Interwar YearsJapan

Meiji Restoration•All things Western

•Modern industrial and military power

• Japan began to expand its own imperialistic empire

•need raw materials/markets

•want to show modernity to the West

Japan & Korea •Japan colonized Korea

in late 1800s

•brut alized/occupied the Korean people

•With Sino-Japanese War of 1895 and its peace negotiations, Korea was left to be independent....but not for long......

Japan & Manchuria• Manchuria is resource

rich

• Japan has growing industrial economy

• Russian influence in Manchuria was large and threatening to Japan

• Japan allies with the great British empire to protect Japanese & British interests in the area

Japan & Manchuria•Diplomacy fails

•Japan and Russia go to war over Manchuria

•Russo-Japanese War

•strategic port of Port Arthur in Manchuria

•Japanese overrun Korea then on to Manchuria

Japanese Attack Manchuria

League of Nations condemns the action.

Japan leaves the League

Japan & Manchuria•Japanese are winning

but costs are high

•US President Teddy Roosevelt negotiates Russo-Japanese peace treaty (he wins the Nobel Peace Prize for this)

•This is called the Treaty of Portsmouth

Japan & Manchuria•Treaty of Portsmouth

•Japanese get Port Arthur

•Japanese get southern tip of Russian island of Sakhalin

•Japanese are officially recognized as official power in Korea

• it eliminated competition in Manchuria - it was dominated by Japanese now

Japan & ManchuriaRusso-Japanese

War of 1905

What is the big deal?

First war to demonstrate an Asian country could defeat a European power

Japan & Modernization

Problems•Too fast

•higher industrialization, medical care, cities, population, need for more food

• lots of Japanese emigration to US, Hawaii, Korea, Taiwan

Japan & Modernization

Problems•Economic appetite so large for raw materials that Japan must expand....

•Labor unions rise

•urban intellectuals argue for all things Western

•young people begin to question value of traditional Japanese society

•when Great Depression hit, many blamed the move away from traditional values

Japan & Military•growing influence of

military

•Japanese leaders difficult time dealing w/ problems & pressures of rapid change

•more and more people oppose Westernization

•atmosphere of turmoil

• ENTER THE MILITARY

Japan & Military•World War I meant total war

which meant military had to draw on total resources of the nation

•With turmoil of 1920s and 1930s, Japan found itself increasingly militarized - military needs, values, and goals shape a nation’s policies

Rape of Nanjing

In December of 1937, the Japanese Imperial Army marched into China's capital city of Nanking and proceeded to murder 300,000 out of 600,000 civilians and soldiers in the city. The six weeks of carnage would become known as the Rape of Nanking and represented the single worst atrocity during the World War II era in either the European or Pacific theaters of war.

Japan & China War1937

What is the big deal?This war created negative chaos that

weakened European control over China and enabled Mao and communism to come to power and destroy all aspects of European

colonialism in China.

Militarized Societies

Japan ItalyGermany

Japan Taken Over By Military

Japanese officers believed the West would never take Japan seriously - look at all the immigration restrictions of Japanese in the US

therefore, Japan had to turn to its own illustrious military background - strike out on its own unique path - claim its part of the world

Japan Taken Over By Military

So answer this:

How did World War I contribute to the growing rise of military influence over the gov’t of Japan?