East Asia and the Rise of Imperial Japan

East Asia: China, Japan, and Korea

• East Asia comprises three principal nations: China, Japan, and Korea (now North and South Korea).
• China is a continental nation, Korea is a peninsula, and Japan is a series of islands.

Japan: Island Nation

• Japan is an island nation composed of four principal islands and numerous smaller islands.
• It has a long and deep ancient history.
• Historically, Japan and its people have been relatively isolated and self-reliant, distrusting outsiders.
• Japan primarily associated with China and Korea.

Meiji Period: Westernization of Japan

• In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Japan underwent a major political and social revolution known as the Meiji period, relating to enlightened rule.
• During this period, Japan fully westernized as a nation.
• Europeans arrived in Japan in the 16th century (mostly Jesuit missionaries), but Japan later expelled foreigners due to their influence.
• By the 19th century, Western powers with industrialized military technology forced their way into Japan.
• Japan realized the power of the West (as seen in 19th-century European imperialism).
• Industrialization was a key tool for global colonization.
• Japan, not wanting to be colonized, adopted a plan: "Can't beat them? Join them."

Adoption of Western Systems

• Japan adopted a western-style government (constitutional monarchy) with a traditional emperor (believed to be descended from the Japanese sun goddess, Amaterasu) and a western parliamentary assembly called the Diet.
• They introduced a prime minister (premier-type figure).
• Political system similar to Britain and Germany.
• Introduction of western technology (railways, telegraph wire).
• Japan was the first country to become fully industrialized in the Asian world.
• Japanese nobles (elites) began to dress in western-style clothes and adopted western-style financial institutions.
• Significance: Japan embraced being a western nation to avoid colonization.

Military Modernization

• Japan adopted a western-style military, replacing the samurai with a modern conscript army.
• They established a true navy.
• A strong navy was understood to correlate with national power.
• The modern armed forces were implemented to prevent colonization by Western European powers.

Japan as a Budding World Power

• Entering the 20th century, Japan, like the United States, aimed to become a world power.
• To achieve this, Japan understood it needed to become a colonial power.
• Historical context: The United States had an anticolonial heritage but also pursued overseas colonies.
• Japan had to shift its paradigm from hating foreigners and expansion to seeking colonies to cement its status as a growing power.

Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895)

• First war where Japan gained significant territory outside of its islands.
• Sino refers to Chinese (Sino-Japanese War = war between China and Japan).
• The war was over control of the Korean Peninsula.
• Korea was technically independent but historically influenced by both China and Japan.
• Korea served as a gateway for Chinese ideas and technology to Japan.
• Japan aimed to control Korea as a launching point for its empire.
• The Japanese invaded Korea using their modern army and navy to control the peninsula south of the Chinese province of Manchuria.
• Goal: Control the Liaodong Peninsula and Port Arthur (critical port city).
• Japan easily won due to China's lack of industrialization and modernization.
• China surrendered in 1895.

Territorial Gains

• Japan gained control of Korea (as a protectorate).
• Japan acquired Taiwan (formerly possessed by China since the 17th century).
• Japan gained control of the Liaodong Peninsula and Port Arthur.
• Significance: Initial gains for Japan at the expense of China.

Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905)

• War between Russia and Japan.
• Russia sought to dominate Manchuria to extend the Trans-Siberian Railway.
• Key Players: Czar Nicholas II of Russia and Emperor Meiji of Japan.
• Japan used its modern army and navy to control Korea and Port Arthur and then moved into Manchuria.
• Land battles (e.g., Battle of Mukden) and naval battles (e.g., Battle of Tsushima).
• Battle of Mukden: A ferocious battle with horrible trench warfare and artillery pounding, foreshadowing World War I.
• Casualties: 160,000 total casualties in two weeks.
• The battle revealed poor Russian military leadership and highly disciplined Japanese forces.
• The Japanese navy achieved a stunning victory at Tsushima Straits, destroying 32 of 35 Russian ships.
• Britain and the United States noted the power of the Japanese navy.

Treaty of Portsmouth

• American President Theodore Roosevelt wanted to end the war due to the rise of Japanese power.
• Roosevelt invited the Russians and Japanese to meet in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
• Terms: Japan gained the southern half of Sakhalin Island and leasing rights to the Liaodong Peninsula (including Port Arthur).
• Japan was understood to have a free hand in Korea (leading to its annexation in 1910).
• Theodore Roosevelt was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts.
• Significance: Japan clearly won and was prevented from gaining more territory; Russia saved face.

Japan as a Rising World Power

• The Russo-Japanese War was similar to the Spanish-American War for the United States, marking Japan as a budding world power.
• Territorial gains include the southern half of Sakhalin Island (1905), Taiwan (1895), Korea (annexed in 1910), and Port Arthur/Liaodong Peninsula.
• Manchuria was occupied by Japan after 1905 but not yet an official territory.

Japan in the 1930s

• After the Russo-Japanese War, Japan continued to rise as a world power.
• Its navy was ranked third behind Britain and the United States.
• Japan participated in international events and fought alongside the Allies in World War I, seizing German-held islands in the Pacific.

Interwar Period: Democracy and Economic Crisis

• Japan had a lively democracy in the 1920s with elections and a representative assembly (Diet).
• However, democracies need time to mature, and a major economic crisis can jeopardize them.
• The worldwide depression in the 1930s caused the Japanese to lose faith in their democratic system.
• Extremist parties (communists and hard-right) competed to take over the Japanese government.
• Assassinations of prime ministers occurred.

Militaristic Ultranationalist Government

• Japan adopted a militaristic ultranationalist government in the 1930s.
• Military officers controlled key sectors of the civilian government.
• Ultranationalism: A super patriotic vision for Japan, emphasizing a historical destiny for Japan to become a full imperial power.
• Similar to Nazi Germany, the country's goals were placed above the individual.
• The military believed it should be the main power in East Asia and the Pacific.

Economic Motivations for Empire

• Echoing European new imperialism, Japan sought colonies for raw materials and natural resources to sustain its industrial nation.
• Japan, as an island nation, had very few natural resources.

Master Race Views

• Japan had master race views, believing Asia should be for Asians only, led by the Japanese.
• The goal was to remove white westerners from the Asian world to establish a Japanese-run empire.

Japan's Territorial Expansion

• By the 1930s, Japan already controlled Korea (1910), Taiwan (1895), and the southern half of Sakhalin Island.
• The next target was Manchuria.
• In September 1931, the Japanese army invaded Manchuria, claiming it was rich in resources.
• The territory was renamed Manchukuo and became an official Japanese territory.

Puppet Ruler in Manchukuo

• The Japanese installed Puyi, the last emperor of China, as their puppet ruler in Manchukuo.

International Response

• The invasion of Manchuria caused an international firestorm.
• China was a member of the League of Nations.
• It was an early failure of the League of Nations that they could not stop Japan from invading Manchuria
• In protest, Japan left the League.
• The United States, though not a member of the League of Nations, protested and condemned the invasion.
• The US adopted a policy of non-recognition of territories gained through acts of aggression.
• Nobody was willing or able to stop Japan.

Full-Blown War with China (1937)

• The Japanese army marched south from Manchuria and invaded the Eastern Coast Of China.
• Targets included major Chinese port cities.
• The Japanese took Beijing and moved toward Northern China.
• Chiang Kai-shek, leader of the Nationalist Party in China, was engaged in a civil war with Mao Zedong and the Chinese communist party.
• Chiang Kai-shek was slow to respond to the Japanese invasion and did not have the resources or military strength necessary to do so.

Battle of Shanghai

• A preview battle reflecting how battles in World War II would be fought.
• Combination of land forces, navy, and aviation.
• Chinese forces were unable to withstand the Japanese due to superior military weaponry and tactics.
• Casualties: 270,000 Chinese troops killed or wounded.

"The Shanghai Bombing"

• The picture of the toddler abandoned shocked the world because of aerial bombing civilian targets. This reinforced a new horror of the war for the 20th century.

Rape of Nanking

• After Shanghai fell, Chinese troops retreated to Nanking.
• By December 1937, Nanking was fully in Japanese hands.
• The Japanese army committed the Rape of Nanking. The Japanese army committed a host of atrocities, cruelties, and barbarisms on the Chinese civilian population.
• Estimated deaths: 300,000 Chinese civilians killed, and 20,000 women raped.

Iris Chang and "The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II"

• The rape of Nanking brought brought public attention to the terrible attrocities of the war.
• In 1997, Chinese American author Iris Chang wrote a New York Times bestseller.
• She interviewed former Japanese soldiers and documented Japanese atrocities.
• Reasons for the atrocities were cited as the Japanese feeling they were a master race and psychological groupthink.
• She committed suicide by driving her car to an abondoned and shooting herself in 2004.
• Today, there is a Nanking Museum and statue of Iris Chang to commemorate the Rape of Nanking event.

Images of Atrocities

• The photographs of the, atrocities are similar to the the graphic photographs from the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire in their depictions of violence.
• Japanese soldiers beheaded people, and would often tie up Chinese civilians and chop off their heads.
• There were reports of taking people and having dogs rip them apart, live burial, and roasting victims alive.
• Almost any kind of unthinkable atrocity that you could ever imagine, that's what the Japanese were perpetuating among the Chinese civilian population.
• A Japanese newspaper traced two Japanese officers in a competition to see who could kill the most Chinese.
• The event was thoroughly documented.

Lack of International Response

• The League of Nations and other regional powers were ineffective.
• The Soviet Union was not helpful to China.
• European colonial possessions had European control.

US Response

• The United States was isolationist under Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s.
• The United States just verbal protested and Franklin Roosevelt woulod only act unless he was sure of broad consensus.
• His response was primarily economic sanctions (cutting off oil and scrap metal to Japan).
• Hoping the sanctions would remove the Japanese from China, but there was no chance of this occurring anytime soon.
• Japan was ready to use China as a springboard for its next colonial ambitions in the South.
• Japan's northern strategy was abandoned as it would involve fighting the Soviet Union.

The Southern Strategy

• The South was more ideal because within these potential colonies in the South, you could get your raw materials. You could get your oil. You can get your minerals.
• To get what Japan wanted would mean going to war with various Colonial powers like France, Britain, The Netherlands, and The United States
• Their time found an alliance with Hitler and then Germany and Italy formed the axis powers.
• What to do was wait for Hitler to start a war on the European continent and give them time to pin down all Colonial power in the European theater during war.
• That made these colonies vulnerable for Japan to move in.
• This vision was the vision that Japan wanted for its Pacific empire to constitute all these territories in cooperation with other Eurocentric fascist powers.

Key Figures Leading to the Pacific War

• Japanese emperor Hirohito (reigned 1926-1989): He became emperor as someone who was believed to desend from the sun goddess meter AS who wasn't like other people and was one of 124 Japanese emperors, but the fact that he didn't have a forceful personality and was bookish made everyone wonder, "What kind of emperor was he? Was he this cloistered Emperor that had no idea of what was happening in his country or was he one of the prime reasons behind the empire?" This is because after Japan lost there was a political incentive to say Hirohito was a good leader because there would be damage in saying that Hirohito was the root cause, but no matter to soldiers and civilians alike he was a godlike emperor that they'd die for
• Premier Hideki Tojo: Became Japanese premier in October 1941 to Japan, who was known as the raiser for it is razor sharp mind, it was ruthlessness, and the fact that he hated United States who believed from his point of view had sanctioned them too much until they could not economically survive, which is why he would rather strike at the united states for what he would consider was a battle for who rules the Pacific for everyone who wanted to understand who everyone was fighting they all believed it was tojo

Road to Pearl Harbor Attack

• December 7th 1941 Japanese goal was to attack the United States Pacific Fleet and Hawaii
• Anexation of Hawaii happened in 1898
• Goal: launch a surprise attack so that it could be hope that the aircraft carriers, battleships, and planes of the US Pacific Fleet would be wiped out quickly while also giving Japan an 6 months window
• Gambit: Japan needed the United States to resing to defeatism by saying they will not fight and also needed the United States to still be isolationist until they would sign a treaty recognizing the Japanese Pacific Empire
• Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto: This admiral was born from a former samurai in 1884 who learned in the US in Havard and as a naval ache who was convinced that though the US as isolationist it could fight back if they are push to
• Goal: Was just like tojo's: deliver a major crippling strike on the US so that they lose all momentum until Japan eventually says give us want we want and we can avoid war"
• Here is the planning: All the way to Hawaii by tracking it via November 23th 1941 while they were in complete radio silence until December 4th when they were there on Oahu they would strike out and then return on 23rd to Japan
• On December 8th Japan would declare war

Pearl Harbor Attack

• 07:55AM December seventh 1941 there was the US Pacific Fleet as an attack in two ways with bombs from and then the zeros coming while soldiers and seamen just got out of bed for the day and a attack for only 90 minutes
• 88S planes will be destroyed in 159 planes were damaged four battleships were sunken four battleships were damaged In the amount of lives were 2400

aftermath

• Japanese earned a tactical victory but not a victory as the aircraft carriers were at sleep, the waters was shallow and they were many major officers on shore leave and oil tankers in the water
• Franklin Roosevelt made his famous war address as what the attack was a date he would live in infamy as to explain that the US will go to war Japan, Germany, and Italy
• Pearl harbor marks the beginning of the end as a US will take it is momentum to shake it from as isolation to becoming a super power. It will be a key moment in twentieth century history.