The Emperor's Adviser: Saionji Kinmochi and Pre-War Japanese Politics by Lesley Connors

Author:Lesley Connors [Connors, Lesley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Ethnic Studies, Political Ideologies, Social Science, Reference, Political Science, Nationalism & Patriotism, History, Regional Studies, General
ISBN: 9781136900242
Google: KTlZBwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 17582935
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 1987-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The Manchurian Incident and its Aftermath

The problems posed by the Mukden Incident and its aftermath— the establishment of an independent Manchukuo and Japan’s withdrawal from the League of Nations—were of a different nature from those presented to the Saionji group by the London Naval Treaty question. The domestic background against which these problems were resolved had also changed considerably. After the assassination of Chang Tso-lin, Japan’s relations with Manchuria had worsened steadily and as Chang Hsueh-liang drew closer to the nationalist government, anti-Japanese sentiment had mounted. The antagonism which this provoked both in Japan and amongst the Kwantung Army, was intensified by the return to Shidehara-Saionji foreign policy following the fall of the Tanaka Cabinet. At the same time, there had been an expansion of the radical reform movement and a trend toward unification of the various nationalist societies and an increase in the level of general social unrest in Japan. The combination of these developments had encouraged active cooperation between civilian and military groups at lower and middle grade officer level. By the beginning of 1931, it had led to the formation of young officer clubs such as the Sakurakai, which were actively involved in attempts to achieve domestic political and social reform and an expansionist foreign policy.58 All these trends were exacerbated by the show of strength f rom the liberal group in forcing through the ratification of the London Naval Treaty.

A concrete manifestation of the new combination of forces and the level of their determination to secure domestic reform came in March 1931 when, in the March Incident, senior army officers joined with members of the Sakurakai and civilian nationalists in a coup aimed at bringing down the Wakatsuki Government and replacing it with a military government under General Ugaki. The philosophical basis for the unsuccessful coup was the plans of the civilian nationalist, Kita Ikki, for the reconstrucion of Japan. The March Incident, although not perhaps, as Harada believed, a direct cause of the Mukden Incident, was undoubtedly one of the considerations in the minds of the Saionji group when they took the decision of how far to resist the fait accompli of the Kwantung Army in Manchuria later that year.

The wider context of government-military relations also bore signs of the increased politicisation of the military and the growing intrusion of the army into political affairs. There was widespread dissatisfaction with the Governrnent’s disarmament programme (a programme which was soon to be reaffirmed in the Geneva Conference) as well as with the deterioration of the situation in Manchuria and Mongolia. In 1931, both the Chief of the General Staff, General Kanaya Hanzo, and the Army Minister, Minami Jiro, made openly political speeches attacking government policy in these two areas.59 These criticisms of Shidehara-Saionji diplomacy were not without support amongst the public and among civilian officials. In parallel with these public statements by senior representatives of the army, the military were also taking active steps vis-a-vis the disarmament and Manchurian issues. Japanese policy at the Geneva Conference

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