Timeline - FCPS



Timeline

of

Japanese Expansion and Aggression

1900-1919

January 30, 1902: The first Anglo-Japanese Alliance (日英同盟, Nichi-Ei Dōmei?). The Alliance was signed at Lord Lansdowne’s home in London (now the Lansdowne Club), on January 30, 1902, by Lord Lansdowne (British foreign secretary) and Hayashi Tadasu (Japanese minister in London). A diplomatic milestone for its ending of Britain's splendid isolation, the alliance was renewed and extended in scope twice, in 1905 and 1911, before its demise in 1921. It officially terminated in 1923.

August 23, 1914: Japan declares war on Germany. Japanese ships joined with the British Royal Navy in attempting to prevent Admiral von Spee’s German Pacific squadron from escaping from Kiaochow. Japanese troops joined British forces from Wei-hai-Wei in besieging Kiaochow, the German colony on mainland China, which was taken after a 2-month siege on 7th November 1914. Meanwhile, Japanese troops moved to occupy the German Pacific islands of Palau, the Marianas, the Marshalls and the Carolines on 6th October. Japan gave naval assistance to the allies throughout the war. On 4th May 1917, the British troop-ship Transylvania was torpedoed. The escorting Japanese destroyer, Matsu rescued 2,500 soldiers from the water. Japanese soldiers duly took their place in the international victory parade in Paris on 14th July 1919.

January18, 1915: Japan issued to China the “Twenty-one demands”. These were divided into five groups of which the last aroused the most bitter controversy. Among other things it demanded that the Chinese should employ Japanese advisers in their affairs, that the Japanese should have the right to build hospitals and schools in the Chinese interior, that a jointly administered Japanese and Chinese arsenal should be set up, and that the control of certain Chinese railways, together with the right of construction, should be in the hands of the Japanese. Under protest this group was omitted, but a revised list, together with an ultimatum of acceptance, was presented to China in May. Bitter resentment against Japan prevailed in China for some years over the ‘Twenty-one Demands’. They also brought Japan into difficulties with the USA, which were only ended by an agreement between the two countries signed on 2 November 1917. The Demands in part reflected Japanese impatience with China's apparent inability to modernize by itself, but were also a foretaste of future Japanese designs on Chinese sovereignty.

1919: The Treaty of Versailles. Japan received, under mandate from the League of Nations, the former German colonies of the Caroline, Marshall, Mariana, and Palau islands, together with Kiaochow (today: Jiaozhou). The difficulty with China, resulting from this latter award, was the subject of the Pacific section of the Washington Conference of 1921–22. Jiaozhou, together with other former German territory in Shandong province, was returned to China, while a treaty of naval disarmament between Japan, Britain, France, Italy, and the USA was concluded. The Anglo-Japanese Alliance was merged in and replaced by a four-power treaty concluded between Japan, Britain, France, and the USA, aiming at the maintenance of the status quo in the Pacific.

The 1920s

The 1920s are known, as the era of “Taisho Democracy”, for they were years of social and intellectual emancipation. A vigorous, if small, women's movement grew up, and there seemed a possibility that women would be given the vote after all adult males over the age of 25 had gained this right in 1925. Liberal ideas and information about foreign countries reached a wider public through mass-circulation newspapers and magazines, and through the radio.

November 1921 to February 1922 The Washington Naval Conference and Washington Naval Treaty. Also known as the Five-Power Treaty, the treaty limited the naval armaments of its five signatories: the United States, the British Empire, the Empire of Japan, the French Third Republic, and Italy.

The treaty was signed by representatives of the treaty nations on 6 February 1922. The Naval treaty had a profound effect on the Japanese, many of whom saw the 5:5:3 ratio of ships as another way of being snubbed by the West (in fact, the Japanese, having a one-ocean navy, had a far greater concentration of force than the two-ocean United States Navy or the three-ocean Royal Navy). It also contributed to a schism in high ranks of the Imperial Japanese Navy; on one hand were the Treaty Faction officers, and on the other were their opponents who were also allied to the ultranationalists in the Japanese army and other parts of the Japanese government. For Treaty Faction opponents, the Treaty was one of the factors which contributed to the deterioration of the relationship between the United States and the Japanese Empire. The unfairness, at least in the eyes of the Japanese, is also what led to Japan's renunciation of the Naval Limitation Treaties in 1934.

September 1, 1923: The 1923 Great Kantō earthquake (関東大震災, Kantō daishinsai). The quake struck the Kantō plain on the Japanese main island of Honshū at 11:58 on the morning of September 1, 1923. The phrase "Great Kanto earthquake" usually means this earthquake, but is sometimes used to refer to the Ansei-Edo Earthquake of 1855 (安政の大地震). The quake was later estimated to have had a magnitude between 7.9 and 8.4 on the Richter scale, with its epicenter under Sagami Bay. Varied accounts hold that the duration was between 4 and 10 minutes. It devastated Tokyo, the port city of Yokohama, surrounding prefectures of Chiba, Kanagawa, and Shizuoka, and caused widespread damage throughout the Kantō region. Casualty estimates range from about 100,000 to 142,000 deaths, the latter figure including approximately 37,000 who went missing and were presumed dead.

1924: New US Immigration Law. In domestic affairs, both during and after World War I, Japan underwent extremely rapid industrial development, but had not escaped war profiteering, and this, coupled with the increased cost of living, caused resentment and rioting. The growth of rudimentary trade unions influenced successive governments to pass badly needed factory legislation, but Japanese living standards still remained low in comparison with those of Western Europe and the USA. Japan's rapidly increasing population caused serious pressures on the economy.

In 1924, the new US Immigration Law forbade Asians to enter the USA, which was deeply resented in Japan as racist legislation. Henceforward, Japanese designs on the comparatively empty spaces of the Chinese mainland, originally the views of a limited military clique, gained increasing popular approval, although the Japanese proved in reality to be reluctant emigrants.

December 25, 1926: Emperor Yoshihito (Taisho) dies. Emperor Taisho was the 123rd emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession. World War I occurred during his reign and as a result of the war, the Japanese empire expanded to include Germany's former colonies in the central Pacific (the Caroline Islands, Mariana Islands and Palau), as well as the German military port of Tsingtao on Shandong peninsula on the Chinese mainland. Japan was recognized as one of the great powers in the new post-war world order, and became a founding member of the League of Nations.

April 20, 1927: Baron Tanaka Giichi becomes prime minister. A former general in the Imperial Japanese Army, politician, and the 26th Prime Minister of Japan from 20 April 1927 to 2 July 1929, Tanaka came into office even as forces were already beginning to converge that would draw Japan into World War II. In 1928, however, the machinations of the ultranationalist secret societies and the Kwantung Army resulted in a crisis: the assassination of the Manchurian warlord Zhang Zuolin and the failed attempt to seize Manchuria. Tanaka himself was taken by surprise by the assassination plot, and argued that the officers responsible should be publicly court-martialed for homicide. The military establishment, from which Tanaka was by now estranged, insisted on covering up the facts of the incident, which remained an official secret. Bereft of support, and under mounting criticism in Diet and even from Emperor Hirohito himself, Tanaka and his cabinet resigned en masse.

Tanaka became best known for the so-called Tanaka Memorial (1927), an outline of Japanese plans for foreign conquest, but his authorship has since been questioned. The Tanaka Memorial advocated the conquest of Manchuria, Mongolia, and eventually the whole of China. He was alleged to have presented the plan to the Emperor in 1927. At the time, the Japanese government claimed the document was a forgery by Chinese agents, although it is now believed the document either originated with the United States or Great Britain.

November 10, 1928: Hirohito (Showa) is formally installed as emperor. Emperor Shōwa (昭和天皇, Shōwa Tennō) (April 29, 1901 – January 7, 1989) was the 124th emperor of Japan according to the traditional order of succession, reigning from December 25, 1926 until his death in 1989. In the Western World, he is most known by the name he had while he was alive, Hirohito. His reign was the longest of any historical Japanese emperor, and he oversaw many significant changes to Japanese society.

July 2, 1929: Hamaguchi Osachi becomes prime minister. A Japanese politician and the 27th Prime Minister of Japan from 2 July 1929 to 14 April 1931, Hamaguchi Osachi was called the "Lion prime minister"(ライオン宰相) due to his physical features In his term of office, Hamaguchi attempted to strengthen the Japanese economy through fiscal austerity measures. Hamaguchi's fiscal policy, however, proved disastrous. The Hamaguchi government put Japanese Yen on the gold standard to help stimulate exports, a measure that greatly worsened the impact of the worldwide Great Depression of 1929 on the already feeble economy. This failure of Hamaguchi’s economic played into the hands of right-wing elements, already enraged by the government's conciliatory foreign policies and efforts to reduce military spending.

October 1929: Great Depression Begins. The contraction of world trade between 1929 and 1932 had a catastrophic impact on Japan.

The 1930s

November 14, 1930: Hamaguchi is wounded in an assassination attempt. Hamaguchi fell victim to an assassination attempt on 14 November 1930 when he was shot in Tokyo Station by Tomeo Sagoya, a member of the Aikoku-sha ultranationalist secret society. The wounds kept Hamaguchi hospitalized for several months, but he struggled through physical weakness to win the February 1931 election. He returned to his post in March of 1931 but resigned a month later to be replaced by Reijiro Wakatsuki.

1931

April 14, 1931: Hamaguchi dies and Wakatsuki Reijiro becomes prime minister. Wakatsuki Reijiro was a Japanese politician and the 25th and 28th Prime Minister of Japan. Opposition politicians of the time derogatorily labeled him Usotsuki Reijiro, or "Reijiro the Liar". Serving as chief delegate plenipotentiary to the London Naval Conference, he pushed strongly for speedy ratification of the disarmament treaty, thus earning the wrath of the Japanese military and various ultranationalist groups. After Prime Minister Hamaguchi was forced out of office by the severe injuries he incurred in an assassination attempt, Wakatsuki assumed the leadership of the Rikken Minseito, the successor to the Kenseikai. He once again became Prime Minister from 14 April 1931 to 13 December 1931. During Wakatsuki’s second term, he failed to control the Army, and was unable either to prevent the Manchurian Incident from occurring, or to rein in the Army from further escalation of hostilities in China afterwards. After his retirement from the Prime Ministry, he strongly opposed the war against the United States, and after the declaration of hostilities, publicly stated the war should end as quickly as possible.

September 18, 1931: The Second Sino-Japanese War starts with the “Mukden Incident”. The Mukden Incident of September 18, 1931, known in Japanese as the “Manchurian Incident”, occurred in southern Manchuria when a section of railroad, owned by Japan's South Manchuria Railway, near Mukden (today's Shenyang) was blown up by Japanese junior officers. Imperial Japan's military accused Chinese dissidents of the act, thus providing a pretext for the Japanese annexation of Manchuria. The incident represented an early event in the Second Sino-Japanese War, although full-scale war would not start until 1937. In Chinese, this incident is referred to as the “September 18 Incident” (Chinese: 九·一八事变/九·一八事變) or “Liutiaogou Incident” (Chinese:柳條溝事變), or in Japanese as the Manchurian Incident (Kyūjitai: 滿洲事變, Shinjitai: 満州事変).

December 13, 1931: Inukai Tsuyoshi becomes prime minister. Inukai Tsuyoshi was a Japanese politician and the 29th Prime Minister of Japan from 13 December 1931 to 15 May 1932. At the time, Japan was in a serious economic situation due to the effects of the Great Depression of 1929, and its untimely return to the gold standard. Inukai's government immediately took steps to inflate the economy and to place an embargo on gold exports. However, Inukai was unable to impose fiscal restraint on the military, nor was he able to control the military’s designs on China after the Manchurian Incident.

1932

January 18, 1932: Japanese monks “attacked” in Shanghai. The Japanese military planned to increase its influence in China further, especially into Shanghai where it had concessions. In order to achieve this, the Japanese needed to create some incidents to provide some pretexts justifying further military action in China. On January 18, Japanese spy Kawashima Yoshiko organized the beating of five Japanese monks near the Sanyou Factory (Traditional Chinese: 三友實業社; Pinyin: sānyǒushíyèshè) and blamed it on Chinese citizens. In retribution, some instigated Japanese men burnt down the factory; killed one and hurt several police officers sent by the Chinese authorities. This caused an upsurge of anti-Japanese protests against Japanese presence in the city and its concessions, as residents of Shanghai marched onto the streets. The Chinese called for a boycott of Japanese goods.

January 29, 1932: Japanese forces shell Shanghai. The “January 28 Incident” (January 28 - March 3, 1932) was a short war between the armies of the Nationalist (Kuomintang) Republic of China and the Empire of Japan, before official hostilities of the Second Sino-Japanese War commenced in 1937. In Chinese literature, it is known as the January 28 Incident, while in Western sources it is often known as the Shanghai War of 1932 or simply the Shanghai Incident. In Japan, it is known as the

First Shanghai Incident, alluding to the Second Shanghai Incident, the Japanese name for the Battle of Shanghai that occurred during the opening stages of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937.

February 29, 1932: Manchukuo is established with Henry Pu Yi, last Manchurian (Qing) Emperor of China named as Emperor of “Manchukuo”- Manchukuo (1932–1945, 満州国, lit. "State of Manchuria") was a puppet state in Manchuria and eastern Inner Mongolia created by former Qing Dynasty officials with help from Imperial Japan in 1932. The state was founded and administered by Imperial Japan, with Puyi, the last Qing emperor, as the nominal regent and emperor. Manchukuo's government was abolished in 1945 after the defeat of Imperial Japan at the end of World War II. Despite the name, Manchus were only a minority in Manchukuo, whose largest ethnic group were Han Chinese.

May 15, 1932: Inukai is assassinated during a coup attempt and Saito Makoto becomes prime minister. Inukai's struggle against the military led to his assassination during the “May 15 Incident of 1932”, which effectively marked the end of civilian political control over government decisions until after World War II. Japanese admiral and statesman, a moderate militarist, his selection as prime minister (1932–34) to replace Inukai, who had been assassinated, signaled the end of prewar party cabinets. Saito's cabinet was torn by the struggle between the war minister, who advocated expansionist aims in China, and the finance minister, who unsuccessfully opposed greater military expenditures. In 1936, Saito became keeper of the privy seal, a position close to the emperor. During the abortive military uprising of Feb. 26, 1936, he too was assassinated by young militarists.

December 7, 1932: Japan is censured by the League of Nations. In December 1931, the League appointed a commission of inquiry in Manchuria under Lord Lytton, whose report (October 1932) made suggestions for setting up a special regime in Manchuria, recognizing Chinese sovereignty and at the same time safeguarding Japan's rights

1933

March 27, 1933: Japan leaves the League of Nations. The policy of international cooperation followed since 1868 now seemed bankrupt to many. The world depression had hit Japan's silk producers badly, most of them peasants who needed this subsidiary source of income desperately. In north Japan there was also a succession of bad harvests, which forced a significant number of tenants to leave their homes or to sell their daughters into prostitution. Many starved. Their distress was reflected in the anger of the young officers who had contact with peasant conscripts. Already indignant with party cabinets for pursuing a ‘weak’ policy – which in their view encouraged rather than contained Chinese nationalism and the ambitions of Soviet Russia – they believed that Japan was facing a crisis that could only be solved by a ‘ Shōwa Restoration’, an institutional and policy revolution as radical as the one which had been initiated by the Meiji restoration of 1868.

July 8, 1934: Okada Keisuke becomes prime minister. Okada Keisuke was an admiral in the Imperial Japanese Navy, then politician and the 31st Prime Minister of Japan from 8 July 1934 to 9 March 1936. He was one of the democratic and moderate voices against the increasing strength of the militarists, and was therefore a major target for extremist forces pushing for a more totalitarian Japan. He narrowly escaped assassination in the February 26 Incident of 1936, largely because rebel troops killed his brother-in-law by mistake, as well as his personal secretary, Colonel Denzō Matsuo. Okada emerged from hiding on 29 February 1936. During World War II, Okada played a leading role in the overthrow of the Hideki Tōjō cabinet in 1944.

1934

December 29, 1934: Japan withdraws from the Washington Naval Treaty.

1936

February 26, 1936: Coup attempt (“February 26 Incident”). The February 26 Incident (二・二六事件, Ni-niroku jiken?) was an attempted coup d'État in Japan, on 26-29 February 1936, launched by the radical ultranationalist Kōdō-ha faction of the Imperial Japanese Army. Several leading politicians were killed, and the center of Tokyo was briefly held by the insurgents before the coup was suppressed. The story behind the February 26 Incident has always been controversial in Japan, and has been the subject of many movies and fictional stories. Famous works include Yukio Mishima's Patriotism, Jun Takami's Gekiryu (Turbulent Waves) and Takeda Taijun's Kizoku no kaidan (The Steps of the Aristocrats). Although there is no conclusive evidence to support their position, some believe that Emperor Hirohito's younger brother, Prince Chichibu Yasuhito, was behind the February 26 Incident in an attempt to seize the throne for himself. Other conspiracy theorists have gone as far as to say that Emperor Hirohito and his cohorts actually faked the rebellion to create the perception of a need for stronger internal security measures.

March 9, 1936: Hirota Koki becomes prime minister. Hirota Koki was a Japanese diplomat, politician and the 32nd Prime Minister of Japan from March 9, 1936 to February 2, 1937.

In 1936, with the radical factions within the Japanese military discredited following the February 26 Incident, Hirota was selected to replace Admiral Okada Keisuke as Prime Minister of Japan. However, Hirota placated the military by reinstating the system by which only active duty Army or Navy officers could serve in the post of War Minister or Navy Minister – a system which the military had abused in the past to bring down civilian governments. In terms of foreign policy, the Anti-Comintern Pact with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy was signed under his cabinet. This treaty was the predecessor to the Tripartite Pact of 1940.

Hirota's term lasted for slightly less than a year. After the disagreement with Hisaichi Terauchi who was serving as the War Minister, over the speech by Kunimatsu Hamada, he resigned from his position. Kazushige Ugaki was appointed, but unable to form the government due to Army's opposition. In February 1937, General Hayashi Senjuro, was appointed to replace him. Hirota soon returned to government service as Foreign Minister under Hayashi's successor, Prince Konoe Fumimaro. While Foreign Minister, Hirota strongly opposed the military’s aggression against China, which completely undermined his efforts to create a Japan-China-Manchukou alliance against the Soviet Union. He also spoke out repeatedly against the escalation of the Second Sino-Japanese War. The military soon tired of his criticism, and forced his retirement in 1938.

In 1945, however, Hirota returned to government service to lead Japanese peace negotiations with the Soviet Union. At the time, Japan and the USSR were still under a non-aggression pact, even though the other Allied Powers had all declared war on Japan. Hirota attempted to persuade Josef Stalin's government to stay out of the war, but he ultimately failed: the Soviet Union declared war on Japan in between the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Following Japan's surrender, Hirota was arrested as a Class A war criminal and was brought before the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. He offered no defense and was found guilty He was sentenced to hang, and was executed at Sugamo Prison. The severity of his sentence remains controversial, as Hirota was the only civilian executed as a result of the Tokyo trials.

November 25, 1936: Japan signs its first pact with Germany. The Anti-Comintern Pact was concluded between Nazi Germany and Japan on November 25, 1936. In 1937, Italy also joined the pact, which was directed against the Communist International (Comintern) in general, and the Soviet Union in particular.

December 3, 1936: Japanese Army reoccupies Tsingtao, China. Qingdao (Simplified Chinese: 青岛; Traditional Chinese: 青島; Pinyin: Qīngdǎo; Wade-Giles: Ch'ing-tao), well-known to the West by its Postal map spelling Tsingtao, is a sub-provincial city in eastern Shandong province, People's Republic of China. In 1891, the Qing Government decided to make the area a primary defense base against naval attacks, and planned the construction of a city. Little was done, however, until 1897 when the city was ceded to Germany.

The Germans soon turned Tsingtao into a strategically important port that was administered by the Department of the Navy (Reichsmarineamt) rather than the Colonial Office (Reichskolonialamt). They based here their Far East Squadron, allowing the fleet to conduct operations throughout the Pacific. The German Imperial government planned and built the first streets and institutions of the city we see today, including the world-famous Tsingtao Brewery. German influence extended to other areas of Shandong Province, including the establishment of rival breweries. After a subsequent minor British naval attack on the German colony in 1914, Japan occupied the city and the surrounding province during the Siege of Tsingtao after Japan's declaration of war on Germany in accordance with the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. The city reverted to Chinese rule in 1922, under control of the Republic of China. The city became a direct-controlled municipality of the ROC Government in 1929. Japan re-occupied Qingdao with its plans of territorial expansion onto China's coast. After World War II the Nationalist Chinese (KMT) allowed Qingdao to serve as the headquarters of the Western Pacific Fleet of the US Navy. On 2nd June, 1949, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-led Red Army entered Qingdao and the city and province have been under the Peoples’Republic of China (PRC) control since that time.

December 3, 1936: Mengchiang established in Inner Mongolia. Mengjiang (Chinese: 蒙疆; Pinyin: Měngjiāng; Wade-Giles: Meng-chiang; Postal map spelling: Mengkiang), also known in English as Mongol Border Land, was a puppet state in

Inner Mongolia controlled by Japan. It consisted of the then-provinces of Chahar and Suiyuan, corresponding to the central part of modern Inner Mongolia. It is occasionally called Mengkukuo or Mongokuo, after Manchukuo, another Japanese puppet state in China.

Japan possessed very few mining resources. There are coal deposits in Hokkaidō and Kyūshū (close to Nagasaki). Japan obtained other industrial quality coal from Korea (Chosen), Manchukuo and the Occupied China mainland. The Japanese had mineral interests in their created state of Mengjiang. One example was Japanese put in production the iron mine in Hsuanhua-Lungyen with a reserve of 91,645,000 tonnes in 1941; and analyzed the reserves of Coal in land, ones 504 tonnes and one potential production of 202,000 of tonnes (1934). The state disappeared in 1945 when it was invaded by Russian and Mongol Red Army forces as part of Operation August Storm, the Soviet attack on Imperial Japan in the final weeks of World War II. It became part of Inner Mongolia of the People's Republic of China.

1937

February 2, 1937: Hayashi Senjuro becomes prime minister. Hayashi was an Imperial Japanese Army commander of the Joseon Army in Korea during the Mukden Incident and the invasion of Manchuria, and a Japanese politician and the 33rd Prime Minister of Japan from February 2, 1937 to June 4, 1937. Hayashi was a supporter of Sadao Araki, along with Shigeru Honjo who was commander of the Kwantung Army-the Japanese Army in China. .

The Toseiha faction within the Imperial Japanese Army scored a victory in January 1934 when General Araki was forced to step down, after the excesses of the Kwantung Army, and his replacement was one of their own, General Hayashi. The struggle between the factions (Toseiha and Kodaha) continued below the surface of the government; and the war in North China carried on apace until February of 1936. He also promoted Fumimaro Konoye's doctrines, as a "right-winger" amongst the militarists, who approved of the "fiction" of democracy, and the Emperor's role with an "adviser group", againsy "left-winger" radical militarists. The latter, led by Kingoro Hashimoto, wanted a Military Shogunate (under the patronage of Baron Hiranuma). In 1938 Hayashi retired from the military and became Prime Minister of Japan in 1937. Later from 1940 to 1941 he was a Privy Councillor. He died in 1943.

June 4, 1937: Prince Konoe Fumimaro becomes prime minister. Prine Konoe was a Japanese politician and the 34th (June 4, 1937–January 5, 1939), 38th (July 22, 1940–July 18, 1941) and 39th (July 18, 1941–October 18, 1941) Prime Minister of Japan. Prince Fumimaro Konoe was born into the ancient Fujiwara clan, and was the heir of the princely Konoe family in Tokyo. This was a highly prestigious Japanese family, so lofty that the older and more powerful noble, Saionji Kinmochi, addressed the young student as “your excellency” when he first met him. The Prince received a broad education, acquiring both German and English. He was particularly drawn to Socialist writings, and at age 23 translated and published Oscar Wilde’s The Soul of Man Under Socialism.

In June 1937, Prince Konoe Fumimaro became Prime Minister of Japan. Saionji had recommended Konoe to emperor Showa despite his hesitations, because he felt that the Prince might be able to keep the Army in check and protect the position of the Emperor. One month after he came into office, Japanese troops clashed with Chinese troops near Peking Marco Polo Bridge Incident. The Kwantung Army and its homeland allies saw this as an opportunity to seize northern China. Konoe yielded to pressure and dispatched three divisions of troops. He admonished the military to be sure not to escalate the conflict. The Army had no such intention, and within three weeks it launched a general assault.

Prime Minister Konoe began to realize that he was in a very difficult predicament. Much as he wished to contain the conflict, even considering personal diplomacy with Chiang Kai-shek , the Nationalist ruler of China, he and his cabinet feared that Japanese troops would not respect any peace agreement. He was also unsure that Chiang could control his own forces. In August, Chinese soldiers murdered two Japanese marines in Shanghai. Konoe agreed with the Army Minister to send two divisions to defend Japanese honor. His cabinet then issued a declaration, accusing both nationalist and communist Chinese of "increasingly provocative and insulting" behavior toward Japan. Konoe was also discouraged over his failure to negotiate an end to the conflict in China Sino-Japanese War, having broken off the Trautmann Mediation with Chiang Kai-Shek (Jiang Jieshi). This action was also of great importance for the Communist Party of China, as it has been argued that following the Rape of Nanking Chiang Kai-Shek's failure to break off the Trautmann Mediation led to the perception that the entire Kuomintang was weak. Kiichiro Hiranuma succeeded Konoe as Prime Minister.

July 7, 1937: Battle of Lugou (“Marco Polo”) Bridge. The “Marco Polo Bridge Incident” (盧溝橋事變; also known as 七七事變, 七七盧溝橋事變 or the Lugouqiao Incident) was a battle between the Republic of China's National Revolutionary Army and the Empire of Japan's Imperial Japanese Army, marking the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-

1945). It is known as “The Marco Polo Bridge” because the bridge was believed to be described in the works of Marco Polo. Lugouqiao literally means "Reed-gutter Bridge".

The Lugou Bridge was the choke point of the Pinghan Railway (Beijing-Wuhan), and guarded the only passage linking Beijing to Kuomintang-controlled area from the south.

Near the Marco Polo Bridge, on the night of July 7, 1937, a Japanese regiment was holding an unscheduled maneuver. At 11:40 p.m. several shots were heard. A quick rollcall revealed one private missing. The Japanese commander demanded a search of the nearby city of Wanping for the missing soldier. When this was rejected by the Nationalist Chinese, a skirmish ensued and on the next day, the Japanese commander issued an ultimatum calling for the surrender of Wanping.

On July 9, the parties agreed to a truce. It was broken only two hours later, however. Despite seeming like a minor scuffle, the Marco Polo Bridge Incident ended up leading to full scale war between Japan and Nationalist China. Japanese troops overwhelmed the railway junction in the nearby town of Wanping and incited Chinese troops to attack their position. The Chinese attack failed, giving Japan however an excuse to attack and occupy Peking (Beijing). When the bridge fell, Beijing was completely cut off and easily captured.

The Chinese Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek, strengthened and encouraged by German military aid and Western economic assistance, refused to make the concessions demanded by Japan, and the Konoe cabinet, overruling the general staff, gambled that a quick military campaign would bring China to its knees.

It didn’t.

July 31, 1937: Japan captures Beijing (Peiping (Peking)). With the fall of Beijing on 29 July and Tiensin (Tianjin) on July 30th, the North China Plain was helpless against Japanese mechanized divisions who occupied it by the end of the year. The Chinese armies were on constant retreat until the hard fought Chinese victory at Taierzhuang (Tai'er Zhuang—today Tái'érzhūang Huìzhàn)

December 13, 1937: Japanese troops occupy Nanjing (Nanching, capital of Nationalist (Kuomintang)China), beginning the Nanjing massacre. The “Nanking Massacre”, commonly known as the “Rape of Nanking,” was an infamous war crime committed by the Japanese military in and around the then capital of China, Nanjing, after it fell to the Imperial Japanese Army on December 13, 1937. (At the time, Nanjing was known in English as Nanking).

The duration of the massacre is not clearly defined, although the violence lasted well into the next six weeks, until early February 1938. During the occupation of Nanjing, the Japanese army committed numerous atrocities, such as rape, looting, arson and the execution of prisoners of war and civilians. Although the executions began under the pretext of eliminating Chinese soldiers disguised as civilians, a large number of innocent men were intentionally identified as enemy combatants and executed—or simply killed outright—as the massacre gathered momentum. A large number of women and children were also killed, as rape and murder became more widespread.

The extent of the atrocities is debated between China and Japan, with numbers ranging from some Japanese claims of several hundred, to the Chinese claim of a non-combatant death toll of 300,000. A number of Japanese researchers consider 100,000 – 200,000 to be an approximate value. Other nations usually believe the death toll to be between 150,000 – 300,000. This number was first promulgated in January of 1938 by Harold Timperly, a journalist in China during the Japanese invasion, based on reports from contemporary eyewitnesses. Other sources, including Iris Chang's The Rape of Nanking, also promote 300,000 as the death toll.

Condemnation of the massacre is a major focal point of Chinese nationalism. In Japan, however, public opinion over the severity of the massacre remains widely divided - this is evidenced by the fact that whereas some Japanese commentators refer to it as the “Nanking massacre” (南京大虐殺, Nankin daigyakusatsu?), others use the more ambivalent term “Nanking Incident” (南京事件, Nankin jiken?).

The 1937 massacre continues to be a point of contention and controversy in Sino-Japanese relations.

1938

March 24, 1938: Battle of Taierzhuang. (Traditional Chinese: 臺兒莊會戰; Simplified Chinese: 台儿庄会战; Pinyin: Tái'érzhūang Huìzhàn) was a battle of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1938, between armies of Chinese Kuomintang and Japan, and is sometimes considered as a part of Battle of Xuzhoua.

A frontier garrison northeast of Xuzhou, Taierzhuang was also the terminus of a local branch railway from Lincheng. Xuzhou itself was the joint of Jinpu Railway (Tianjin-Pukou) and Longhai Railway (Lanzhou-Lianyungang) and the headquarters of the KMT's 5th War Zone. The battle involved a Japanese plan to conquer Xuzhou, a major city in the east. However, the Japanese failed to consider the plans of generals Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi, who planned to encircle the

Japanese in the town of Tai'erzhuang. Overconfidence led the Japanese commanders to overlook the thousands of indiscriminate "farmers" in the area, who infiltrated and cut communication lines and supplies, diverted streams, and ruined rail lines. By late March, supplies and fuel were being dropped from airplanes to Japanese troops, but the quantities were insufficient.

The Chinese scored a major victory, the first of the Nationalist alliance in the war. The battle broke the myth of Japanese military invincibility and resulted in an incalculable benefit to Chinese morale.

July 29, 1938 – August 11, 1938 The Battle of Lake Khasan. Also known as the Changkufeng Incident (Chinese & Japanese: 張鼓峰事件, Chinese pinyin: Zhānggǔfēng Shìjiàn, Japanese pronunciation: Chōkohō Jiken) in China and Japan, was an attempted military incursion of Manchukuo (Japanese) into the territory claimed by the Soviet Union.

This incursion was founded in the beliefs of the Japanese side that the Soviet Union misinterpreted the demarcation of the boundary based on the Treaty of Peking between Imperial Russia and Manchu China (and subsequent supplementary agreements on demarcation), and furthermore, that the demarcation markers were tampered with.

This incident has been mostly unnoticed in the West, since the initial aggression of Japan in Asia has traditionally not been counted into World War II. However, Soviet losses were significant, and the Japanese military, while taking the lesson seriously, was willing to engage with the Soviets once more, in the more extensive battle of Kalhin Gol in 1939.

Poor Soviet fighting was blamed on the incompetence of Vasily Blyukher. He was arrested by the NKVD and executed.

October 21, 1938 Canton falls to Japanese forces. Known by an older English-language name, Canton, Guangzhou is the capital and the sub-provincial city of Guangdong (Kuantung) Province in the southern part of the People's Republic of China. It is a port on the Pearl River, navigable to the South China Sea, and is located about 120 km (75 miles) northwest of Hong Kong. Japanese troops occupied Guangzhou from 1938-10-12 to 1945-09-16, after violent bombings.

The Imperial Japanese Army established in the city the bacteriological research unit 8604, a section of unit 731, where Japanese doctors experimented on human prisoners.

Communist forces entered the city on October 14, 1949. Their urban renewal projects improved the lives of some residents. New housing on the shores of the Pearl River provided homes for the poor boat people. Reforms by Deng Xiaoping, who came to power in the late 1970s, led to rapid economic growth due to the city's close proximity to Hong Kong and access to the Pearl River.

1939

January 5, 1939: Hiranuma Kiichiro becomes prime minister. Hiranuma Kiichiro (28 September 1867 - 22 August 1952) was a prominent pre-World War II right-wing Japanese politician and the 35th Prime Minister of Japan from 5 January 1939 to 30 August 1939. Hiranuma was appointed Prime Minister of Japan from 5 January 1939 to 30 August 1939.

As Prime Minister, his administration was dominated by the debate on whether or not Japan should ally itself with Nazi Germany in order to neutralize the threat posed to Japan by the Soviet Union. Hiranuma wanted an anti-communist pact, but feared that a military alliance would commit Japan to war against the United States and Great Britain at a time when the bulk of its armed forces were committed to the Second Sino-Japanese War. With the signing of the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact in August 1939, Hiranuma’s cabinet resigned over this foreign policy issue and over the massive defeat of the Japanese Army in Mongolia during the Nomonhan Incident against the Soviet Union.

11 May 1939: The Battle of Khalkhyn Gol. (Mongolian: Халхын голын байлдаан; Japanese: ノモンハン事件 Nomonhan jiken), named after the river Khalkhyn Gol passing through the battlefield and known in Japan as the Nomonhan Incident (after a nearby village on the border between Mongolia and Manchuria), was the decisive engagement of the undeclared Soviet-Japanese Border War (1939), or Japanese-Soviet War.

In 1939, Manchuria was a puppet state of Japan, known as Manchukuo. The Japanese maintained that the border between Manchukuo and Mongolia was the Khalkhyn Gol (English "Khalkha River") which flows into Lake Buir, while the Mongolians and their Soviet allies maintained that it ran some 16 kilometres (10 miles) east of the river, just east of Nomonhan villageEstimates of casualties are uncertain.

Some sources hold that the Japanese suffered 45,000 or more soldiers killed with Russian casualties extending upwards of 17,000 men, while the Japanese officially reported 8,440 killed and 8,766 wounded, and the Russians initially claimed 9,284 total casualties. These figures were obviously subject to propaganda purposes and were entirely too low. In recent years, with

the opening of the Soviet archives, a more accurate assessment of Soviet casualties has emerged from the work of Grigoriy Krivosheev, citing 7,974 killed and 15,251 wounded. Similar research into Japanese casualties has yet to take place.

Although this engagement is little-known in the West, it had profound implications on the conduct of World War II. It may be said to be the first decisive battle of World War II, because it determined that the two principal Axis Powers, Germany and Japan, would never geographically link up their areas of control through Russia.

The defeat convinced the Imperial General Staff in Tokyo that the policy of the North Strike Group, favoured by the army, which wanted to seize Siberia as far as Lake Baikal for its resources, was untenable. Instead the South Strike Group, favored by the navy, which wanted to seize the resources of Southeast Asia, especially the petroleum and mineral-rich Dutch East Indies, gained the ascendancy, leading directly to the attack on Pearl Harbor two and a half years later in December 1941. The Japanese would never make an offensive movement towards Russia again. In 1941, the two countries signed agreements respecting the borders of Mongolia and Manchukuo and pledging neutrality towards each other. They remained at peace until Operation August Storm and the Soviet conquest of Manchuria in August 1945, in the final week of the war.

It was the first victory for the soon-to-be-famous Soviet general Georgy Zhukov, earning him the first of his four Hero of the Soviet Union awards. Zhukov himself was promoted and transferred west to the Kiev district. The battle experience gained by Zhukov was put to good use in December 1941 at the Battle of Moscow. Zhukov was able to use this experience to launch the first successful Soviet counteroffensive against the German invasion of 1941. Many units of the Siberian and other trans-Ural armies were part of this attack, and the decision to move the divisions from Siberia was aided by the Soviet masterspy Richard Sorge in Tokyo, who was able to alert the Soviet government that the Japanese were looking south and were unlikely to launch another attack against Siberia in the immediate future.

A year after flinging the Germans back from the capital, Zhukov planned and executed the Russian attack at the Battle of Stalingrad, using a technique very similar to Khalkin Gol, in which the Soviet forces held the enemy fixed in the center, built up a mass of force in the area undetected, and launched a pincer attack on the wings to trap the enemy army.

August 30, 1939: Abe Nobuyuki becomes prime minister. A general in the Imperial Japanese Army, Governor-General of Korea, and 36th Prime Minister of Japan from 30 August 1939 to 16 January 1940, Abe Nobuyuki was not the obvious first choice as Prime Minister after the collapse of the Hiranuma Kiichiro cabinet. From the civilian side, Konoe Fumimaro or Hirota Koki were regarded as front-runners; however the Army and the ultranationalists strongly supported General Ugaki Kazushige. After genrō Saionji Kinmochi declared his disinterest in any of the candidates, the Army was poised to have its way. However, Ugaki fell ill and was hospitalized.

The interim War Minister General Abe Nobuyuki was a compromise. Abe had the advantage of belonging to neither the Toseiha nor the Kodoha factions and was supported by the Navy; on the other hand he was despised by many senior Army officers for his total lack of any combat experience. Abe became Prime Minister on 30 August 1939. He concurrently held the portfolio of Foreign Minister during his term in office.

During his short four month tenure, Abe sought to quickly end the Second Sino-Japanese War, and to maintain Japan's neutrality in the growing European conflict. He was opposed to efforts by elements within the Army to form a military alliance with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Lacking in support from either the military or the political parties, Abe was replaced by Mitsumasa Yonai in January 1940.

1940

January 16, 1940: Yonai Mitsumasa becomes prime minister. An admiral in the Imperial Japanese Navy, and politician, Yonai Mitsumasa was the 37th Prime Minister of Japan from 16 January 1940 to 22 July 1940. Yonai was appointed Prime Minister of Japan from 6 January 1940, largely with the backing of Emperor Hirohito.

As Prime Minister, he continued the strong pro-British, pro-American stance he held as Navy Minister and continued his strong opposition to the Tripartite Pact with Nazi Germany and fascist Italy. Yonai was forced to resign on 21 July 1940, largely due to pressure from the pro-Axis Imperial Japanese Army. The Tripartite Pact was signed on 27 September 1940.

July 22, 1940: Konoe becomes prime minister for a second term. The Army engineered Konoe's recall in July, 1940. One of his first moves was to launch the “League of Diet Members Believing the Objectives of the Holy War” to counter pacifists like deputy Saito Takao who had spoken against the "holy war" in China in the Diet on 2 February.

Against the advice of his political allies, and the misgivings of the Emperor, Konoe appointed Yosuke Matsuoka as his foreign minister. Matsuoka was on good terms with the Army—indeed, he had been recommended by the Army. He was also popular with the Japanese public, having established himself as the man who angrily led Japan out of the League in 1933. Matsuoka was described as inventive, eloquent, headstrong, and quick to anger. Konoe knew he was not acquiring a tame cabinet member, but he hoped that Matsuoka would be able to navigate the deeply complex international waters to Japan's advantage.

Konoe and Matsuoka based their foreign policy on a document that had been drawn up by the Army. Army theorists saw Japan standing on the verge of a new world. To secure its place, it must create a New Order in Greater East Asia, based on the proper alignment of Japan-Manchukuo-China. Dubbing this the "Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere," Matsuoka publicly announced that this should also include Indochina (nominally French) and the East Indies (nominally Dutch). Within the government, it was agreed that Japan would try to secure its position in China, defuse the conflict with the Soviet Union, move troops into Indochina, and prepare for a military response from Britain and possibly the United States.

August-September, 1940 Hundred Regiments Offensive. The Hundred Regiments Offensive (Chinese: 百团大战) (August 20, 1940 - December 5, 1940) was a major campaign of the Communist Party of China's Red Army commanded by Peng Dehuai against the Imperial Japanese Army in Central China. Between 1939 and 1940 the Japanese occupiers launched more than 109 small campaigns involving around 1000 combatants each and 10 large campaigns of 10000 men each to wipe out Communist guerrillas in the Hebei and Shandong plains. In addition, Wang Jingwei's anti-Communist puppet government had its offensive against the CCP guerillas. In addition, there was a general sentiment among the anti-Japanese resistance forces, particularly in the Kuomintang, that the CCP was not contributing enough to the war effort, and that they were only interested in expanding their power base.

It was out of these circumstances that the CCP planned to stage a great offensive to prove that they were helping the war effort and to amend KMT-CCP relations. When General Yasuji Okamura took command of the North China Area Army in the summer, the new approach was "Three All" meaning kill all, burn all, and destroy all in those areas containing communist forces. The population of the communist base areas dropped dramatically and communist operations were severely limited, with CCP forces reduced to 300,000 men. Communist control also reduced to 10 out of 437 counties in North China.

Mao used the subsequent rectification campaign to reassert his personal authority over the party and over military strategy, and this meant the abandonment of any serious communist challenge to the Japanese position in North China for the rest of the war. The Communists would only engage the Japanese in guerilla tactics and concentrate on rebuilding their own foothold in north China.

It is worth noting that, although the Communists rarely involve in major upfront combats against the Japanese, the CCP performed many guerilla warfairs against them. These battles, involving as many as 10,000 men, are rarely recorded officially in history. Most local CCP commanders simply ordered guerilla attacks and ambushs as they saw fit, instead of waiting for direct orders from the central command. These greatly helped China 's war efforts against the Japanese.

September 27, 1940 Japan occupies Indochina in the wake of the fall of Paris. Indochina, lies roughly east of India, south of China. In the strict sense, “Indochina” normally comprised the territory of the former French colony of Indochina: Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.

In September 1940, during World War II, the newly created regime of Vichy France, which was a puppet state of Nazi Germany, granted Japan's demands for military access to Tonkin.

This allowed Japan better access to China in the Second Sino-Japanese War against the forces of Chiang Kai-shek, but it was also part of Japan's strategy for dominion over the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. The Japanese kept the French bureaucracy and leadership in place to run French Indochina.

Thailand took this opportunity of weakness to reclaim previously lost territories, resulting in the French-Thai War between October, 1940 and May 9, 1941.

On March 9, 1945, with France liberated, Germany in retreat, and the United States ascendant in the Pacific, Japan decided to take complete control of Vietnam. The Japanese kept power until the news of their government's surrender came though in August.

September 27, 1940 Japan signs the Tripartite Pact. The Tripartite Pact, also called the Three-Power Pact, Axis Pact, Three-way Pact or Tripartite Treaty was a pact signed in Berlin, Germany on September 27, 1940 by Saburo Kurusu of Imperial Japan, Adolf Hitler of Nazi Germany, and Galeazzo Ciano (foreign minister of Italy) of Fascist Italy entering as a military alliance and officially founding the Axis Powers of World War II that opposed the Allied Powers.

The agreement formalized the Axis Powers' partnership, and can be read as a warning to the United States to remain neutral in World War II — or become involved in a war on two fronts. The three nations agreed that for the next ten years they would "stand by and co-operate with one another in... their prime purpose to establish and maintain a new order of things... to promote the mutual prosperity and welfare of the peoples concerned." They recognized each other's spheres of interest and undertook "to assist one another with all political, economic and military means when one of the three contracting powers is attacked" by a country not already involved in the war, excluding the Soviet Union. The pact supplemented the previous German-Japanese Agreement and the Anti-Comintern Pact, both of 1936 and helped overcome the rift that had developed between Japan and Germany following the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact signed by Germany and the Soviet Union in 1939. The Tripartite Pact was subsequently joined by Hungary (November 20, 1940), Romania (November 23, 1940), and Slovakia (November 24, 1940). Bulgaria joined on March 1, 1941, prior to the arrival of German troops.

1941

October 18, 1941: General Tojo Hideki becomes prime minister. Hideki Tojo (Kyūjitai: 東條 英機; Shinjitai: 東条 英機; Tōjō Hideki) (December 30, 1884 – December 23, 1948) A General in the Imperial Japanese Army and the 40th Prime Minister of Japan during much of World War II, from October 18, 1941 to July 22, 1944, he was sentenced to death for war crimes after the war and executed by hanging after a vote by judges of the International Military Tribunal of the Far East.

As Nazi Germany forces surged through Europe, the Japanese Army likewise pushed for war. The signal for war in the Pacific was given on August 26, 1941, at a session of the Black Dragon Society in Tokyo. At this meeting, War Minister Hideki Tōjō ordered that preparation be made to wage a total war against the Armed Forces of the United States, and that Japanese guns be mounted and supplies and munitions concentrated in the Marshall and Caroline Islands (Japanese mandates since World War I) by November, 1941. Approving Tōjō's war orders, former Foreign Minister Koki Hirota, head of the Black Dragons' secret service, discussed the advantages and consequences of a conflict with the United States.

Many of those at the meeting considered December 1941, or February 1942, the most suitable time for Japan to attack. Japan had invaded Indochina in July 1941 and, on August 1, the U. S. had in response imposed economic sanctions, freezing Japan's assets in the U. S. and imposing a total embargo on oil and gasoline exports. Tōjō was one of the advocates of war with the West, but Emperor Showa preferred to keep negotiating with the U. S. in hopes of avoiding conflict.

The prevailing opinion within the Japanese Army at that time was that continued negotiations could be dangerous but Hirohito thought that he might be able to control extreme opinions in the army by using the charismatic and well-connected Tōjō, although the emperor himself was skeptical. On October 13, he declared to Koichi Kido: '"There seems little hope in the present situation for the Japan-U. S. negotiations. This time, if hostilities erupt, I might have to issue a declaration of war." Japanese leaders had come to believe that the wars in Europe had so weakened Western Imperial forces that the Japanese Empire could expand into East Asia at will.

The Japanese military hierarchy planned a line of defense based on islands stretching from Rabaul in the Bismarck Archipelago to the Kuriles north of Japan, intending to swallow the insular possessions of France, Britain, Netherlands, Australia, the Portuguese, and the United States, while also forcing China's acquiescence in the decades-long conflict that began with the notorious "Twenty-One Demands".

The East Indies were central to the Japanese strategy. Without it, embargoes would bankrupt the country. Japan only had two years' worth of oil reserves for non-military use, one year's worth if she went to war.

As prime minister, Tojo was firmly convinced of the importance of maintaining the "superiority" of the Japanese race. He thus authorized laws ordering the sterilization of "inferior" citizens and appointed his wife Katsuko as the promoter of natality programs for the production of perfect warriors.

After Japan's unconditional surrender in 1945, U.S. General Douglas MacArthur issued orders for the arrest of the first forty alleged war criminals, including Tojo. Tojo was tried by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East for war crimes and found guilty of the following crimes: count 1 (waging wars of aggression, and war or wars in violation of international law)

count 27 (waging unprovoked war against the Republic of China)

count 29 (waging aggressive war against the United States)

count 31 (waging aggressive war against the British Commonwealth (Hong Kong))

count 32 (waging aggressive war against the Netherlands (Indonesia))

count 33 (waging aggressive war against France (Indochina))

count 54 (ordering, authorizing, and permitting inhumane treatment of Prisoners of War (POWs) and others)

Hideki Tojo accepted full responsibility in the end for his actions during the war. He was sentenced to death on November 12, 1948 and executed by hanging on December 23, 1948

December 7, 1941: Japanese naval forces attack Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

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