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1930’S JAPAN
War in China | Changing attitudes to the west | Expansion in Asia

The western
powers’ ally
In the First World War the
Japanese had been allied to
Britain, France, Russia and
America. Their warships had
protected allied merchant
shipping from German U-boats
and the British and Japanese
had seized the German treaty
port at Tsingtao

Disappointment at
Versailles
The Japanese former Prime
Minister Prince Saionji
attended the Paris Peace
Conference at the end of the
war. He demanded that Japan
control the Shandong
Peninsula near Beijing and that
Japanese people be
recognised as racially equal by
America and Australia. The
Japanese gained territory in
China but not racial equality
Washington 1922
At the Washington Naval
Conference of 1922, Japan
was not treated equally. Britain
and America came to an
understanding on warship
building. They agreed that for
every five tonnes of shipping
that each power had, Japan
would have three.
Nationalism and Asia
The humiliations of the racial clause at Versailles and the
Washington Naval Conference inflamed Japanese nationalism.
Japan had been a rising industrial and military power since the
1860s and had defeated China in 1894 and Russia in 1905. This
meant that many Japanese politicians, intellectuals, writers
and opinion formers in the inter war years refused to accept
the western powers relegating her to a second class role. The
main reason for Japan’s modernisation drive in the mid 19th
Century was the fact that her leaders saw the humiliation that
China had to endure at the hands of European powers and the
USA. Most of Asia from India to the Philippines was either
directly or indirectly colonised and controlled by Europeans
throughout the 19th Century and the Japanese feared that
they might share the rest of Asia’s fate.
Pan Asianism
In Japanese culture in the inter war years, the idea of pan
Asianism developed. Its proponents argued that European
powers should be forced out of Asia and that Japan was the
country to do it. Japan had learned how to possess all the

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military and economic advantages of the Europeans without

losing its own unique culture and heritage. This meant to
Japanese pan Asianists that Japan could become Asia’s ‘leader’,
liberating conquered countries and creating a federation of
Asian states that would challenge European and American
world power. Many Japanese soldiers and statesmen believed
that this was an idealistic and moral ambition. They invited a
generation of Asian nationalists such as the Burmese leader
Aung San and the Indian nationalist Subhas Chandra Bose to
Japan’s war in China Tokyo, where they were trained and equipped to fight the
The Japanese had seized
British and other colonisers.
Manchuria in 1932, but five years
However, a less liberal version of Japanese nationalism also
later they launched an all out
developed throughout the 1930s. Japan’s growing population
invasion of China. Some
and the fixed resources that the Japanese islands had led many
historians argue that this should
be viewed as the start of the politicians and military thinkers to look to China. They
Second World War. thought that China could be colonised and could provide
Japan with food and mineral resources that would enable the
• The Japanese government
Japanese race to continue growing. Both Germany and Italy,
believed that the international
Japan’s fascist allies during the Second World War, had similar
situation was shifting towards
views on racial expansion and in all three cases it resulted in
war and that China should be
conquered as quickly as the dehumanisation of colonised people. After 1937 and
possible. Japan’s invasion of China from Manchuria, the scale crimes
committed against the Chinese people is directly comparable
• They thought that China was
weak and an invasion would be
quick. China was wracked by
civil war and two forces, the
communists led by Mao
Zedong and the Nationalist
government led by Chiang Kai
Shek were busy fighting each
other.

The Japanese committed

atrocities against the Chinese
people in cities such as Nanjing
and Shanghai, using bombing to
kill thousands, and
experimenting on civilians with
germ warfare.

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to the level of atrocities committed by the Nazi Regime in Poland and the USSR.

America was watching

International opinion was outraged by the actions of Japan in China. American commentators were
some of the most vociferous critics of the Japanese, even though they were less willing to become
involved in Europe’s growing problems at the same time. American governments and opinion formers
had long argued that the USA should have a special economic and diplomatic role in China, an ‘open
door’ policy, and Japan’s conquest of China appeared to be closing that door. In addition to this, the
development of Christianity in China and the belief that many American diplomats had that China
could be a good ‘pupil’ of America’s, learning about liberal democracy and free market capitalism
made many in the USA look upon the plight of China with sympathy for the Chinese and hostility
towards Japan. The outrage at Japan’s actions intensified in December 1937 when Japan attacked and
sank an American gunboat, the USS Panay on the Yangtse River near Nanjing. The Japanese were
anxious not to risk American intervention and launched an all out propaganda offensive in the USA to
emphasise the friendly ties between the two countries. US children received cards and letters of
friendship written by Japanese children as part of the propaganda campaign.

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