XII. War with China

Few of Japan’s leaders expected that the war with China would last for years. Their original plans called for a short campaign of five or six months. North China, Shanghai and Nanking would be occupied. Chiang Kai-shek’s crack divisions would be destroyed in the Shanghai-Nanking operations. By Christmas, at the latest, a dictated peace could be imposed at Nanking.

VICTORIES WITHOUT PEACE

On the military side, these calculations proved surprisingly accurate. The victorious Japanese troops were entering Nanking in mid-December. And all the strategic railways in North China were under Japan’s control. But these military successes did not lead to the expected peace settlement. China’s national unity held firm, and Chinese resistance continued. If Japan wished to dictate peace terms, she would have to wage further battle.

This she proceeded to do. Two big campaigns were fought during 1938. In May, after a bitter struggle in Shantung province, Japan’s northern and southern armies were able to join forces. In October, after an exhausting advance up the Yangtze River, the Japanese captured Hankow. A lightning blow in the south led to the occupation of Canton.

China’s main cities, and much of her railway system, were now in Japanese hands. But still there was no sign of peace. By the end of 1938, it was clear that, despite her military triumphs, Japan had not won victory. The war had lasted eighteen months, instead of six. In lives and money, it had cost Japan far more than the original reckoning. And the end was not in sight.

What was happening at home during these first eighteen months of the war? Three main trends were clear. First, all popular opposition to the war was suppressed. Second, the military took over conduct of affairs in China, allowing the Cabinet little or no say. And third, a “controlled economy” was set up, although the army leaders did not succeed in getting it into their hands. The business houses either pared down the controls, or decided how they were to be applied.

MAKING THE PUBLIC TOE THE LINE

Various measures to gain public support of the war were adopted. The most spectacular was a campaign for “national spiritual mobilization.” It began on September 11, 1937 with a patriotic rally in Tokyo, addressed by the Premier and other Cabinet Ministers and broadcast throughout the country. In the Diet the parties expressed their support of the war. Even Japan’s labor party, which had elected 36 Diet members in April 1937, swung behind the war policy. The authorities were not content, however. In December 1937, the Home Ministry carried out large-scale police raids, in which hundreds of persons were arrested. Two left-wing labor and party groups, both headed by Kanju Kato, were disbanded without notice. Kato himself, who had been elected to the Diet by a proletarian constituency in Tokyo, was jailed. The arrests also included Baroness Ishimoto, a noted feminist leader, and a great many liberals and pacifists.

All sections of Japan’s ruling circles were united in this program of suppressing popular opposition to the war. There was more scope for disagreement, however, over how the war in China should be conducted. But in this dispute the army held all the points of vantage, and soon reigned supreme.

THE ARMY WINS A FREE HAND IN CHINA

Control of military and naval operations in and off China was given in November 1937 to Imperial Headquarters. This special organ included all the high army and navy officers. Since it decided military policy under the direct authority of the Emperor, it neatly sidetracked Cabinet control. Non-military phases of policy in China, however, were not so easily disposed of. Here the army used a technique which it had tried and tested in Manchuria. In September 1938 army leaders forced the establishment of a China Affairs Board, set up within the Cabinet but run by military men. Through this board the army kept economic and political affairs in China pretty well under its thumb, despite some continued opposition from the Foreign Ministry. In the broader field of international policy the struggle for power was more acute. It still continues, although the army eventually became strong enough to put through the alliance with Germany and Italy.

THE ECONOMIC WAR MACHINE

The third main trend of which we spoke was the establishment of a wartime “controlled economy” in Japan. The state took over more and more control of the economic life of the country. Both army and businessmen agreed that such control was necessary, but bitterly disagreed as to how it should be applied. On the whole, the businessmen managed to keep the most important economic regulations in their own hands.

The fiercest political struggle during 1938 was waged over the National Mobilization Bill. Drafted by the Planning Board under army influence, this measure called for drastic economic conscription. The government was to have practically unlimited control of social and economic life, including finance, industry, trade, labor and the press. With respect to labor, the bill provided for compulsory allocation of workers to their jobs, prohibited strikes and lockouts, and empowered the government to fix wages, hours and working conditions.

This bill met with determined opposition in the Diet. Army supporters, using pressure and intimidation, including terroristic attacks on Diet members and on party headquarters in Tokyo, pushed it through. Nevertheless, the opposition did force certain modifications in the original plan. Premier Konoye pledged that it would be applied only during a wartime emergency and not invoked in the Sino-Japanese conflict, which was still referred to in Japan as an “incident.” The Premier also agreed to appoint a majority of Diet members to the National Mobilization Council. This Council was to be consulted before Imperial ordinances applying various sections of the bill were issued.

But on May 5, 1938, despite Konoye’s pledge to the Diet, several of the main provisions of the bill were applied, and new ordinances issued since have put many others into effect. Before Premier Konoye’s resignation in January 1939, a broad series of control measures was in operation. Foreign exchange was strictly licensed. To make up the huge war budgets the government had taken over control of capital, and restricted new investment to a list of so-called “essential” industries. It also rigidly regulated trade, limiting the export and import of several hundred commodities. It put the labor control provisions of the National Mobilization Act into effect. In June 1938 it instituted nation-wide price control for certain commodities, and has since steadily increased the list of such goods. The Home Ministry enrolled several thousand “economic police” officers to enforce the price schedules and other features of the economic program.

THE MEN AT THE CONTROLS

But despite the sweeping nature of these provisions, the business houses managed to keep a fair amount of independence. Their own men took key positions in many of the agencies that were enforcing the control measures. In the field of capital investment, they could still tip the scales. They successfully resisted army pressure for outright state control and operation of industry. Nationalization of the vital electric power industry, for instance, over which they fought long and bitterly, was finally put through only part way, and has been a subject of continued dispute.

So it was not the military leaders alone, but the military leaders in an uneasy partnership with the businessmen and the party heads, who carried out the wartime economic program. The army fascists charted the program, it is true, but they were not allowed to run it in their own sweet way. The army ruled in China, as it had in Manchuria. But it was not the unchallenged dictator at home. There, it shared power with “big business.” And big business, despite war restrictions, still operated its own enterprises and still reaped its dividends.

STALEMATE IN CHINA

A Cabinet under Prince Konoye had held office throughout the first phase of the war in China. It resigned in January 1939, when China’s refusal to accept a dictated peace had become unmistakable. For Japan now no longer won spectacular victories. A stalemate had developed, and the war had become a war of attrition. This second phase of the war lasted for another eighteen months—until June 1940, when Hitler’s victories in Europe shifted the balance of power in the Far East.

The costs to Japan of this second period were no less than before. She had to maintain the same number of troops in China, totaling 800,000 or 1,000,000. Heavy fighting was taking place almost continuously. But the hostilities, ranging from Canton to Inner Mongolia, led to no decisive results. In some cases Japan occupied new cities, such as Nanchang, Nanning and Ichang. In other cases Japanese offensives were disastrously routed. Chinese guerrillas, ranging far and wide, limited Japan’s area of effective control, even in the so-called “occupied” territory. Moreover, the economic gains were not as great as the army had expected. Sales of Japanese goods to China steadily increased, but imports of Chinese raw materials either declined or rose very slowly.

STEPPING ON WESTERN TOES

At the same time Japan’s interference with the interests of the Western powers in China became much more direct, and created serious friction. Difficulties were most acute at Tientsin, Shanghai and Amoy. The Japanese army imposed various restrictions. It kept Western shipping off the Yangtze River above Shanghai, and the Pearl River below Canton. Western traders had to face many practices—tariffs, exchange controls, import and export controls—which were put into effect especially to hamper their trade. The Japanese enforced a blockade of the British and French Concessions at Tientsin, and stripped British citizens for examination before allowing them to enter or leave their Concession. Although the Western powers resented these Japanese actions, they limited their opposition mainly to protests. In July 1939 the United States abrogated its trade treaty with Japan, but did not follow up this step by imposing trade penalties.

THREE JAPANESE WAR CABINETS

Difficulties on Japan’s home front mounted steadily during the second phase of the war. The strain was shown in many ways. One was the rapidity with which Cabinets succeeded one another. The first Konoye Cabinet, as we have seen, had held office for nineteen months—from June 1937 to January 1939. In the second period (January 1939 to July 1940), there were no less than three Cabinets. Their average length of life was only six months. These Cabinets, with their Premiers, held office as follows:

1. Baron Kiichiro Hiranuma, January 5, 1939 to August 29, 1939

2. General Nobuyuki Abe, August 30, 1939 to January 15, 1940

3. Admiral Mitsumasa Yonai, January 16, 1940 to July 16, 1940.

HIRANUMA AND THE NAZI-SOVIET PACT

Many of the decisive events of this period were closely related to the Cabinet changes. Hiranuma, for example, was forced out of office by the Soviet-German pact of August 23, 1939. During that summer the Hiranuma Cabinet had been dickering with Germany over the details of a proposed military pact, while the Japanese army had been fighting a minor war with the Soviet Union on the Outer Mongolian frontier. So the Soviet-German pact came as a stunning blow to Tokyo, and for a time feelings against Germany ran high. The army extremists, who had strongly advocated an alliance with Germany, were discredited along with Hiranuma. Consequently, extremist influence was not so great in the next two Cabinets, headed by General Abe and Admiral Yonai.

ABE AND THE PRICE OF RICE

The Abe Cabinet was overthrown five months later for reasons entirely different, but equally significant. Here the issue turned mainly on Japan’s growing economic difficulties. During the winter of 1939-40 a rice shortage developed, and “bootleg” prices soared toward 50 yen per koku (the five bushel unit)—dangerously close to the level which stimulated the “rice riots” of 1918. In September 1938 the Abe Cabinet had fixed ceilings on all prices. When the rice shortage developed, it had to back down on its own ruling. In November it raised the official price from 38 to 43 yen per koku. By this time, however, the farmers had already sold their crops, and the gains were reaped by the rice dealers.

Outspoken criticisms were expected in the Diet and, rather than meet them, the Abe Cabinet resigned in mid-January. The incoming Yonai Cabinet had to face the music. One outspoken member of the Minseito party, Takao Saito, challenged not only economic conditions, but the war itself. His striking speech of February 2, 1940 attacked Wang Ching-wei’s proposed regime (Japan’s puppet government) in China as nothing more than a “central government in name.” After casting doubt on the prospects of achieving the “new order in East Asia,” he asked what the Japanese people had received in return for their great sacrifices in the war. Even more serious, in the eyes of Japan’s army leaders, was Saito’s declaration that, in view of China’s large territory and army, it “is doubtful whether Japan can overthrow” Chiang Kai-shek’s regime. A critical electric power “famine” which developed at this time, and forced many factories to shut down, underlined the truth in Saito’s remarks. The Japanese people backed Saito so strongly that several months passed before the authorities dared to expel him from the Diet.

YONAI TRAILS TOO FAR BEHIND NAZI PUSH

But Hitler’s military victories in the spring of 1940, and especially the defeat of France, swiftly altered Japan’s position in the Far East. The “moderation” which the Abe and Yonai Cabinets had shown in foreign policy suddenly vanished. Intense pressure was brought to bear on the French authorities in the Far East. In June the French Ambassador at Tokyo agreed to stop shipments of goods to China over the Indo-China Railway. Less than a month later, the British government also bowed to the Japanese demand that the Burma Road be closed for three months. But these gains were not enough for the extremist elements within Japan. They had received a fresh impetus from Hitler’s successes, and were prepared to move far more boldly both on the home and foreign fronts. The War Minister, maneuvering for the set-up of an equally bold and impetuous Cabinet, suddenly offered his resignation. Thus, on July 16, 1940, the Yonai Cabinet crumbled.