In What Respects was 1940 a Crucial Year for both Japanese Politics and Japanese Foreign Policy?

When considering “Japan’s drift to war” or “The road to conflict in the Pacific” it is easy to believe that this was a continuous and inevitable process.  However, between the Marco Polo Bridge incident in July 1937 and the bombing of Pearl Harbour in December 1941, Japan was led by a variety of Premiers with differing aims and ambitions, the majority of whom wished to avoid conflict with America at all costs.  This desire ended in failure, as it became impossible for Japan’s leaders to pull back from the commitments that they had made, in particular regarding the conduct of the war in China (still euphemistically referred to as the Chinese “Incident” for much of this period).  For this reason, it is difficult to pinpoint one particular turning point, from where on war became inevitable.  Instead, one sees several factors, such as the escalation of the Chinese war, the influence of the military in government, the weakening of influential opposition, the diplomatic isolation of Japan, and the increasing nationalism of the public, grow in importance and come into alignment at the crucial, fateful moment.

When considering the contribution of the events of 1940 to this process, it is important to examine this broad range of developments and consider whether this “moment of alignment” took place that year or whether the drift to war was still reversible.  The two “key events” of the year – the formation of a new cabinet under Konoe Fumimaro on 22 July and the signing of the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy on 27 September, committing Japan to the cause of the Axis powers, will need particular examination in this respect.

Konoe Fumimaro came to power after his predecessor, Admiral Yonai Mitsumasa, had been forced to step down following the resignation of his army minister, General Hata Shunroku.  Yonai had only accepted the role as Premier six months previously, in January 1940, after General Abe Nobuyuki had been pressured into resignation after he had failed to solve Japan’s diplomatic and economic crises.  “The Yonai cabinet,” wrote Michael Barnhart, “unlike its predecessor, possessed the personnel that might have heeded these alarms and committed the Japanese Empire to a reorientation of its foreign policy.” Yonai’s cabinet adopted a more moderate and conciliatory tone than had been seen in recent years, and included four party politicians within it, allowing for a more co-operative relationship with the Diet than Abe had experienced.  Yonai also had the approval of the Emperor, who took the unprecedented step of securing a commitment from the army to support him.

However, the foreign policy of Yonai and Arita Hachiro, his foreign minister, was dealt a hard blow within ten days of the cabinet being formed.  As had been promised in July 1939, the United States formally abrogated the treaty of commerce.  An improved relationship with America would clearly be impossible whilst the war in China stained Japan’s reputation.  However, all attempts to resolve the crisis ended in failure.  A proposal to reduce troop numbers in China from 850,000 men to 500,000 within a more manageable area met strong opposition from the army who argued that in fact troop numbers needed to be increased.  The general staff thus agreed to dispatch further reinforcements, which took part in a new offensive against Ichang in the spring, damaging Japan’s international reputation still further.  Diplomatic approaches to the crisis also failed to bring results.  Wang Chingwei, who had broken away from the Chinese Nationalists, was inaugurated as “acting president” on 30 March in Nanking, but his appointment appeared to be really a tool with which greater pressure could be put on the Nationalists.  Negotiations continued throughout Yonai’s cabinet, but brought few results.  The Japanese were unwilling to withdraw from the precious resources of North China or threaten their security by renouncing the independence of Manchukuo, whilst the Nationalists were happy to bide their time and hope that American aid would soon be forthcoming.

Given time and stability, Yonai might have been able to resolve these problems, but the successes of Germany’s spring offensive in Europe increased the pressure on him to reconsider his opposition to an alliance with the Axis powers.  These victories suggested that the global balance of power was being dramatically transformed, and Japan must act quickly if she wished to make the most of such a unique opportunity.  The European colonies in Southeast Asia now looked particularly vulnerable.  Arita made a statement on 15 April expressing his worry that the status quo in the Dutch East Indies might be affected by recent developments, and the Foreign Ministry later acknowledged their concern that the United States or Britain might attempt to restrict Japan’s progress there.  By June France had fallen and the Japanese army’s policy had grown more aggressive.  Its “Outline for Dealing with the Changes in the World Situation”, drafted on 3 July, suggested that “possession by purchase and diplomacy” of concessions for resources in the East Indies and the French colonies would enable it to bring the Chinese war to an end.  This was its first formal commitment to an aggressive southern advance, a policy that could only be accomplished through a stronger alliance with Germany and a complete restructuring of the economy to meet the needs of the military.

Yonai’s policy of moderation had come unstuck due to the unrelenting ambition of the military and foreign events beyond his control.  He might have hoped to receive some support from the Diet but events following Saito Takao’s speech in February showed that this would not be the case.  When Saito criticised military policy in China and its portrayal of events as a “Holy War” the army was grossly offended and pressured the Diet into expelling him, which was achieved with a large majority on 7 March.  Any politicians from the Seiyukai who voted against him were also thrown out of the party.  Public opposition to the policies of the military, particularly in formal arenas such as the Diet, had clearly come to an end.  Hida Takushi, a Seiyukai politician at the time, attempted to justify his actions in his memoirs.  “I felt strongly that Diet members should band together and be more conciliatory towards the military,” he wrote, “uniting to lead the haughty Army and serving as a base rock of the nation, rather than creating friction with the Army as Saito had.”

The military and nationalists disgruntled with Yonai’s policies still needed a figurehead for their movement, and their first choice would always be Konoe.  He appeared to be unwilling to take up this role at first, as he hoped that, in his current position as head of the Privy Council, he could become the leading official at court by inheriting the responsibility to select the Japanese Premier from the elderly genro, Saionji.  However, his proposal was rejected.  “Konoe might be good as a privy seal,” the Emperor was heard to remark, “but he has too many types of people around him.”  Denied the opportunity to become the Emperor’s chief adviser, observing the dramatic events in Europe, and listening to the clamour from the military and the nationalists, Konoe decided that the opportunity to become Japan’s Premier and fashion a new political regime was too strong to ignore.  “There was a widespread feeling in Japan,” wrote Richard Sims, “just as elsewhere, that world history was at a major turning-point, with both the old imperial order and the new internationalism about to give way to regional blocs, while liberalism and pluralism would be swept away by totalitarian nationalism.”

In June 1940, Konoe resigned as president of the Privy Council and issued a public statement saying that Japan would have to establish a “New Order” of strong national unity if it wished to keep up with the great changes that were sweeping the world.  His motives were not entirely altruistic.  He believed that this was the only way he would be able to retain firm political control as Prime Minister, and avoid some of the mistakes that had taken place during his previous administration.  “Konoe himself now began to want his own political party,” wrote Yoshitake Oka, “partly to back him in handling the Diet, and partly to create a base for control over the increasingly unmanageable army so that he could move toward a quick settlement of the China War.”  Even before his resignation, Konoe had begun to prepare for this by asking members of the Showa Research Association, of which he had been a patron for several years, to discretely draft plans for political reform which were then discussed in Konoe’s home once he had left the Privy Council.  Yabe Teiji, a political science professor at Tokyo Imperial University, reiterated ideas recently published in his “Outline for the Reform of the Political Structure”.  He had written that the modern nation demanded “a co-operative body (type of) planned or managed economy and a centralised administrative form based on the masses of the nation.”  An army memorandum published at the same time called for “the establishment of a strong political structure at home” , and the removal of the western elements from the Japanese political system – i.e. liberalism and democracy, which they believed had held Japan back.  It was thus pressure from the army that led to General Hata’s resignation, creating the political crisis that led to the downfall of Yonai’s cabinet and the appointment of Konoe as Prime Minister on 22 July, promising that the construction of the New Order would begin immediately.

This was a key moment of the year.  Yonai’s policies of caution and moderation had been rejected and Konoe had been swept to power on a wave of expectation from the military, the politicians, and the general public.  In a radio address following his inauguration, he declared the previous political system to have been incompatible with “kokutai” – Japan’s national structure, the relationship between the emperor and the nation.  Instead, everyone would have to work together to assist imperial rule, and their unity, loyalty and hard work would be sufficient to resolve Japan’s many problems.  The political parties had begun to dissolve themselves in anticipation of this new order and in the hope of primary role within it even before Yonai had resigned.  The Minseito was the last to hold out but on 15 August its president, Machida Chuji, agreed to join Konoe’s movement and dissolved the party.  It seemed as if the nation was united behind Konoe, but this was certainly not the case.  Instead, everyone had their own agenda.  The politicians wished to be at the centre of a new political party.  Others wanted a more radical transformation of the Japanese political system, following the European “fascist” models but retaining a uniquely “Japanist” character.  Meanwhile, the military and the home office both had their own proposals for mass organisations, and would be unhappy to see these put aside.

In the midst of this, Konoe gave few personal opinions and appeared to have little idea of what the ideal solution should be.  He appointed a special Preparation Committee for the New Order in August and it quickly became clear that the proposals from the Showa Research Association, advocating the elimination of the Diet and drastic revisions to the economy, would be unacceptable to much of the Japanese establishment.  The conservative politicians, members of the bureaucracy and the business community were unready to see their power and influence reduced, and Konoe failed to support the proposals sufficiently for them to change their minds.  As the most radical proposals were deleted, it was clear that Japanese society was not about to be fundamentally transformed.  Instead the committee endorsed the creation of the Imperial Rule Assistance Association (IRAA), a series of co-operative councils, whose power was steadily reduced until it was little more than an adjunct of the Home Ministry.  “The IRAA was born without platform or proclamation.” wrote Yoshitake Oka, “Without any concrete pegs, the movement turned into essentially the same idealistic, vague campaign…that was launched during the first Konoe cabinet, with its appeal for “national spirit, total mobilisation.”  The IRAA became merely a tool for spreading state propaganda and the encouragement of national loyalty, a pale shadow of what the Showa Research Association had intended.

Konoe’s hopes for economic reforms also faced heavy criticism.  The cabinet planning board issued its “Plan for establishing the New Economic Structure” in September, calling for a “national defence economy”, managed with greater government control through cartel organisations, and demanding that “enterprises be freed from the domination of capital”.  Japans’ largest businesses were shocked by the proposals, and worked together within the Japan Economic League to resist them.  They were also able to enlist the support of Commerce and Industry Minister Kobayashi Ichizo, who lobbied hard within the cabinet.  Crucially, Konoe appeared to lose confidence in the reforms and issued revisions in December that allowed greater participation from the business community and withdrew challenges to the principles of private property and profit making.  The IRAA and the military were greatly disappointed, but Konoe believed that the opposition from the conservative elite was too great to be overcome.  So, as Barnhart wrote, “The New Economic Order had been stillborn.”

Konoe’s opportunity to sweep aside Japan’s political institutions had been lost.  The IRAA, despite the best efforts of the Showa Research Association, had been “emasculated” and made only a minimal political impact.  Although the parties had been disbanded, the politicians remained, operating within the new structures such as the National General Mobilisation Council and within the Diet.  Their local political structures, known as “jiban” were also able to remain intact throughout the war.  After his initial enthusiasm, Konoe appeared to lose confidence in his reforms.  This may have been because he underestimated the strength of conservative opposition to them, or because he became sidetracked by other issues such as the war in China.  However it is possible that his convictions were never as strong towards the reforms as those around him.  He never had a detailed strategy on how they should be implemented or promoted, but instead regarded them as a tool with which he could secure greater personal power for himself, particularly over the military.   The disbanding of the Showa Research Association in November was perhaps an indication that Konoe had lost interest in their ideas.  Indeed in April the next year four of their members were arrested along with other members of the Cabinet Planning Board, accused of trying to infiltrate socialist ideas through their economic proposals.

The failure of Konoe’s reforms ensured that Japan’s political system would stumble on until the end of the war.  It also marked the last opportunity to block the rise of military and nationalist influence.  All other forms of opposition or public criticism had been removed.  The newspapers had been full of nationalistic fervour since the beginning of the China Incident, and were closely supervised by the government, as was national radio.  In December the Cabinet Information Division was elevated to bureau status, and assumed overall control of the media with the power to prohibit any article on any subject.  Liberal thought and opposition to government policies had been severely restricted since the 1930s, and particularly after the China Incident.  Even religious associations, which had previously criticised the increasing use of state religion and Emperor worship fell silent following greater persecution.  The arrest of Tagawa Daikichiro, a prominent Christian and member of the Diet, in February 1940 deterred others from speaking out.  US Ambassador Joseph Grew accurately evaluated the position of the liberal groups in December 1940.  “It is true that a large element of such moderate opinion exists in Japan,” he wrote, “but unfortunately that element is just as powerless and inarticulate as ever.”

The death of the genro Saionji Kimmochi in November 1940 removed another check on the military’s influence.  He had been the strongest advocate of caution to the Emperor and without him it would be very hard to resist the demand for a more aggressive foreign policy.  Konoe had felt considerable pressure from the military to appoint a foreign minister in favour of an alliance with the Axis powers, and his appointment of Matsuoka Yosuke, well known for his pro-German views, satisfied them. At the liaison conference between the cabinet and the military supreme command on July 27, Matsuoka referred to the need to create a “new order in Great East Asia”, combining the resources of Japan China and Manchuoko.  Within a month his idea had expanded to become the “Greater East Asian Co-prosperity Sphere”, which he believed would include the resources of the European colonies in French Indo-China and the Dutch East Indies.  The conference advocated diplomatic methods rather than force as the most effective way of bringing the reforms about, and recommended that new approaches be made to Germany and Italy so that Japan capitalised upon the recent Axis successes in Europe.  Konoe felt that before such expansion could take place the war in China had to be brought to a swift end.  He believed he had sufficient support to write a letter directly to Chiang Kai-shek hoping that a cease-fire could be arranged by September and a peace conference by the end of the month.  He assumed that Chinese weariness would bring them to the negotiation table, but this was not the case and he, like his predecessors, found the war impossible to bring to a conclusion.

The greatest opposition to an alliance with the Axis powers came from the Japanese Navy.  Yoshida Zengo, the Navy minister believed it increased the possibilities of a conflict with the United States, which he considered the navy had little chance of winning at this point, or a conflict with Russia, where all the glory would go to the army.  The pressure on him to give way from the foreign office and the army was so great, however, that he resigned in September and was replaced by Admiral Oikawa Koshiro, who gave his formal consent to the alliance at the Liaison Conference on 14 September.  However, he added the proviso that the navy should be granted a larger allocation of war material in exchange for its consent, which was duly granted.  This increased share made it very difficult for the navy to renege on its commitments, as it would be forced to surrender the privilege.  In November Oikawa was further persuaded by the General Staff to place the navy on a semi-wartime footing in November and commence “preparatory mobilisation”.  Despite continuing concerns about a conflict with America, from this point onwards the navy “committed itself to a logic of mutual escalation pointing to war and set in motion programmes of mobilisation in preparation for that eventuality.”

The Tripartite Alliance between Japan, Italy and Germany was signed on 27 September 1940.  It appeared to relieve some pressure on Japan’s northern border, as Germany and the Soviet Union had signed a non-aggression pact the previous year and offered another solution to the China conflict, as Germany promised to mediate between Japan and Nationalists.  This amounted to very little, but Japan’s alliance with Germany gave it the confidence to send its troops into northern Indo-China four days before the pact was formally signed and negotiate terms of surrender with the Vichy French.  Matsuoka had belligerently announced on 19 September that the Axis Pact was a “military alliance aimed at the United States” and the Japanese action in Indo-China quickly brought a reaction from America – an embargo on the export of scrap metal and aviation oil.  The events of September, although all were clearly predictable, brought the two countries significantly closer to conflict.  America’s commitment to the United Kingdom had been steadily increasing, particularly after Germany’s invasion plans were postponed following the Battle of Britain, so Japan’s alliance with the Axis powers clearly marked it out as a potential threat to the United States.  Cordell Hull, US Secretary of State, was determined to avoid antagonising Japan if at all possible, but Japan’s southern advance made it difficult for him to defend his policy from the criticisms of those who believed that it deserved harsher punishment.

As the year drew to a close, Japan found itself increasingly isolated and under pressure.  The war in China continued and offered no sign of a solution – a humiliating treaty formally recognising Wang as President of the Nanking regime in November was evidence of the dearth of new ideas in Tokyo.  Moreover, the war continued to absorb money, manpower and material, forcing the economy to be more reliant on the military.  The increasing restrictions of the American blockade added their own pressures, forcing General Tojo Hideki, the army minister, and others to believe that a diplomatically dangerous southern advance would be the only way Japan would be able to guarantee essential resources, particularly oil.

1940 was thus a crucial year in that the pace of Japan’s “journey” towards conflict with America and its allies rapidly increased.  Opportunities to try alternative diplomatic approaches, as had been briefly seen in Yonai and Arita’s foreign policy, were lost.  Opposition to the dominance of the military over Japan'’ foreign and domestic agenda withered away or was removed.  The failure of Konoe’s political and economic strategy is more ambiguous in this regard.  He was prevented from subjugating the military under his own authority, but it is unlikely that this would ever have been allowed to take place, even if a more rigid political and economic structure (which the army was largely in favour of) was created.  Instead it is likely that such a structure would have brought about war even more quickly, as Japan’s economy and society became increasingly adapted to the demands of the military.  It is unlikely that Konoe would ever have been able to oppose the demands of the army, particularly after the navy buried its concerns over a southern advance in return for increased resources.

Japan’s alliance with Germany and Japan was the most significant diplomatic event of the year, but it did not make war inevitable.  Konoe had always had more doubts over the Tripartite Pact than his foreign minister, and had the chance to take Japan out of the alliance after Matsuoka was removed from the cabinet in July 1941. In the previous month after many of the strategic benefits of the alliance had been lost following Germany’s invasion of Russia.  Once again Japan’s northern border looked insecure and she no longer had access to German supplies through the Trans Siberian railway.  But, Konoe was pressured by the supreme command to adhere to commitments he had made in the presence of the emperor on 2 July, agreeing to observe the spirit of the alliance and implement the southern advance.  His negotiations with America were thus inevitably doomed, and undermined in particular by the army’s refusal to make any concessions over China and Manchukuo.  July 1941was thus the crucial “moment of alignment”, after which Japan’s progress towards war was irreversible.  From this point Konoe found himself committed to deadlines and agreements from which he could not escape.  There were few to whom he could turn to oppose the military’s demands and the efficiency of the Cabinet Information Bureau ensured that an extension of the “Co-prosperity Sphere” and even conflict with America would be welcomed by the general public.

In 1940 many of the elements that led to conflict were put in place and moved steadily into “alignment” over the next few months.  The process was not yet irreversible, but only a few individuals would have been able to halt it.  Konoe Fumimaro was one of those people but he chose to reject the few opportunities that remained.   When he finally realised the dangers that his country faced, time had run out, and Japan had committed itself to another costly, bloody war.

 

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