Iriye argues that the reason why war broke out between the United States and Japan in Asia was because Japan wanted to end its ‘cold war’ policy with the United States so that war would define all political and cultural activities that the Japanese government was pursuing at the time. This essay will argue that along the lines of Iriye’s arguments that a failed effort between the United States and Japan to maintain a peaceful, but hostile, relationship culminated in a Pacific war. There will be an examination of different arguments as to which country, or countries, were responsible for war in Asia.
The United States deserves some blame for failing to prevent war. Best argues along the lines of historians like Paul Schroeder who argued, as part of a revisionist school of thought, that the United States had become too intransigent in its talks with Japan. According to Best, America had allowed itself to become deeply clouded by an overdeveloped sense of morality to blind its judgement at the time that by mid-1941, Japan was edging itself away from its commitment to Germany and Italy, their two Tripartite Pact partners. Because Japan was under immense pressure from the United States to abandon its occupation of China that had begun during the 1930s or face continued economic sanctions, Japan had no choice but to pursue war with the United States. Best suggests that far too many external actors complicated the relationship between Japan and the United States as the State Department decided to freeze all American assets in Japan during July 1941 and then brought trade to an end altogether in August 1941 due to an oil embargo on Japan. The United States thus forced Japan into war and Roosevelt failed to prevent Japanese aggression in the Pacific whilst trying to ensure that a second front would not be opened up in Asia. This interpretation has much merit to it as it shows that the United States ultimately failed to contain war in the Pacific, but it suggests that Japan had no choice but to go to war.
However, Tarling argues that the growth of Japanese militarism in the 1930s contributed towards the war in the Pacific. Japan took advantage of the war in the West as countries that had colonies in Asia, like France, were so distracted and devastated by war that it enabled Japan to successfully occupy French Indochina during July 1941. In mid-October 1941, Prince Fumimaro Konoye was replaced as premier by General Hideki Tojo, the Minister of War, who had previously served as chief of staff during the occupation of China. Tojo successfully took advantage of the United States’ inability to assist Britain and the Netherlands in defending their colonies in Asia, which enabled Tojo to plan for a military strike during November 1941 that culminated in the attack on Pearl Harbor, Malaya, Hong Kong and the Philippines during 7th-8th December 1941. Because of this series of attacks that harmed American, British and Dutch interests and territories in the Pacific Ocean, Tarling implies that all three countries ultimately had little choice but to declare war on Japan. Tojo’s primary concern during this time was that Japan does not lose international status as a result of the economic blockades that the United States imposed upon them. Because of the lack of a coordinated response towards Japanese aggression in Asia, the Allies, for the meantime, enabled the Japanese to gain air and naval superiority up until the Battle of Midway in June 1942 that ensured the Americans now had air and naval superiority over the Japanese. Therefore, the Japanese were ultimately responsible for the outbreak of war in Asia as well as shown by their government’s policy of pursuing colonial exploits in the face of Western weakness, especially from the United States.
Nonetheless, Iriye maintains that the conflict in Asia was the result of a ‘cold war’ between the United States and Japan where both sides ultimately failed in ensuring peace. Iriye argues that even though the United States failed to do enough during the buildup to war to prevent the Japanese from expanding their empire, war finally came about between Japan and the United States because Japan wanted to close the gap and end the ‘cold war’ between Japan and the United States. Japan’s economy was devastated by the effects of the Great Depression that challenged the notion that world peace could be brought about through international trade and cooperation as well as the pursuit of monetarist policies by the governments of countries across the world. Iriye highlights that because the United States was never a member of the League of Nations, the United States had to pursue agreements with the Japanese outside of the League, but it was the United States’ failure to join the League that caused the Japanese to escape their responsibility for expanding their territory in Asia. The Japanese pursued a policy of occupying China after the 1931-32 Manchuria crisis knowing that the United States was one of China’s biggest trading partners. After the 1937 invasion, the Japanese began to implement a twenty-year plan to ensure that many Japanese people could immigrate to China with a plan to end Western influence over China. Many Japanese politicians believed that Japan was expanding throughout Asia to help build a sense of Asian solidarity against Western imperialism and Soviet communism, which shows that the Japanese had plans to trigger a war with Western powers. Equally, Iriye implies that the United States failed to prevent war by abrogating its treaty of commerce with Japan after January 1940. The United States remained Japan’s most important trading partner as the United States provided Japan with goods worth 460,000,000 yen during the first half of 1938, primarily cotton, petroleum and iron. This truly demonstrates how vulnerable the Japanese were to the United States and why, as Iriye argues, the Japanese could never entirely end their dependence upon Western powers to trade. Iriye blames the United States for failing to offer the Japanese incentives to stay out of the war and that the Americans only antagonised the Japanese by offering their Chinese allies aid by encouraging Chiang Kai-Shek to resist Japanese occupation. With the Americans then provoking the Japanese further, as Best argues, by freezing their assets in 1941, the Japanese eventually attacked Pearl Harbor. Therefore, responsibility for the way lies with a combination of both aggressive Japanese expansion and American failure to combat Japan, not one or the other.
In conclusion, the responsibility for war in the Pacific lies with both the Americans and the Japanese. Best is right to argue that the actions of external actors in the United States failed to prevent war, such as the decision to impose economic sanctions on Japan. The United States kept trying to ensure that Japan would not collaborate with Germany and Italy in Europe, yet at the same time supporting China. These conflicting aims and a failed policy of attempting to keep Japan out of the war by imposing economic sanctions would only ensure that the Japanese felt more inclined to attack the United States. Tarling is correct to suggest that Japan’s aggressive military policy since the 1930s helped trigger war. By expanding into China, a country that the United States provided aid to, this would only make relations between Japan and the United States worse. That is why the Americans eventually imposed economic sanctions on Japan. Nevertheless, Iriye is accurate in implying that the responsibility for the outbreak of war lies with both the United States and Japan. The Japanese antagonised the Americans by invading China, one of their closest allies, but American foreign policy failed to contain Japanese expansionism.
Works cited
Best, Antony. “Imperial Japan.” The Origins of World War Two: The Debate Continues. Eds. Robert Boyce & Joseph A. Maiolo. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. 52-69. Print.
Iriye, Akira. Power and Culture: The Japanese-American War 1841-1945. Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2009. Print.
Tarling, Nicholas. The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia: Volume 2, Part 2, From World War Two to the Present. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Print.
Notes
