy officers murdered him on 15 May 1932. The court group appointed Admiral
Saito who led Japan until July 1934 and presided over the creation of Manchukuo, the
invasion of Jehol and Japan’s withdrawal from the LON.
“The new direction in foreign policy encouraged changes in how the Japanese
understood themselves and the outside world. The old ruling elites had failed to give
hope and encouragement to the people during the depression. The nation had
responded by supporting the military, which had at least seemed aware of their suffering
and frustrations, and wanted to help. Once the nation succumbed to anti-Chinese, antiWestern xenophobia and embraced the Manchurian incident, the only chance of
checking the military lay with the court group. If Hirohito and his entourage had stood
firm, the shift toward Asian Monroeism – the assertion of a Japanese right to safeguard
Asia from the West - might have been reversed…Ultimately they cooperated with the
army”, (Bix p. 264).
Japan’s war with China broke out in 1937 with the Marco Polo Bridge incident. However
the Japanese were at pains to refer to the war in China as the “China Incident” since
they were still dependent on the US for oil, iron, cotton and copper. They were
concerned that if it became a “war” America would cut off trade.
Bix describes this war from 1937 to 1940 in a chapter entitled “Holy War” since “the
Japanese government regularly referred to the China Incident as its ‘sacred struggle’ or
‘holy war’ (seisen). And the longer the struggle dragged on, the more its ideologues
insisted on using the term – ‘holy war’ – which expressed the national mission of
unifying the world under the emperor’s benevolent rule, so that his and the goddess
Ameratsu Omikami’s august virtue could shine throughout the universe”, (Bix p. 326-7).
They argued that since Hirohito was a living god “Japan was the incarnation of morality
and justice; by definition its wars were just and it could never commit aggression”, (Bix
p. 326).