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"Restore the Emperor Expel the Barbarians":
The Causes of the Showa Restoration
Sonno joi, "Restore the Emperor and expel the
Barbarians," was the battle cry that ushered in the Showa Restoration in Japan during
the 1930's.Footnote1 The Showa Restoration was a combination of Japanese nationalism,
Japanese expansionism, and Japanese militarism all carried out in the name of the Showa
Emperor, Hirohito. Unlike the Meiji Restoration, the Showa Restoration was not a
resurrection of the Emperor's powerFootnote2, instead it was aimed at restoring Japan's
prestige. During the 1920's, Japan appeared to be developing a democratic and peaceful
government. It had a quasi-democratic governmental body, the Diet,Footnote3 and voting
rights were extended to all male citizens.Footnote4 Yet, underneath this seemingly placid
surface, lurked momentous problems that lead to the Showa Restoration. The transition that
Japan made from its parliamentary government of the 1920's to the Showa Restoration and
military dictatorship of the late 1930s was not a sudden transformation. Liberal forces
were not toppled by a coup overnight. Instead, it was gradual, feed by a complex
combination of internal and external factors.
The history that links the constitutional
settlement of 1889 to the Showa Restoration in the 1930s is not an easy story to relate.
The transformation in Japan's governmental structure involved; the historical period
between 1868 and 1912 that preceded the Showa Restoration. This period of democratic
reforms was an underlying cause of the militarist reaction that lead to the Showa
Restoration. The transformation was also feed by several immediate causes; such as, the
downturn in the global economy in 1929Footnote5 and the invasion of Manchuria in
1931.Footnote6 It was the convergence of these external, internal, underlying and
immediate causes that lead to the military dictatorship in the 1930's.
The historical period before the Showa Restoration,
1868-1912, shaped the political climate in which Japan could transform itself from a
democracy to a militaristic state. This period is known as the Meiji Restoration.Footnote7
The Meiji Restoration of 1868 completely dismantled the Tokugawa political order and
replaced it with a centralized system of government headed by the Emperor who served as a
figure head.Footnote8 However, the Emperor instead of being a source of power for the
Meiji Government, became its undoing. The Emperor was placed in the mystic position of
demi-god by the leaders of the Meiji Restoration. Parliamentarians justified the new
quasi-democratic government of Japan, as being the "Emperor's Will." The
ultra-nationalist and militaristic groups took advantage of the Emperor's status and
claimed to speak for the Emperor.Footnote9 These then groups turned the tables on the
parliamentarians by claiming that they, not the civil government, represented the
"Imperial Will." The parliamentarians, confronted with this perversion of their
own policy, failed to unite against the militarists and nationalists. Instead, the
parliamentarians compromised with the nationalists and militarists groups and the general
populace took the nationalists' claims of devotion to the Emperor at face value, further
bolstering the popularity of the nationalists.Footnote10 The theory of "Imperial
Will" in Japan's quasi-democratic government became an underlying flaw in the
government's democratic composition.
It was also during the Meiji Restoration that the
Japanese economy began to build up its industrial base. It retooled, basing itself on the
western model. The Japanese government sent out investigators to learn the ways of
European and American industries.Footnote11 In 1889, the Japanese government adopted a
constitution based on the British and German models of parliamentary democracy. During
this same period, railroads were constructed, a banking system was started and the samurai
system was disbanded.Footnote12 Indeed, it seemed as if Japan had successfully made the
transition to a western style industrialized state. Almost every other non-western state
failed to make this leap forward from pre-industrial nation to industrialized power. For
example, China failed to make this leap. It collapsed during the 1840s and the European
powers followed by Japan, sought to control China by expropriating its raw materials and
exploiting its markets.
By 1889, when the Japanese ConstitutionFootnote13
was adopted, Japan, with a few minor setbacks, had been able to make the transition to a
world power through its expansion of colonial holdings.Footnote14 During the first World
War, Japan's economy and colonial holdings continued to expand as the western powers were
forced to focus on the war raging in Europe. During the period 1912-1926, the government
continued on its democratic course. In 1925, Japan extended voting rights to all men and
the growth of the merchant class continued.Footnote15 But these democratic trends, hid the
fact that it was only the urban elite's who were benefiting from the growing
industrialization. The peasants, who outnumbered the urban population were touched little
by the momentous changes this lead to discontent in a majority of the populace.
During the winter of 1921-1922, the Japanese
government participated in a conference in Washington to limit the naval arms race. The
Washington Conference successfully produced an agreement, the Five Power Treaty. Part of
the Treaty established a ratio of British, American, Japanese, Italian, and French ships
to the ratio respectively of 5:5:3:1.75:1.75.Footnote16 Other parts of the Five Power
Treaty forced other naval powers to refrain from building fortifications in the Pacific
and Asia. In return, Japan agreed to give up its colonial possessions in Siberia and
China.Footnote17 In 1924, Japan cut its standing Army and further reduced the size of the
Japanese military budget. It appeared to all that Japan was content to rely on expansion
through trade instead of military might.Footnote18 However, this agreement applauded by
the Western Powers, symbolized to many of the nationalists and militarists that the
Japanese Government had capitulated to the West. During the Showa Restoration, ten years
later, these agreements were often cited as examples of where the quasi-democratic
Japanese government had gone astray.Footnote19
The time preceding the Showa Restoration appeared
at first glance to be the image of a nation transforming itself into a full-fledged
democracy. But this picture hid huge chasms that were about to open up with the end of the
1920's. Three precipitating circumstances at the beginning of the 1930's shattered Japan's
democratic underpinnings, which had been far from firm: the downturn in the world economy,
Western shunning of Japan, and the independence of Japan's military. Thus, the shaky
democracy gave way to the Showa Restoration. This Restoration sought to not only restore
the Showa Emperor, Hirohito to power, but lead Japan into a new period of expansionism and
eventually into World War II.
The first event that put Japan on the path toward
the Showa Restoration was the downturn in the world economy. It wrecked havoc with Japan's
economy. World War I had permitted phenomenal industrial growth, but after the war ended,
Japan resumed its competition with the other European powers. This renewed competition
proved economically painful. During the 1920's, Japan grew more slowly than at any other
time since the Meiji Restoration.Footnote20 During this time the whole world was in an
economic slump, Japan's economy suffered inordinately. Japan's rural economy was
particularly hard-hit by the slump in demand for its two key products, silk and rice. The
sudden collapse of the purchasing power of the nations that imported Japanese silk such as
America; and the worldwide rise in tariffs, combined to stagnate the Japanese
economy.Footnote21
In urban Japan, there were also serious economic
problems. A great gap in productivity and profitability had appeared between the new
industries that had emerged with the industrialization of Japan and the older traditional
industries. The Japanese leadership was not attuned to such obstacles and thus was slow to
pass legislation to deal with its problems.Footnote22 The Meiji government had supported
its economic planning by claiming it would be beneficial to the economy in the long-run.
When Meiji government promises of economic growth evaporated, the Japanese turned toward
non-democratic groups who now promised them a better economic future.Footnote23 The
nationalist and militaristic groups promised that they would restore Japanese economic
wealth by expanding Japanese colonial holdings which the democratic leaders had given up.
At the same time that Japan was struggling
economically, and capitulating to the West in adopting democratic principals, many in
Japan believed that western nations did not fully accept Japan as an equal. It appeared to
Japan, that the West had not yet accepted Japan into the exclusive club of the four
conquering nations of World War I.Footnote24 Events such as the Washington Conference, at
which the Five Power Treaty was signed, seemed to many Japanese hostile to Japan. (This
belief was held because the Treaty forced Japan to have a number of ships smaller than
Britain and the United States by a factor of 3 to 5.) The Japanese Exclusion Act passed in
1924 by America to exclude Japanese immigrants again ingrained in the Japanese psyche that
Japan was viewed as inferior by the West.Footnote25 This view became widely believed after
the meetings at Versailles, where it appeared to Japan that Europe was not willing to
relinquish its possessions in Asia. Added to this perceived feeling of being shunned was
the Japanese military conception that war with the west was inevitable. This looming
confrontation was thought to be the war to end all wars saishu senso. Footnote26
The third circumstance was the independent Japanese
military that capitalized on the economic downturn and capitulation of the Japanese
government to the West.Footnote27 The Japanese military argued that the parliamentarian
government had capitulated to the west by making an unfavorable agreement about the size
of the Japanese Navy (the Washington Conference and the Five Powers Treaty) and by
reducing the size of the military in 1924. With the depression that struck Japan in 1929;
the military increased their attack on the government politicians for the failure of the
Meiji Restoration. Throughout the 1920's, they demanded change. As the Japanese economy
worsened their advocacy for a second revolutionary restoration, a "Showa
Restoration" began to be listened to.Footnote28 They argued that the Showa
Restoration would restore the grandeur of Japan. Leading right-wing politicians joined the
military clamor, calling for a restoration not just of the Emperor but of Japan as a
global power.Footnote29
1929 marked the world wide Great Depression.
International trade was at a standstill and countries resorted to nationalistic economic
policies. 1929 became a Japanese turning point. The Japanese realized that they had
governmental control over only a small area compared to the large area they needed to
support their industrializing economy.Footnote30 Great Britain, France, and the
Netherlands had huge overseas possessions and the Russians and Americans both had vast
continental holdings. In comparison, Japan had only a small continental base. To many
Japanese, it appeared they had started their territorial acquisitions and colonization too
late and had been stopped too soon. The situation was commonly described as a
"population problem."Footnote31 The white races had already grabbed the most
valuable lands and had left the less desirable for the Japanese. The Japanese nationalists
argued that Japan had been discriminated against by the western nations through
immigration policies and by being forced to stop their expansion into Asia. The only
answer, the nationalists claimed, was military expansion onto the nearby Asian continent.
The nationalists and independent military became
the foremost advocates of this new drive for land and colonies. Young army officers and
nationalist civilians closely identified with the "Imperial Way
Faction."Footnote32 The relative independence of the Japanese armed forces from the
parliament, transformed this sense of a national crisis into a total shift in foreign
policy. These "restorationists" in the military and in the public stepped up the
crisis by convincing the nation that there were two enemies, the foreign powers and people
within Japan.Footnote33 The militarists identified the Japanese "Bureaucratic
Elite" and the expanding merchant class, the "Zaibutsu" as responsible for
Japan's loss of grandeur. It was the Bureaucratic Elite who had capitulated to the Western
powers in the Washington Conference and in subsequent agreements, that decreased the size
of the Japanese military,Footnote34 and made Japan dependent of trade with other nations.
The independence of the Japanese military allowed
them to feed this nationalist sense of crisis and thus transform Japanese foreign policy.
On September 18, 1931 a group of army officers with the approval of their superiors who
were angry at the government for its passage of the Five Powers Treaty, bombed a section
of the South Manchurian Railway and blamed it on unnamed Chinese terrorists.Footnote35
Citing the explosion as a security concern, the Japanese military invaded Manchuria and
within six months had set up the Puppet State of Manchukuo in February, 1932.Footnote36
Following the invasion of Manchuria, Japanese
nationalism overwhelmed Japan. The Japanese public and military continued to blame the
former quasi-parliamentarians for the economic woes and for capitulating to the Western.
The Japanese populace saw the military and its nationalist leaders as strong, willing to
stand up to Western power and restore the grandeur of Japan. Unlike the parliamentarian
leaders, these new nationalist leaders backed by the military, had a vision and the public
flocked to their side.Footnote37 This new mood in Japan brought an end to party cabinets
and the authority of the quasi-democratic government. It seemed now that the parliamentary
democracy of the TaishoFootnote38 and Meiji eras had been fully usurped by the independent
military. Nationalism swept through Japan after the invasion of Manchuria, thus further
strengthening the hand of the military. In the invasion of Manchuria and its aftermath,
all the discontent with the Meiji system of government come together and combined with the
military claim to leadership ordained by the power of the Emperor. With this convergence
of events, the shallow roots of democracy and the liberal reformism of the Meiji
Restoration were uprooted and replaced with a combination of nationalism and militarism
embodied under the idea of the Showa Restoration. When League of Nations condemned Japan
for the Manchurian invasion, Japan, now controlled by the military, simply walked out of
the conference.Footnote39
The parliamentary cabinet of the 1930's became
known as "national unity" cabinets and the parliament took on more and more of a
symbolic role as the military gradually gained the upper hand over policies. The Japanese
Parliament continued in operation and the major democratic parties continued to win
elections in 1932, 1936 and 1937. But parliamentary control was waning as the military
virtually controlled foreign policy.Footnote40
Japan's political journey from its nearly
democratic government of the 1920's to its radical nationalism of the mid 1930's, the
collapse of democratic institutions, and the eventual military state was not an overnight
transformation. There was no coup d'etat, no march on Rome, no storming of the Bastille,
no parliamentary vote whereby the anti-democratic militaristic elements overthrew the
democratic institutions of the Meiji Era. Instead, it was a political journey that allowed
a semi-democratic nation to transform itself into a military dictatorship. The forces that
aided in this transformation were the failed promises of the Meiji Restoration that were
represented in the stagnation of the Japanese economy, the perceived capitulation of the
Japanese parliamentary leaders to the western powers, and an independent military.
Japanese militarism promised to restore the grandeur of Japan, a Showa Restoration.
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Footnote1
Ruth Benedict, The Chrysanthemum And The Sword (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1989)
76.
Footnote2
Marius B. Jansen Sakamoto Ryoma and the Meiji Restoration (Stanford: Stanford University
Press, 1971) 147-164. Marius B. Jansen makes clear in this book that the Meiji Restoration
(1868-1912) was a movement centered around returning the Meiji Emperor to power. Only
later did the Meiji Restoration come to embody liberal reformism.
Footnote3
Frank Gibney Japan the Fragile Superpower (New York: Meridian, 1985) 158-159.
Footnote4
Tetsuo Najita Japan The Intellectual Foundations of Modern Japanese Politics (Chicago:
Chicago University Press, 1980) 121. In 1925 universal male suffrage was enacted.
Footnote5
Tetsuo Najita Japan The Intellectual Foundations of Modern Japanese Politics (Chicago:
Chicago University Press, 1980) 113.
Footnote6
Edwin O. Reischauer Japan Past and Present (Tokyo: Charles Tuttle Company, 1987) 170-171.
Footnote7
Karel van Wolferen The Enigma of Japanese Power (New York: Random House, 1990) 375-376.
During the Meiji Restoration Japan saw its mission to be to catch up with the already
industrialized Western powers.
Footnote8
Edwin O. Reischauer Japan Past and Present (Tokyo: Charles Tuttle Company, 1987)125.
Footnote9
Tetsuo Najita Japan The Intellectual Foundations of Modern Japanese Politics (Chicago:
Chicago University Press, 1980) 115.
Footnote10
Edwin O. Reischauer The Japanese Today (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988) 98.
Footnote11
Frank Gibney Japan the Fragile Superpower (New York: Meridian, 1985) 165-166.
Footnote12
Edwin O. Reischauer Japan Past and Present (Tokyo: Charles Tuttle Company, 1987) 119.
During the Meiji Restoration Samurais were stripped of their positions and even prohibited
from wearing the Samurai Sword in 1869.
Footnote13
Frank K, Upham Law and Social Change in Japan (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987)
49. The Japanese constitution was adopted in 1889. It set up a British type parliament.
The constitution did not provide the parliamentary government with power over the military
branch.
Footnote14
Karel van Wolferen The Enigma of Japanese Power (New York: Random House, 1990) 38. At the
turn of the century Japan had started its colonizing effort in China and other parts of
Asia. It was these efforts at Colonization that developed into the Russo-Japanese War
(1904-1905). After winning the war Japan continued with even more gusto to snatch up
colonies in Asia.
Footnote15
Tetsuo Najita Japan The Intellectual Foundations of Modern Japanese Politics (Chicago:
Chicago University Press, 1980) 121. In 1925 universal male suffrage was enacted although
in most elections ballots were only made available to the urban elite.
Footnote16
Edwin O. Reischauer The Japanese Today (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988) 96.
Footnote17
Edwin O. Reischauer Japan Past and Present (Tokyo: Charles Tuttle Company, 1987) 150.
Footnote18
James B. Crawley Japan's Quest For Autonomy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966)
270-280.
Footnote19
Tetsuo Najita Japan The Intellectual Foundations of Modern Japanese Politics (Chicago:
Chicago University Press, 1980) 128.
Footnote20
Karel van Wolferen The Enigma of Japanese Power (New York: Random House, 1990) 380-381. In
her Book Karel van Wolferen writes, "The Success of the Meiji oligarchy in
stimulating economic development was followed by a further great boost for Japanese
industry deriving from the First World War. This good fortune came to an end in 1920, and
a 'chain of panics' caused successive recessions and business dislocation".
Footnote21
Edwin O. Reischauer Japan Past and Present (Tokyo: Charles Tuttle Company, 1987) 117.
Reischauer makes the point in his book that external factors significantly hurt Japan's
economy. Unlike a nation like the United States which had vast reserves of natural
resources when projectionist trade laws were implemented around the world Japan suffered
significantly because it lacked raw materials and markets. Japan's economy which was
guided during the Meiji Era to be primarily an export based economy.
Footnote22
Nakamura Takafusa Economic Growth in Prewar Japan (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983)
151-158. Nakamura Takafusa states that Japan was growing at vastly different rates between
the urban areas and rural areas.
Footnote23
Frank Gibney Japan the Fragile Superpower (New York: Meridian, 1985) 165-166.
Footnote24
James B. Crawley Japan's Quest For Autonomy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966)
270-280.
Footnote25
David M. Reimers Still the Golden Door: The Third World Comes to America (New York:
Columbia Press, 1992) 27.
Footnote26
Tetsuo Najita Japan The Intellectual Foundations of Modern Japanese Politics (Chicago:
Chicago University Press, 1980) 128. "The exclusion of Japanese Immigrants by the
United States in 1924 and the growth of mechanized Soviet Power on the Asian continent all
confirmed in the Japanese public eye the impending confrontation with the west."
Testsuo views the rise of Japanese nationalism and militarization resulting in the Showa
Restoration to be to a large degree the fault of the west for its maltreatment of Japan
diplomatically. Tetsuo also views the Showa Restoration to be largely caused by external
factors that in consequence unbalanced the fragile Japanese political system.
Footnote27
Robert Story The Double Patriots (London: Chatto and Windus, 1957) 138.
Footnote28
Karel van Wolferen The Enigma of Japanese Power (New York: Random House, 1990) 380-381.
Footnote29
Tetsuo Najita Japan The Intellectual Foundations of Modern Japanese Politics (Chicago:
Chicago University Press, 1980) 114. One of the famous political leaders of the time
Miyake Setsurei called for a new Japan that had "truth, goodness, and beauty".
Footnote30
James Morley Dilemmas of Growth in Prewar Japan (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1971) 378-411.
Footnote31
Peter Duus The Rise of Modern Japan (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1976). Many of the
nationalists of this period claimed the West had tricked Japan into giving up its colonies
in Asia so it could take them. The Nationalists also claimed that renewed Japanese
expansionism would liberate the Asians of their European Colonizers.
Footnote32
Tetsuo Najita Japan The Intellectual Foundations of Modern Japanese Politics (Chicago:
Chicago University Press, 1980) 130. The Imperial Way Faction was a right wing political
party that called for the Showa Restoration. It was lead by Kita Ikki, Gondo Seikei, and
Inoue Nissho.
Footnote33
Karel van Wolferen The Enigma of Japanese Power (New York: Random House, 1990) 381-382.
Footnote34
Tetsuo Najita Japan The Intellectual Foundations of Modern Japanese Politics (Chicago:
Chicago University Press, 1980) 128.
Footnote35
Tetsuo Najita Japan The Intellectual Foundations of Modern Japanese Politics (Chicago:
Chicago University Press, 1980) 138. Historians such as Testuo Najita cite this incident
as the turning point in the military role in Japan. For after this incident the Military
realized that the parliamentary government did not have the will or the power to stop the
military power.
Footnote36
Edwin O. Reischauer The Japanese Today (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988) 96.
Footnote37
Edwin O. Reischauer Japan Past and Present (Tokyo: Charles Tuttle Company, 1987) 171.
Edwin O Reischauer writes in his book, "There could be no doubt that the Japanese
army in Manchuria had been eminently successful, The people as a whole accepted this act
of unauthorized and certainly unjustified warfare with whole hearted admiration".
Footnote38
Peter Duus The Rise of Modern Japan (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1976) 156. The period
preceding the Showa Restoration and coming after the Meiji Era is known as the Taisho Era.
It is named after the Taisho Emperor who was mentally incompetent and thus the
parliamentarians during this time had control of the government. His reign lasted only a
decade compared to the Meiji Emperor's 44 year reign.
Footnote39
Edwin O. Reischauer Japan Past and Present (Tokyo: Charles Tuttle Company, 1987) 171.
Footnote40
Tetsuo Najita Japan The Intellectual Foundations of Modern Japanese Politics (Chicago:
Chicago University Press, 1980) 138.
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