Lesson  7.04 The Rising Sun in the Far East

  

 

 

Flag of Japan

 
 
While Germany and Italy were undergoing profound political changes in Europe, most people were unaware of the growing power and influence of Japan in the Far East. For many years Japan was a mystery, isolated from the rest of the world. In 1866 she was a medieval people, locked into seemly endless romantic feudalism. In 1899, Japan was a completely Westernized people, on a level with the most advanced European Powers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

19th Century Japanese Soldier

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Short History of Japan to 1941

Contact With the West The first contact with the West occurred about 1542, when a Portuguese ship, blown off its course to China , landed in Japan . During the next century, traders from Portugal , the Netherlands , England , and Spain arrived, as did Jesuit, Dominican, and Franciscan missionaries. During the early part of the 17th century, Japan's shogunate (Military Ruler) suspected that the traders and missionaries were actually forerunners of a military conquest by European powers. This caused the shogunate to place foreigners under progressively tighter restrictions. Ultimately, Japan forced all foreigners to leave and barred all relations with the outside world except for severely restricted commercial contacts with Dutch and Chinese 
merchants at Nagasaki . This isolation lasted for 200 years, until Commodore Matthew Perry of the U.S. Navy forced the opening of Japan to the West with the Convention of Kanagawa in 1854.  

Within several years, renewed contact with the West profoundly altered Japanese society. The shogunate was forced to resign, and the emperor was restored to power. The "Meiji restoration" of 1868 initiated many reforms. The feudal system was abolished, and numerous Western institutions were adopted, including a Western legal system and constitutional government along quasi-parliamentary lines.

In a few decades, by creating modern social, educational, economic, military, and industrial systems, the Emperor Meiji's "controlled revolution" had transformed a feudal and isolated state into a world power.

 

After Japan ’s unexpected victory over  Russia in 1905, in the Russo-Japanese war, the western world became leery of Japanese expansion.  World War I permitted Japan , which fought on the side of the victorious Allies, to expand its influence in  Asia and its territorial holdings in the Pacific.
The postwar era brought Japan unprecedented prosperity. Japan went to the peace conference at Versailles in 1919 as one of the great military and industrial powers of the world and received official recognition as one of the "Big Five" of the new international order. It joined the League of Nations and received a mandate over Pacific islands north of the Equator formerly held by Germany.

 

During the 1920s, Japan progressed toward a democratic system of government. However, parliamentary government was not rooted deeply enough to withstand the economic and political pressures of the 1930s, during which military leaders became increasingly influential.

Japan invaded Manchuria (Northern China) in 1931 and set up the puppet state of Manchukuo. This action angered the United States and other Western powers for fear of Japan taking over all of China.  In 1933, Japan, like Germany, resigned from the League of Nations. The Japanese invasion of the rest of China in 1937 followed.

In June 1940, accommodation was reached with the Soviets in Manchuria and, in September, a tripartite alliance was signed with the like-minded Germany and Italy. By promising mutual assistance to any signatory attacked by a country not already at war in Europe, it gave Japan a perception of security when dealing with the United States. At this point relations between Japan and the US deteriorated and a chain of developments culminating in the Japanese attack on the United States at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941 was set in motion.

 

Assignment 7.04 - The Rising Sun in the Far East

 

How could two nations who had once been friends become bitter enemies?  What exactly was the “chain of events” that led to war?  In this assignment you will role-play a member of the Japanese Cabinet and draft a letter to the Emperor explaining the reasons and the rational for Japan ’s declaration of war against the United States. Your letter should be no longer than 500 words. Use the following Internet sources to research your letter.

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http://www.iwm.org.uk/online/pearl_harbour/hb_count.htm

 

http://www.abacci.com/atlas/country.asp?countryID=232

 

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWtojo.htm

 

 

In this letter you must address the following topics that you have researched

 

1.      Who was the Emperor of Japan at this time? You need to know this information in order to address the letter properly.

2.      Who was the head of the Japanese Government and military whose influence over the cabinet led to the declaration of war?  You need to know this information in order to tell the Emperor that this decision was arrived at and led by this man.

3.      What events led to Japan’s decision to fight the US ?

4.      Why did the Japanese choose to attack the US at Pearl Harbor ?

5.      Why did the Japanese feel that they had a chance to win a war against such a powerful adversary?

 

  

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