This comprehensive, up-to-date analysis of Japanese policy
between the two world wars utilizes both English and Japanese
sources to present Japan as an independent agent, not a state whose
policy was determined by the actions of other countries. Beginning
with Japan's disappointment with the Versailles Peace Treaty in
1919, Nish examines the roots of Japanese discontent and feelings
that ambitions in China were being unreasonably restrained. He
explains British and American policies in the region as reactive,
but concludes that their responses helped to determine which
factions would dominate Japan's political arena. This non-partisan
account is even-handed in apportioning responsibility for the
events leading to the Second World War.
While some Japanese politicians in the 1920s tried to follow the
international path, there were others who tended to side with the
army in establishing Japan's position, first in Manchuria and later
in North and Central China in the 1930s. Conscious of the nation's
unpopularity in the western world, Japan allied itself with Germany
and Italy in the Anti-Comintern Pact of 1936 and the Tripartite
Alliance of 1940. To pursue its own national objectives, Japan
joined her allies in making war on the United States and the
colonial empires of Britain, France, and the Netherlands. Its
forces succeeded in overrunning many colonial territories; and,
with a view to easing the problems of occupying them, Japan
liberalized its harsh military policies, granting independence to
Burma and the Philippines and welcoming Asian leaders to Tokyo for
the Greater East Asian Conference of November 1943.
General
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