The+Depression+and+the+Far+East+(1931-41)



The Depression also had unsettling effects outside of Germany. Among other things, it seriously hurt Japan, whose economy depended heavily upon trade to pay for resources and food for its burgeoning population. As tariffs went up and the Depression deepened, Japan grew desperate for resources. This desperation led to a military takeover of the government, somewhat reminiscent of the Fascist dictators in Europe. In 1931, the Japanese seized Manchuria from China on the flimsy pretext of setting up the "independent" state of Manchukuo under Japanese "protection." China protested to the League of Nations, but the League had no power of its own to act against aggression, especially if that aggression were half a planet away. Therefore, Japan kept Manchuria and a foothold in China.

Even before this, China was already deeply mired in its own problems. European and Japanese aggression in the late 1800's had helped lead to turmoil in Chinese society and government. In 1912, a revolution replaced the last Chinese emperor with a republic under the western educated Sun Yat Sen. However, China's experiment in democracy floundered, and, after Sun Yat Sen's death, Chinese politics disintegrated into a three-way struggle for power between the Nationalist government's leader, Chiang Kai-shek, various independent warlords in the countryside, and the Communists led by Mao Zedong.

The Japanese seizure of Manchuria presented the Chinese government with a dilemma: fight Japan right away or crush the Communists and warlords first and then face the Japanese with a united front. Chiang Kai Shek, being strongly anti-Communist, decided to unify China first. For several years he waged intensive warfare against the Communists whom he badly damaged, but failed to destroy. However, Chiang's generals, anxious to turn against Japan, forced him to ally with Mao against the common enemy. Japan, fearing a united China, told the Nationalists to join it against the Communists or it would take "all the steps necessary to assure peace." In July 1937, it "assured" that peace by invading China.

The Chinese army was no match for the more mechanized Japanese forces, which relentlessly and brutally swept across the eastern seaboard of China. Cities were bombed and strafed mercilessly, while their populations were massacred with uncontrolled ferocity. Reeling from these losses, the Chinese switched to a strategy of trading space for time by retreating into the vast interior of China. This drew the advancing Japanese forces further and further inland and stretched their lines to the limit. The war now settled down to a costly stalemate that burnt, bled, and bent China, but could not break it.

As a result, the Japanese decided to look elsewhere for easier conquests. In 1939, they briefly turned north against the Soviet Union. However, defeat at the hands of Soviet forces in a short but sharply fought conflict plus a surprise pact by Japan's ally, Hitler, with Stalin to carve up Poland, convinced Japan to go elsewhere. Therefore, it turned to easier and more lucrative conquests in South East Asia. This involved attacking the colonies of France, Britain, and Holland, all of who were too preoccupied with the war then raging in Europe to effectively stop Japan.

This also brought Japan face to face with the United States. When the United States threatened economic sanctions against the Japanese if they did not pull back, Japan launched a surprise attack on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiian Islands (12/7/1941). From the American perspective, this was the beginning of the Second World War in the Pacific, although the Chinese and others saw it as starting in 1937 with the Japanese invasion of China. Either way, the war in Asia was on.

Ironically, Japan's decision to turn south rather than north may have saved the allied cause in World War II. If Hitler had kept his Japanese allies informed on his intentions to attack Russia in 1941, they could have tied down enough Soviet forces in the Far East to deny Stalin vital reinforcements that would be a significant factor in the ultimate Russian victory against Germany. And, of course, a German victory against Russia would have seriously altered the course of World War II and subsequent history.

Source: [|http://www.flowofhistory.com]

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