Causes Of The Showa Restoration Essay, Research Paper

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.

—

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.