Imperialism in Japan was about more than just expanding the country’s borders. It was also motivated by a strong sense of racial superiority and a strong ideological sense of duty. These ideals were encapsulated in a term that was popular at the time but is now rarely heard: Pan-Asianism. Pan-Asianists in Japan felt that through expanding their empire, they would be able to free Asian regions from Western imperialism. Many Japanese people believed that spreading their empire into other Asian regions was not the same as imperialism. They saw their goals as bringing their Asian brothers and sisters together.
Such disparities were frequently portrayed in terms of racial, ethnic, and cultural supremacy, as was the case with many other imperial nations at the time. Many Japanese nationalists, for example, thought that Japan’s rapid and successful modernization demonstrated the country’s superiority and established Japan’s legitimate position as Asia’s regional leader. Despite the fact that much of Japanese culture is steeped in Chinese customs, some believed that separating and distinguishing themselves from nearby China was a crucial factor in strengthening the rising Japanese empire.
Despite Japan’s acceptance of imperialist philosophy, the country’s progress across East Asia was modest. In 1910, Korea became a Japanese colony, and Japan’s Taisho era (1912–1926) began with Emperor Meiji’s death in 1912 and Yoshihito’s ascent to power. World War I erupted in Europe during the summer of 1914, in the midst of this transformation. In August 1914, Japan declared war on Germany and dispatched troops to combat German forces in German colonial areas in China, including Qingdao (Tsingtao), Shandong points, and German-held Pacific islands. Japan also dispatched naval vessels to the Mediterranean to assist the Allies.
With European powers preoccupied with the war effort, Japan issued the Twenty-One Demands to China in 1915. The Japanese threatened that if they didn’t agree, they’d go to war again. Despite the fact that most of the requests were ultimately rejected by Chinese officials, yet with the political support and negotiation muscle of the United Kingdom and the United States, they took a toll on an already shaky republican government. Japan’s demands ushered in a new era of militarism and expansionism for the country.
When World War I broke out, Japanese production and trade exploded, as numerous domestic companies stepped in to fill the void created by Europe’s shattered markets. Japan’s population rose in tandem with its economic growth. Japan had a population of 45 million people in 1900. It had grown to 60 million people by 1925, with the majority living in cities rather than the countryside.
This rapid population expansion put a strain on Japan’s natural resources and food supplies, forcing the country’s officials to go outside the country for raw materials and space to accommodate the rising population. Ultranationalist groups in Japan’s government, military, and civilian population advocated for the extension of Japan’s territory to meet resource needs and to achieve ideological and imperial goals.
Japanese militarists and ultranationalists advocated an even more confrontational approach against China in the early 1920s, fearful of China’s political consolidation as a potential regional adversary. The ultranationalists and militarists requested that Japan’s imperial forces prevent the Chinese nationalist government from gaining control of Manchuria, a Chinese territory in which Japan had significant economic and political interests. Tanaka, Japan’s militarist prime minister, dispatched soldiers to China in 1928. Expanding into Manchuria made political sense to him and his supporters since it would alleviate Japan’s raw material shortfall and provide a place to live for the increasing population.
By 1931, the Chinese government had been severely devastated by the escalation of violence between the Chinese Communist Party and the Nationalist Party, and Japanese Imperial forces had successfully occupied the Manchurian city of Mukden (Shenyang) and the entire Manchurian province of Manchuria (in China’s northeast). This was the start of nearly a decade and a half of Japanese territorial expansion into Asia, as well as the commencement of the Chinese resistance to Japanese invasion, which lasted from 1931 to 1945. For some, the occupation of Manchuria serves as a forerunner to the commencement of World War II in China, setting the stage.
