Japan looked at the continent for a long time

1As it is summarized by Napoléon’s adage, “States’ policies lie in their geography”. But if they may enforce policies in compliance with their “natural” position, it happens often that they follow more paradoxical paths. The stereotypical expression of “island country” tends to make people think that countries like Japan or the United Kingdom have a fate tightly bound to the sea. However, if the choice of conducting a firm maritime policy depends on geo-strategic opportunities and technical means, it is above all else the result of for a decision that was confirmed over a long period of time.

Imperial powers in the Pacific 1939.

2Somehow like England in the early modern period, Japan decided to expand towards the Pacific only when her territorial ambitions on the continent were impeded, and when her naval power gave her a strategic edge. But this moment only came in 1940, while her fight on the continent already exhausted her. Paradoxically, Japan, a country where the sea is never far, has not always looked towards the open sea. From a cultural perspective, water, for a long time, has been mainly considered as a source of danger, the 2011 tidal wave being a reminder of this phenomenon.

The birth of the japan-U.S. rivalry

3It was World War I that gave Japan’s ambitions in the Pacific a concrete form, when she seized from Germany the Marshall and Caroline Islands. These islands, entrusted to Japan by the League of Nations, were subjected to a policy of economic development, settlement and military presence. Yet, Japan’s policy in the Pacific remained secondary because of the importance of the Japanese interest in Northeast Asia.

Areas occupied by Japanese armed forces in Southern China (1938-1939).

4The United States became aware early of the challenge Japan may become and tried to curb it, first through her mediation in the Russo-Japanese War (1905), and then particularly during the Washington Naval Conference (1922). She succeeded in limiting the expansion of Japan’s naval power, as well as reining in her hegemonic ambitions in Northern China. If the U.S. government was concerned by Japan’s military power, what the American opinion feared was the migratory flow from Japan, especially to California. The Immigration Act of 1924, which restricted greatly Japanese immigration, had a deep impact in Japan. Japanese communities were also the victims of segregation laws in a certain number of States. However, the secondary place taken by the Pacific in the frame of international relations made these tensions anecdotal for a long time.

Japan’s southward expansion

5A swing started to happen in the autumn of 1939. Facing the Soviet military supremacy in Northern Asia and betrayed by Berlin who got closer to Moscow, Tokyo became isolated on the international stage. The idea of a southward expansion as a way out started to coalesce in the minds of the Japanese leaders. The blockade enforced by Japan over China led to the expansion of the Japanese army’s operations towards the French Indochina border. Moreover, Japan started to pressure France strongly to make her close Indochina’s border with China.

6The German army opened the door to Southeast Asia from May 1940 by occupying the Netherlands and France and by menacing the United Kingdom with an invasion. Facing this unexpected opportunity, Japan reoriented dramatically her foreign policy towards an expansion in Southeast Asia and Oceania at the expense of the European powers. But while the Dutch government’s escape to London put the Dutch East Indies (current Indonesia) under British protection, the separate armistice offered by France to Germany made French Indochina vulnerable. Despite having twisted France’s arm by forcing her to sign several political and economic agreements that largely opened Indochina to Japanese interests, on 23 September 1940, the Japanese army violated the Indochinese border and forced the colony to submit. Japan’s goal consisted in showing her power and her resolution in order to use Indochina the way she wanted, and especially to use the French colony as a springboard in a strike against Western powers.

Japanese forces heading to Saigon.

7This expansionist policy prompted, almost instantaneously, the first retaliation measures from the United States. The tension between the two countries worsened when the alliance between Japan, Germany and Italy was announced. From then on, a serious crisis set in between them and deteriorated at each new Japanese advance. To Washington, which understood that Japan’s plan consisted in taking over the Dutch and British colonies, responded Tokyo which concluded that she had to seize the resources she was lacking. The occupation of the whole of French Indochina in July 1941 made the conflict unavoidable. Despite Germany’s offensive against the U.S.S.R, Japan chose the Pacific as her expansion ground and the USA as her main enemy.

Area occupied by Japanese armed forces at the beginning of 1942.

The Pacific as a world issue

8The danger coming from American retaliation measures was not to Japan’s security, but her strategic independence and her position as the dominant power in Eastern Asia. Not reacting against them would have meant accepting the U.S. status quo in Eastern Asia. Japan’s refusal to accept this situation brought her to seize the resources that she could not import anymore from the USA. This policy was strongly linked with the rising ideology considering the world as divided between several economic blocks. Tokyo adopted the vision of Japan becoming autonomous thanks to the building of an economic block including Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific. Japan’s desire for absolute security instead exposed her to the greatest of insecurities, since the United States had decided to protect the British Empire.

9On 7 December 1941, it was a huge surprise when the Japanese forces attacked British Malaya and Hawai’i almost simultaneously (the first attack being carried out only two hours before the second one). Japan’s will to eliminate the U.S. fleet from the Pacific reveals her understanding of the ocean as a central issue for her survival as the dominant power in Eastern Asia. For the first time in history, the Pacific became a primordial strategic issue, and the region saw the biggest naval battles in history.

10Nevertheless, Japan committed hubris. She had seriously underestimated the American people’s pugnacity and did not sufficiently take into account the differences of the economic capacities between the two countries – the U.S.’s GDP was twelve times higher than Japan’s. Japan’s ambition to control an area going from Burma to the Aleutian Islands and including New Guinea surpassed her capacities and exposed her to counter-attacks.

11The Pacific became the site of a dreadful fight between the two powers, but the scale started to tip in favor of the United States as soon as the end of the year 1942. Japan’s presence in the region was too short to leave a mark, without any clear policy apart from the refusal of U.S. hegemony, Japan left most of the time a bad memory among the local populations. However, it contributed to a great extent to the start of the decolonization process in the region by eradicating the Western presence. While Japan made of the Pacific a major geo-strategic issue, her complete defeat transformed the region in an American lake.

After the war : Japan in a glass case

12Defeat meant for Japan isolation under an American protectorate. Japan not only lost her empire on the continent, but also the control of her maritime space. The Bonin Islands and the Okinawa archipelago were put under U.S. control. Japan became a Cold War issue, since the communist victory in China made of Japan a vital anchorage in Asia. If Japan could stay away from wars in Asia thanks to her pacifist constitution, she contributed to the American military policy by the presence of U.S. forces on Japanese soil, especially in Okinawa from where the B-52s where taking off towards Vietnam. If this territory was given back to Japanese sovereignty in 1972, the condition was that it would continue to play the same role, creating a divide between the island’s local population and Tokyo.

13After the war, Japan played an important part in the economic development of the Asian dragons and tigers, as well as China’s. However, despite her advantages, Japan failed in finding a modus vivendi with the latter. Unable to face up to her past, Japan started, from the 1980s, to be the target of Chinese propaganda campaigns which used Japan as a scapegoat to deflect people’s anger. Today, China’s activism near Okinawa (Senkaku Islands) is threatening Japan’s ability to control her maritime space at the time the American hegemony seems to crumble.