History of East Asia: A Captivating Guide to the History of China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan by Captivating History

Author:Captivating History [History, Captivating]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2020-09-10T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8 – The Taisho Era

Between 1912 to 1926, Japan continued to modernize. This rapid modernization gobbled up the government’s budget, leaving virtually little in reserve. The political situation was made precarious by the death of Emperor Meiji in 1912 and even more so by the cutting of Japan’s largest expenditure—the military. Prime Minister Saionji Kinmochi made that decision, and it showed that Japan hadn’t yet matured as a sovereign country. As a result of this traumatic change, the army minister resigned, with Kinmochi resigning shortly after. In essence, the country was still learning how to function effectively without looking upon a supreme authority to tell it what to do.

The new emperor, Yoshihito, Meiji’s son, took on the imperial name of “Taisho” and responded to this crisis by appointing Katsura Taro as prime minister, who had been the prime minister before Kinmochi. Riots broke out, as Katsura was an elder statesman and the Japanese didn’t trust him to propel them into the future. Katsura proved that fact almost immediately by attempting to solve the military crisis by doing the opposite of his predecessor. He restored the military budget but overextended it and virtually ignored the country’s focus on its new constitution. In the midst of massive protests and the appointment of Katsura for yet another term, the political parties rose up to resolve the crisis. The Rikken Seiyukai promoted Yamamoto Gonnohyoe as Katsura’s replacement, and the emperor approved. That was a mistake.

The Rikken Seiyukai party’s interest was in business expansion, and it was later revealed that the Siemens Corporation had conspired to attract more business for itself by obtaining military contracts with the navy and paying a fifteen percent kickback to those who could procure those contracts. The people were furious when they found out, so they looked toward a shakeup of the legislative body, the Diet, to undermine the control of the Rikken Seiyukai and the Siemens Corporation. The scandal led to the collapse of the Yamamoto Cabinet. Hence, the Progressive Party won the majority of positions in the national Diet. Okuma Shigenobu, a leading member of that party, became prime minister in 1914.

Because of the political manipulations that took place from 1912 to 1914, the Japanese navy and military were powerful. When World War I broke out in 1914, Japan seized the opportunity to join the Allied Powers—Russia, France, and the United Kingdom—to subdue the Central Powers of Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria from gaining control over the rich sea lanes in the Pacific Ocean. Japan’s hidden agenda in creating agreements with the Allies was to expand its influence on China, whose international commerce depended upon the Pacific.

Japan in World War I

At the end of July 1914 and the beginning of August of the same year, the Allied Powers in Europe came together against Germany and Austria-Hungary over control in Europe. In order for the Allies to be successful, though, Germany needed to be weakened.

Germany had a number of colonies in the Pacific which their navy

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