Japan, China, and the Origins of the Pacific War, 1900-41
Multiple Choice Questions
Exam Questions
Discussion Questions
To what extent was Japan aggression in the 1930s driven more by the Great Depression?
Why was Japan able to expand its influence in East Asia in the First World War?
Why did Japan become revisionist after 1919?
Account for why Japan shifted away from the west and towards Germany in the 1930s.
Was Sino-Japanese War unavoidable in 1937?
Why didn’t the Washington system of 1922 keep the peace in the 1930s?
What role did Chinese nationalism play in East Asian affairs in the 1920s and 1930s?
What was the “Washington system” of the 1920s and how was it intended to contribute to peace in the Far East?
Why did tensions in Manchuria escalate between the late 1920s and early 1930s?
Why did Japan choose escalation 1940-1941 when it was unable to win the war in China?
Exam Questions
Made in Moscow. To what extent did Japanese foreign policies between 1919 and 1941 reflect competition with Russia?
Could western accommodation have prevented a slide of Japan to the Axis in the 1930s?
The regional balance of power in the Far East was never restored after 1919, contributing to crises in the 1930s. Discuss.
Weblinks
http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/The-War-Years-1931-1941-Clipreel-Part-1/a0248637b126afa6e2f1728d80571149?searchfilter=Compilations%2fUniversal+Newsreels%2fThe+War+Years+1931-1941+Clipreel%3a+Part+1%2f19621 – video newsreel of the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941
https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/Dip/PaW/254.html Draft Proposal by Japanese Ambassador to US, November 20, 1941.
https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/Dip/PaW/232.html State Department Memorandum, September 3, 1941 on US-Japanese Relations.
http://www.garethjones.org/articles_far_east/will_japan_adopt_fascism.htm – text “Will Japan Adopt Fascism?” from 1935 article
http://ibiblio.org/pha/timeline/144index.html – text Japanese statement of political strategy in the 1930s
https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/Dip/PaW/267.html Franklin Roosevelt Address to Congress, December 8, 1941.
http://millercenter.org/president/speeches/speech-3310 – text of Roosevelt’s Quarantine Speech in 1937
http://oldmagazinearticles.com/1930s_Tokyo_Sino-Japan_war_Home_Front – 1938 text discussing Japanese public’s lack of knowledge of war in China
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=3&psid=3995 – text of 1922 Washington Naval Treaty
http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/lords/1932/nov/02/manchuria-report-of-the-lytton-commission – British Parliamentary discussion of the Lytton Report of 1932 regarding Japanese actions in Manchuria
Bibliography
Behringer, Paul Welch, “‘Forewarned is Forearmed’: Intelligence, Japan’s Siberian Intervention, and the Washington Conference,” International History Review 38:3 (2016) 367-393.
Best, Antony, British Intelligence and the Japanese Challenge in Asia, 1914-1941, (Houndsmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002).
Dunley, Richard, “Rebuilding the Mills of Sea Power: Interwar British Planning for Economic Warfare against Japan,” International History Review 44:5 (2022) 1091-1107.
Kawamura, Noriko, “Emperor Hirohito and Japan’s Decision to Go to War with the United States: Reexamined,” Diplomatic History 31:1 (2007) 51-79.
Kennedy, Greg, “Britain’s Strategic Foreign Policy, Naval Arms Limitation and the Soviet Factor, 1935-1937,” War in History 11:1 (2004) 34-60.
Kennedy, Greg, “Filling the Void?: Anglo-American Strategic Relations, Philippine Independence, and the Containment of Japan, 1932-1937,” International History Review 39:5 (2017) 836-859.
Morley, J. W. ed., The Final Confrontation: Japan’s Negotiations with the United States, 1941 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995).
O’Brien, Phillips Payson, ed., The Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 1902-1922 (Routledge, 2004).
Tohmatsu, Haruo & H. P. Willmott, A Gathering Darkness: The Coming of War to the Far East and the Pacific, 1921-1942 (SR Books, 2004).
Towle, Philip & Nobuko Margaret Kosuge, eds., Britain and Japan in the Twentieth Century: One Hundred Years of Trade and Prejudice, (London: Bloomsbury, 2020).