East Asia After World War I
AP World History
Chapter 29d
Japan After World War I
 Limited participation in WWI
 Result: Economy grew during and after the
war
 1920s = Japan moving toward more
democratic politics and Western values
 1925 = universal male suffrage
 Emergence of two-party system
 Greater gender equality and more freedoms
of expression
 Expansion of education
 Development of an urban consumer society
 Middle-class women entered new
professions
A JapaneseWoman in the 1920s
Japan After World War I
 Tensions/problems resulting from
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Japan’s modernization and
industrialization:
1918 = “rice riots” = millions
protested the rising price of rice
1920s = union membership tripled as
Japanese workers started to fight
more for workers’ rights
Increased disputes between
landowners and tenants
Rising women’s movement  wanted
the right to vote and the end of legal
prostitution
Japan After World War I
 These tensions and problems
= alarming  reminded
many of how the Russian
Revolution started in 1917
 1925 = Peace Preservation
Law passed = promised long
prison sentences, or even the
death penalty, to anyone who
organized against the existing
imperial system of
government or against private
property
Special Forces of the Tokyo
Metropolitan Police Department
Japan and the Great Depression
 Great Depression = what ultimately led to
harsher authoritarian rule in Japan
 Japan = hit hard by the Great Depression
 Shrinking world demand for silk =
millions of silk farmers now
impoverished
 Exports fell by 50% between 1929 and
1931
 More than a million urban workers left
unemployed
 Food = scarce
 Families forced to sell their daughters to
brothels
Japan and the Great Depression
 Many began to question whether
democracy and capitalism could
address Japan’s “national emergency”
 Growing movement in Japan =
“Radical Nationalism”
 Extreme nationalism
 Opposed to parliamentary
democracy
 Commitment to elite leadership
focused around an emperor
 Dedication to foreign expansion
 Especially appealing to younger
army officers
Japan’sYoungWomen’s Patriotic
Association
Japanese Authoritarianism
 1930s = right-wing nationalist thinking
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continued to grow
Parliament, political parties, and elections
continued  but major government
positions now held by military or
bureaucratic figures, not party leaders
Military began to have a more dominant role
in political life
Censorship limited free expression
Only ONE single news agency allowed to
distribute national and international news to
newspapers and radio stations
Trade unions banned  replaced with
“discussion councils”
Manchurian Incident of 1931
 Also known as the Mukden Incident. was a clever plan developed
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by the Japanese in Manchuria on September 18, 1931.
This soon led to the Japanese invasion of Manchuria
The origin of the Manchurian Incident lies deep within the
confines of southern Manchuria in Shenyang during 1931.
During that time, Japan had replaced Russia as the dominant
foreign power in Manchuria.
Japan blew up a railway section and quickly hid some where close.
When the Chinese went to check on the explosion Japanese junior
officers came out of hiding and blamed them for the explosion,
pretending they were never there
Why Did It Start?
 Japanese wanted to take over the Chinese government in
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Manchuria so they hatched a clever plan to blow up a railway and
blame the Chinese for it.
This would give them a to reason to use their army to take over
Manchuria’s government.
They placed small bits of dynamite on the railway so it wouldn’t
do too much damage and stored weapons ready for the invasion in
a concrete bunker that they disguised as a swimming pool.
Where they blew up the railway wasn’t even an important place. It
didn’t even have an official name, but it was only eight hundred
meters away from a place being stationed by troops.
The Japanese used this to their advantage and immediately blamed
the troops once they got there, pretending to have just arrived at
the scene of the crime.
The Invasion
 On the morning of September 19, 1931 the Japanese
attacked the Manchurians with strong force.
 Japan quickly destroyed Zhang Xuwliang’s and many Chinese
soldiers fled from battle.
 The Chinese army was mainly made up of irregulars and new
recruits. They were no match for the experienced Japanese
army.
 By the evening of the same day the Japanese had complete
control over Mukden. Five hundred Chinese died along with
only two Japanese.
What happened Afterwards?
 The Chinese foreign embassy submitted a strong to protest to
the League of Nations asking them to make Japan stop all
operations being done in Manchuria.
 The Japanese tried to say it was an act of self-defense for the
whole blown up railway thing but the League of Nations saw
through this and told them to stop.
 After some negations that led no where, Japan decided to
leave the League of Nations.
 Japan did not leave all of Manchuria afterwards and still
controlled a little bit against the League of Nations’ Wishes
Primary Source
 The Lytton Report was a famous report given by a group of
people from the United Kingdom.
 These people were given the task to go to Manchuria to see if
Japan really did act out of self-defense. Their decision would
help the League of nations decide whether to make Japan
leave Manchuria or let them stay.
 It took six months for them to decide, but the Lytton Report
came up with the conclusion that Japan did not act out of
self-defense.
 This lead to Japan leaving the League of Nations
The Long March
 The Chinese Communist Party was founded in 1921 and ten years later
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set up a Chinese Soviet Republic in the Jiangxi province of southern
China, some way north of Canton.
The Communists fell out with the Nationalist Party, the Guomindang,
which established a national government under General Chiang Kai-shek.
The Guomindang army made repeated attacks on the Communists and
blockaded them so effectively that by the middle of 1934 their position
was becoming impossible.
They decided to retreat north to find a base where they would be safe.
To go straight north would have taken them into Guomindang territory,
so they took a circuitous route, starting westwards and then turning
north.
Rise of Mao Zedong
 6000-mile retreat of the Chinese Communist Party and Red
Army from southeastern China (Jiangxi province) to the
northwest (Yanan in Shaanxi province) in 1934–35, during
which Mao Zedong became leader of the Communist party.
 Communist leader Mao Zedong led his forces on a long
march to safety in the northwest part of China. From there,
they staged attacks on the Japanese invaders and eventually
on Chinese government troops — attacks that led to their
conquest of China in 1949.
 8,000 out of 100,000 survived
Japanese Authoritarianism
 1937 = new textbook issued by
the Ministry of Education
 Used in all Japanese schools
 Stressed the difference between
Japan and “the West”
 Stressed the divinity of the
Japanese emperor
 Students required to do more
physical training
 Martial arts replaced baseball in
gym classes
Japanese Students at Rifle Training
Japanese Authoritarianism
 Authoritarian state in Japan gained
a lot of popular support because it
was able to pull Japan out of the
Great Depression
 By the end of 1937 = “everyone
was working”
 State-financed credit to
businesses
 Government spending on
armaments
 Public works projects
Differences between Japanese Authoritarianism
and Fascism in Italy and Germany
Japan
No right-wing party gained popular
support or seized power
No charismatic leader
No fascist party
People arrested for political offenses
= “resocialized” = renounced their
errors and returned to the “Japanese
Way”
Less repressive than Italy and
Germany
Italy and Germany
Fascist political parties gained
support & seized power
Mussolini and Hitler
Strong fascist parties
People arrested for political offenses
= institutionalized, deported, or
killed
Japanese Imperialism
 Japan believed it should have
been given more land in the
Treaty of Versailles
 1930s = Japanese imperial
ambitions began to grow
 Growing Japanese
nationalism
 Military became more
powerful in Japan’s political
life
Sino-Japanese War 1937-1945
The war that began in 1937 as a Japanese invasion of China and ended
with the World War II defeat of Japan in 1945.
 Conflict that broke out when China began full-scale resistance to
the expansion of Japanese influence in its territory (which had
begun in 1931).
 In an effort to unseat the Nationalist government of Chiang Kaishek, the Japanese occupied large areas of eastern China in 1937–
38.
 A stalemate then ensued, and Japanese forces were diverted to
Southeast Asia and to the Pacific theatre of World War II against the
Western Powers and their allies beginning in late 1941.
 Japan’s defeat in that by the Allies in 1945 ended its occupation of
China.
Manchuria
 Japan acquired sphere of influence in
Manchuria following victory over
Russia in the Russo-Japanese War of
1904-1905
 Japanese fear = growing Chinese
nationalism would threaten this sphere
of influence
 1931 = Japanese military seized
control of Manchuria
 Set up a puppet state called Manchukuo
 Western powers = NOT HAPPY
 Japan = broke with its Western allies
and withdrew from the League of
Nations
 1936 = Japan joined with Germany and
Italy in an alliance called the Axis Powers
China
 1937 = Japan invaded China
 Japanese forces = brutal and
violent
 In many Chinese villages  every
single person and every single
animal were killed
 1937-1938 = Rape of Nanjing
 200,000 to 300,000 Chinese
civilians killed or mutilated within
a few months
 Countless women sexually
assaulted