Introduction

In the late nineteenth century, Japan began building an empire that would eventually rival the other great powers of Europe, Russia, the United States, and China. The empire survived World War I, but was defeated by World War II. This article explains how Japanese imperialism can be compared 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 their neighbor, China, so they decided to build an empire of their own! But to become a global power, they had to do two things. First they had to deal with the reforms 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 hoped for a similar result.

Following Germany, Japan did not put elected Japanese civilians in charge of the military. Instead, they gave the emperor total control. However, Japanese emperors actually had very little political power. As a result, there were no elected officials watching the actions of the Japanese army and navy, meaning they were left alone to do what they saw fit. As we will see, these factors later had important effects on the history of the Japanese Empire.

The rise of the Japanese military had two big advantages for a state trying to industrialize and build an empire:

• First, military success inspired national pride. Many Japanese became proud of their country when they successfully colonized another place. National pride became associated with colonizing other parts of the world.
• Second, there was a lack of civilian control over the military. No civilians were elected to lead the military. This gave the Japanese military the power to decide how to run the empire and act its own authoritarian government.

Together, these factors made up the core principles of Japanese militarism: raising 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 identified two enemies. 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 that Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany saw liberal and communist countries as their enemies, too. Meanwhile, the Great Depression was wrecking economies and making the world more dangerous.

During this time, the Japanese army invaded the northeast Asian area of Manchuria in 1931. The invasion of Manchuria shows how Japan’s independent military influenced Japanese imperialism during this period. The 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. The invasion was a huge military success for Japan. However, the invasion of Manchuria also had broad economic and political consequences.

The Japanese military took control of Manchurian resources. This meant they had to decide how to control production of these resources. They decided that the military would 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 model spread from Manchuria 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. One change was that all of the empire’s resources were dedicated to supporting the Japanese military in conquering other parts of the world. In addition, the Japanese government and the military began to become one. This turned Japan and its colonies into a military state. The state also took over more areas of daily life to ensure that all people in the empire were contributing to the war effort.

Historian Louise Young believes these changes show two trends:

• First, the military state “connected the inside and the outside” of the empire. By taking over the state, the military was able to use Japan’s resources for wars oustide Japan. The state also used propaganda to convince the 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 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 formed two of the key elements of Japan’s “fascist imperialism.” Another key element of fascist imperialism was hatred of communism and liberalism. Fascist imperialism also stated that the Japanese were better than other races. Like the Italian Fascists, Japanese imperialists often believed they were “civilizing” less advanced people. In reality, however, Japanese colonialism was violent.

Conclusion

In the late nineteenth century, Japan was on its way to becoming a world power. It used the ideas of German militarism to design its imperial state. This gave the Japanese military a high level of independence. After conquering Manchuria, the military leadership adopted a controlled economy that dedicated all resources to the war effort. This controlled economy eventually spread throughout the Japanese Empire. Over time, the controlled economy created authoritarian and fascist governments. In these ways, imperial Japan and fascist Europe had a lot of similarities during the interwar period, but their stories are not identical.