Introduction

In the late nineteenth century, Japan began building its empire. It would later compete with great powers in Europe, Russia, the United States, and China. However, the Japanese Empire was defeated by World War II. This article explains how Japanese imperialism compares to fascism and authoritarianism during the interwar period.

Militarism in the Early Empire

The Japanese government was pretty busy in the 1890s. They did not want to be colonized by China, so they decided to build an empire of their own! However, they had to do two things to become a global power. First they had to deal with changes going on within Japan, and second they had to catch up with industrialization.

To build their empire, the Japanese built a close relationship between the military and the government. Their strategy was inspired by German leader Otto von Bismarck. Bismarck’s tough military rule in the 1880s made Germany a global power in a short amount of time. Japanese reformers believed they could do to the same as Germany.

Following the Germans, Japan did not put elected Japanese civilians in charge of the military. Instead, they gave the emperor total control. However, Japanese emperors had very little political power. As a result, there were no Japanese officials keeping track of the Japanese military. The military was left alone to do what it saw fit. As we will see, this had important effects on the history of the Japanese Empire.

The Japanese military rose in power. This created two big advantages for a state trying to industrialize and build an empire:

• First, the Japanese felt patriotic about their country’s military successes. Japanese armies were conquering other parts of the world. Soon, colonizing other nations became a source of national pride for the Japanese people.
• Second, there was a lack of control over the military. The Japanese military had a lot of freedom to run the empire. It acted as its own authoritarian government.

Together, these factors made up the core ideas of Japanese militarism. Militarism meant increasing military power and using it for political gain. In the next section, we will look at Japanese Manchuria. The Manchurian case shows how militarism helped transform Japan into a fascist, authoritarian empire.

Militarism and the rise of fascist imperialism

By 1930, Japanese leaders knew who their enemies were. One was the communist Soviet Union. The other was any western liberal capitalist country, such as the United States. These nations had different political and economic views from Japan. However, Japan realized it had the same enemies as Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. Meanwhile, the Great Depression was wrecking economies. The world was becoming more dangerous.

During this time, the Japanese army invaded the northeast Asian area of Manchuria in 1931. The invasion shows how Japan’s independent military influenced Japanese imperialism during this period. The Japanese army acted alone, making up a false story that blamed the war on Chinese forces in Manchuria. After two years of fighting, Japan had conquered many parts of Manchuria. However, the invasion also had economic and political consequences.

The Japanese military had to decide how to control Manchurian resources. The military decided to keep tight control over the Manchurian economy. This “controlled economy” was similar to Joseph Stalin’s command economy in the Soviet Union. In both cases, the state controlled the economy in the hopes of building national strength.

Soon, the controlled economy spread to the rest of the Japanese empire. Over twenty years of capitalist free trade was over. The controlled economy caused huge changes in the empire. All of the empire’s resources were dedicated to helping the Japanese military conquer new lands. In addition, the Japanese government and the military began to join together. This turned the Japanese Empire into a military state. The state also took over more areas of daily life. They wanted to make sure that all people in the empire were contributing to the war effort.

Louise Young is a historian. She believes these changes show two trends:

• First, the military state “connected the inside and the outside” of the empire. The new military government used Japan’s resources for wars outside Japan. The state also used propaganda to convince people inside Japan to support the wars. In these ways, the military state linked the homeland inside Japan to imperial wars outside the country.
• The second trend was the belief that only the government could fix the problems of modern life. In reality, this was a deeply authoritarian belief. Obeying the government was considered the highest value a person could have.

These ideas were two key elements of Japan’s “fascist imperialism.” Another key part of fascist imperialism was hatred of communism and liberalism. Fascist imperialism also stated that the Japanese were better than other races. Japanese imperialists often believed they were “civilizing” less advanced people. Italian fascists believed this, too. In reality, Japanese colonialism was violent.

Conclusion

In the late nineteenth century, Japan used the ideas of German militarism to create its imperial state. This gave the Japanese military a high level of independence. After conquering Manchuria, the military leadership adopted a controlled economy. All state resources were dedicated to the war effort. This controlled economy spread throughout the Japanese Empire. The controlled economy eventually created authoritarian and fascist governments. In these ways, imperial Japan and fascist Europe had a lot of similarities during the interwar period. However, their stories are not identical.