Road to East Asia

Japan as aggressor and victim From the Onin War in 1467 to the outbreak of the Second World War in 1945, Japan was an aggressor in starting many, if not all the conflicts in which it had been involved. Only once in history was it a victim to a foreign power, and this happened after the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As Japan emerged as a modern state between 1868 and 1912, it was growing quickly by annexing Korea and taking over territories such as Sakhalin. The reasons given for these actions were "in order to defend itself in a threatening world, [Japan] was forced to engage in rapid modernization," according to Marlene Mayo (The Emergence of Imperial Japan, p. xii). Although there were a few cries of alarm in Europe, most were praising Japan for its civilizing influence in East Asia. Then Japan overstepped its bounds only to lose it all in 1945.

The Sino-Japanese conflict from 1894 to 1895 was "the first large-scale aggressive war in modern times," says Mayo (p. 75). It grew out of a dispute in Korea, which had traditionally been a tributary kingdom of China. Another of Japan's objectives was to obtain the island of Taiwan from China. Russia, Germany and France intervened when Japan won the Liaotung Peninsula which the three powers demanded its return to China. It is suggested that Russia stepped in because it wanted Korea to be recognized as independent and because China was going to let Russia build the railway across Chinese territory. "In this development Russia appears to have been the ringleader, Germany the enthusiastic supporter and France the independent-minded and reluctant follower." (Ian Nish, The Origins of the Russo-Japanese War, p. 19). On April 17, China accepted the peace Treaty of Shimonoseki. After a ten-year period Japan, which declared war on Russia in February 1904, was again the aggressor. Mayo attributed Japan's policy to its ambition to join "the ranks of the world power" (p. 19). It accused of Russia of being an expansionist in Manchuria and Korea. "But there can be little doubt that Japan . . . wanted a stake in Korea for herself and, from her Korean foothold, wanted a share in the Chinese cake as it crumbled," says Nish (p. 243).

Three decades later Japan created the Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937- 1941 so that it could have a series of autonomous buffer states in Inner Mongolia and North China to protect Japan's puppet state Manchukuo. "[In] Japanese eyes, the wicked folly of anti-Japanism in China, with its economic boycotts, agitation, and violence, must come to and end; and . . . China must accept Japanese help in her fight against communism," says Paul Schroeder (The Axis Alliance and Japanese-American Relations 1941, p. 8). When Germany and Italy sided with Japan on September 27, 1940, it became apparent that the problems in Europe and Asia were linked. The conflict, which lasted four years, was the beginning of World War II.

On Sunday, December 7, 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, prompting American retaliation the following day. The first large-scale air attack against Japan was launched on April 18, 1942. The world would continue for three more years until the ultimate catastrophe -- the only time throughout Japanese history that it has been a victim. "Although there is no definite proof that the makers of modern Japan deliberately adopted war as an instrument of national policy," writes Mayo, "the manner in which each war led logically to the next hints strongly that there was a master-plan behind the whole program of conquest" (p. 34).

Bibliography

Barker, Rodney. The Hiroshima Maidens: A Story of Courage, Compassion, and Survival. New York: Viking, 1985.

Berry, Mary. The Culture of Civil War in Kyoto. Berkely: University of California Press, 1993.

Coffey, Thomas M. Imperial Tragedy: Japan in World War II New York: World Pub. Co., 1970.

Feis, Herbert. Japan Subdued: The Atomic bomb and the End of World War II. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961. Friye, Akira. The Origins of the Second World War in Asia and the Pacific. London: Longman, 1987.

Hersey, John Richard. Hiroshima. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1946.

Hsiung, James C. China's Bitter victory: The War with Japan 1937-1945. New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1992.

Mayo, Marlene J. The Emergence of Imperial Japan: Self-defense or Calculated Aggression. Lexington Mass.: Health, 1970.

Nish, Ian. The Origins of the Russo-Japanese War. London: Longman, 1985.

Presseisen, Ernst Leopold. Before Aggression: Europeans Prepare the Japanese Army. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1965.

Schroeder, Paul W. The Axis Alliance and Japanese-American Relations 1941. New York: Cornell University Press, 1958.

Spector, Ronald H. Eagle Against the Sun: The American War with Japan. New York: Free Press, 1985.

(Illustration: courtesy of Billy Lo, Eastern Image Canada )

---


Editors and Writers: Maria Nadeau, Han Ki-Dongt, Sarah Tan, Kevin Perkins,
Michael Kociuba, Jennifer Henry, Sekou Russell, May Yuen, and Daniel Jacobs
Instructor and Founding Editor: Isabella Wai


---

Copyright © 1996 by the author. Information from this article should be attributed to the author.

Feedback

We would greatly appreciate your comments. Please click here.