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"Inside" Stories of the War

Why Japan Decided To Attack Usa

ONE of the war developments which still puzzle commentators is the decision of Japan to attack the United States.

It is most clear that Japan cannot succeed unless: (1) She crippled United States in her first rush; or (2) Germany is victorious in Europe, thus crippling Britain, Russia and United States.

Neither of those* things has happened; so that the destruction of Japan as a dangerous Power is inevitable.

The hazard must have been seen in Japan. Therefore, why did Japan fight?

Mr. George H. E. Smith, a noted American commentator on international affairs, in an article in the notable American magazine, “Current History”, tries to answer the question. rE Japanese attack upon Pearl Har bor came as a shock but not as a surprise to those who have closely followed Japanese-American relations in recent years. Most observers looked for a Japanese advance on Burma and Thai land in December, not for a sneak attack directly against the United States.

Japanese-American relations, which were thus finally broken off, began with Commodore Perry’s visit to Japan in 1853. Although he arrived there with a naval squadron, his was a peaceful mis sion. He went to prepare the way for American trade and friendship with Japan. Credited with having introduced a backward and self-isolated nation to modern trade and civilisation, Perry’s" mission was regarded by the Japanese as a great service to their country.

For almost half a century thereafter, American policy toward Japan was a part of America’s simple policy toward the Far .East generally—peace, friend ship, and trade, with a rehgio-social interest zealously pushed by missionaries.

The policy involved no American politi cal undertakings.

BY the late 1890’s, America’s earlier Far Eastern policy had crystallised into two principles that have ever since remained unchanged.

The claim to eqpal commercial oppor tunities became the policy of the Open Door. And to insure an open door for American trade and investments, the United States came more and more to insist upon the territorial integrity and political independence of the Oriental nations, particularly China. To this policy Japan in great measure owes her escape from being yoked by foreign interests as China had been in earlier years.

The one exception came when, as a result of the war with Spain in 1898, the United States acquired the Philippines.

Possessed of a territorial stake in the Western Pacific, the United States was henceforth committed to a share in the political developments of Asia. The simple Open Door to commercial oppor tunity in Asia thus became the open door to American political involvement in Asia, and also in Europe through the Oriental back door.

For a few years after 1900, American policy took the form of opposition to any threat of domination of East Asia, whe ther it came from Western European nations or from within the Orient itself.

Japan, still struggling to modernise a feudal society, was as much the benefi ciary of American policy as was China.

American sympathies and support of

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Russo-Japanese War.

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is the.lact tnat in seexmg territory on the Asiatic coast, Japan was responding to that principle of military geography which impels a nation bor dered by narrow waters to seek possession or control of the opposite shore. In the Russo-Japanese war, if not before, Japan had definitely commenced the struggle for a foothold on the Asiatic mainland.

Partly in response, perhaps, to that principle of military geography, partly from pressures exerted by the needs of a growing population and from indus trial expansion, and partly through dreams of a great empire, Japan inten-

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periphery of her homeland in the West ern Pacific. Korea. Formosa, Sakhalin, attempts to hold Shantung, and to reach , Manchuria, were manifestations of janan’s new nolicv Japans new P V- Soon after the Russo-Japanese War, it began to appear that of all nations interested in the Far East, Japan was the one most likely to seek exclusive rule over that part of the world. As Japan by successive steps confirmed this view,

American policy, which had been more or less general up to this time, converged upon her. The change was at first from open friendship to a vacillating policy, veering between a willingness to recog nise Japan’s “special interests” in Asia (as in the Lansing-Ishii agreement), and a desire to block her expansion Ihere.

This hesitant policy was in some degree a reflection of America’s opposing forces of isolationism and internationalism.

Moreover, the imperialistic itch in the United States had been satisfied for the time, and Japan’s actions did not directly endanger real American interests.

POINTS of friction and irritation between Japan and the United States existed throughout the momentous years between 1905 and 1930.

The immigration policy of the United States which excluded Japanese was one. The issue was further inflamed by racial discrimination in California.

American resistance on lines of tradi ditional policy to Japan’s “Twenty-one Demands” on China in 1915 was still another of the issues that contributed

toward the growing divergence between the two countries.

Similar issues grew out of Japan’s participation in the First World War.

Taking advantage of the French and British need for allies, Japan stood out for promises of territories and conces sions in the Far East as the price of her aid. It was in this way that she ultimately acquired the three groups of Pacific Islands—the Carolines, Marshalls and Marianas—under a League man date. She took over the German con cessions on the China coast and occu pied Shantung, Her policy during this period was as much to advance her aim of expansion as it was to aid the Allies.

At the Peace Conference, and after, the United States strove to block Jap anese expansionist policy, American insistence ultimately compelled Japan to restore Shantung to Chinese rule.

Unable to do anything about the par celling out of Pacific Islands to Japan, while at the same time wishing to make a genuine contribution to peace in the Pacific, the United States fostered the Washington Naval Conference in 1921, out of which came the agreement to limit naval competition, the Nine-Power Treaty including the pledge of all parties to respect Chinese territory and sover eignty, the promise not to fortify Pacific Islands, and the promise to settle all disputes by pacific means.

Throughout the 1920’5, the united States continued to work for arma ment limitation, international co operation along economic and social lines, and the peaceful settlement of con troversies. In Europe, the League of Nations struggled for the same objec

tives but without success. European politics aggravated rather than removed what Germany openly began to charge were the injustices of the Treaty of Ver sailles.

The collapse, confusion, and distress that soon followed the economic depres sion after 1929 compelled each nation to keep its eyes on its home problems and afforded the opportunity for Hitler’s rise to power in Germany and for his subse quent triumphs in European politics.

Although efforts were made from the time of the Paris Peace Conference to 1930, neither the League of Nations, nor enlightened statesmanship in other world councils, nor developments in Japanese- American relations, met the Japanese problems of growing population pressure, of increasing need for food and raw materials, and of the other less tangible aspects of her expansionist tendencies.

And so, while the world was struggling with the economic breakdown, Japan once again turned to an imperialist solu tion of her difficulties by the invasion of Manchuria in September, 1931.

Chinese resentment and resistance, and her own determination to make the most of her opportunity, compelled Japan to enlarge her activities in 1937 by the extended invasion of China proper.

UNTIL the Manchurian invasion, American-Japanese relations were marked by misunderstandings, rifts, irritations, mutual fears and suspicions, but there was no open hostility or irre trievable break. Any time until 1931, and even as late as the invasion of China in 1937, the issues between the two coun tries might have been settled peaceably and to their mutual benefit.

But the far-sighted statesmanship necessary for sdch a settlement did not exist in either nation, and except for the report of the Lytton Commission appointed by the League (on which the United States was represented) little was done to meet the Japanese prob lem constructively.

Instead, the American policy of vacil lation which had marked American diplomacy since 1905. began to crystallise into a policy of determined opposition.

The United States refused to recognise the Japanese conquests. It sought to induce Japan to return to the principles of the Ooen Door and of the Nine-Power Treaty, ‘it sought to preserve, as Japan denounced, the treaties and efforts toward naval limitation. It tried to persuade Japan to abandon aggressive tactics and return to the methods of law, order, and peaceful settlement.

In the effort to gain these ends, the United States tried gentle diplomacy, frank denunciation, and blunt warnings, without avail. Such constructive mea sures as it suggested and practised (called “appeasement”) came too late and did not cut deep enough to the real issues.

On several occasions the United States was eager to block Japanese expansion by economic pressure and a show of force, by using the machinery of the League of Nations, by proposing joint action with Great Britain, and by con certed measures with other powers, as at Brussels in November, 1937. In each instance, the United States failed to obtain the outside support that it felt necessary, and nothing came of its efforts.

AND then developments set in that were soon to crystallise the policies of both countries, and to drive them toward open conflict, avoidable only if one or the other executed a complete reversal of attitude. Japan first joined in the German-inspired Anti-Commintern Pact, while the policy of the Roosevelt Administration hardened against Hitler and the “aggressors”.

In the first year after the war broke out in September, 1939, the United States moved rapidly to the side of Britain and France through the change in the neu trality laws and the granting of “aid short of war”. Japan, on the other hand, entered into closer relations with Ger many and Italy through the Tripartite Pact of September. 1940. Thus, as has so often happened before, Far Eastern issues merged with European issues in American foreign policy.

Japan signed the Tripartite Pact, hop ing to dangle the threat of a two-ocean war before American eyes while making further advances in Asia and the Pacific.

To Germany the Pact meant the hope of keeping the United States out of the war in Europe and Africa. Both coun tries banked on the anti-war sentiment that had crystallised in the Neutrality Acts to hold America in check. It was not forseen at the time the Pact was made that the United States would move so swiftly in the direction of open con flict with Germany. rIS shift of American policy, taking place almost within six months, completely altered the setting of Japanese-American relations.

On the occasions before 1940. when the United States sought to block Japanese expansion, the world political situation had been unfavorable to such ventures.

Now European and Far Eastern issues had become merged. The United States was committed to Hitler’s defeat. She was practically an ally of Soviet Russia.

Great Britain, the stumbling block on

previous occasions when the United States desired to act against Japan, now wanted American aid and was willing to support anything the United States might do to immobilise Japan and settle the Far Eastern question.

In short. Japanese expansion now coincided with issues and circumstances on which the United States would go to war.

By the late summer and fall of 1941, Japan was caught up by circumstances, partly of her own making, and swept along by the shifty winds of power poli tics. She was rapidly being driven into a corner where the pressures were becoming unbearable.

Beginning with the Mukden incideyit in 1931, she took on a war in China that she could neither finish victoriously nor settle hy negotiation without damaging her national pride and policy. Hoping to play the game of power politics for her own ends, she had aligned herself with the Axis , little suspecting that the move would point up the one issue likely to arouse the United States to active opposition.

SORELY aggravating these conditions was the fact that the Japanese people were harassed by economic pressures from two sides.

The needs of the growing population and the strain of a war economy served to whip the government to action to avoid inner explosion, while from with out the economic pressure exerted by America. Britain, China, and the Dutch East Indies (the ABCD Powers) under American leadership had begun to pinch hard.

Heavily dependent upon supplies from outside her borders, Japan had been cut off from 75 per cent, of her normal imports by the Allied blockade.

The strain of these circumstances and the hope of finding a way out of them led Japan to rush Saburo Kurusu to Washington in November. There is scarcely any doubt that he came to make a deal.

The Japanese note of November 20 and Secretary Hull’s note of November 26, summarising the American position, showed how far apart the tw T o govern ments had drawn since 1931.

To bring them together asrain. Kurusu had only one price to offer—Japan’s apparent willingness to stop playing the game on the side of the Axis—and this offer was not enough. rthe original historic objectives of the United States regarding East Asia, there had been added those generated by recent American diplomacy.

So far as these were based upon direct American interests, they revolved around the fear that circumstances might give Japan the opportunity to work her way into the important rectangle enclosed by Ceylon, Canton. New Caledonia, and Melbourne, to cut off American supplies of critical raw materials by an Axis squeeze. Japanese troop movements to Indo-China dramatised American fear.

The remaining aims of American diplomacy in these momentous weeks had to do with its immediate objectives relating to the European War —to wean Japan away from the Axis, if possible: to protect Britain’s imperial position as an indirect means of protecting Amer ica’s own position; to safeguard Russia’s rear.

To meet the American position, Japan would have had to retire from China, respect the territory and political inde pendence of Asiatic countries, subscribe to the Open Door policy, agree to con duct her relations according to law,

order and peaceful measures, relinquish her ’ claim to domination over the •‘Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere”, and withdraw from her associa tion with the Axis Powers.

However just and equitable this may have been from an American viewpoint

—considering the United States was will ing to take measures to ease Japan’s economic strain—it was too much to expect from Japan at this juncture. It asked her to reverse half a century of Japanese policy at a single stroke, to give up all that had been gained in China at such great cost since 1931, and to cast about once more for some solu tion to her needs for raw materials.

MEANWHILE, the pressure within Japan continued. Army and navy cliques who had been behind Japan ese aggression since 1931 and were now in control saw their own power and prestige hanging in the balance.

German advisers moved among them, pressing for action against the United States and Britain. British naval units moved to Singapore, American marines were withdrawn from Shanghai, Chur chill publicly promised immediate armed support to the United States, bellicose speeches were being made by responsible men in Japan and America, while the daily newspapers carried the information that the whole Pacific was on the alert.

It is difficult to decide when Japan made the decision to go to war, but it must have been soon after receiving Secretary Hull’s note of November 26.

Kurusu originally came to make a deal, but the last days of his negotia tions, whether he was aware of it or not, were used to gain time until Japanese naval units could reach Pearl Harbor for a surprise attack.

Supplies of a new twopenny stamp for Fiji, with a fresh design, showing the Government Buildings at Suva, are now on sale in the Colony.