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The Nanking Massacre and Other Japanese Military Atrocities, 1931-1945
INTRODUCTION to UNIT 3
Japanese Imperialism
The last decades of the nineteenth century witnessed Japan’s modernization and its growth into an imperial
power. Imperial Japan craved territorial expansion, which would offer military bases, natural resources, and
labor. Japan’s desire for colonies in neighboring countries can be traced back at least as far as the 1870’s,
when Japan annexed such surrounding islands as Ryukyu (Okinawa), Ogasawara (Bonin Islands, where Battle
of Iwo Jima was fought), and the Kurile Islands. Following this moderate expansion between 1874 and
1875, Japan, still constrained by the unequal treaties imposed on it by the Western powers, intended to impose
unequal treaties on its Asian neighbors. Korea was the fi rst target.
In the name of fi ghting for the independence of Korea from China, Japan launched its war against China
on July 12, 1894—The First Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895). The Japanese Imperial Army (JIA)won on
every front, and by the spring of 1895, Japanese units had occupied the strategic Port Arthur (Lüshunkou) and
the remainder of the Liaodong Peninsula, Weihaiwei in Shandong Province, and had shattered the Chinese
fl eet. The Treaty of Shimonoseki (known in China as the Treaty of Maguan), signed after Japan’s victory,
forced China to recognize Korean independence and autonomy as well as to cede Taiwan and the Penghu
Islands (Pescadores) to Japan. This was a most damaging blow to Chinese sovereignty in the nineteenth
century.
Japan eliminated the Chinese infl uence in Korea and replaced it with Japanese control. Then it began
to counter Russian predominance in Northeast Asia. In 1904, Japan declared war against Russia—Russo-
Japanese War (1904-1905). Within sixteen months, Japan had sunk much of the Russian navy, and through
the Treaty of Portsmouth in 1905 (brokered by President Theodore Roosevelt, who later won the 1906 Nobel
Peace Prize for his efforts), gained the South Manchurian Railroad rights. In 1910, Japan annexed the entire
Korean Peninsula and, using Korea as a base, continued to look to China for more territories as their next
imperial conquest.
Japan saw a golden opportunity to displace Germany’s spheres of infl uence in China during World War
I, when Europe was involved with the war. In 1914, Japan expelled the Germans from Germany’s leased
territories in Shandong Province, such as the port of Tsingtao, and occupied them. In 1917, during
World War I, Japan declared war on Germany. Japan then fought alongside the Allied Powers, but considered
as its mission the seizure of German holdings in China and throughout the Pacifi c. When Germany was
defeated, Japan sustained its control over the Shandong peninsula through provisions in the Versailles Treaty
of 1919, and gained a seat in the League of Nations.
After World War I, Japan’s imperial army and navy began to gain increasing control of the country’s
political functions; growth of the military became the predominant goal of the country. When hit hard
by the Great Depression of the late 1920’s and 30’s, the Japanese were even more disillusioned with party
government. Moderates gave way to militants. Faced with the shortage of raw materials, the rapidly expanding
Japanese population, and depressed Western economies placing barriers on Japanese trade to protect their
own colonial markets, the Japanese militants advocated a strong policy towards China—a policy of conquest.
Their fi rst move was into Manchuria.
On September 18, 1931, offi cers in Japan’s Kwantung Army Group* (or Guandong Army Group)
fabricated an incident by placing a bomb on the Southern Manchurian railway, then under Japanese control.
Despite the Nine-Power Treaty and the Kellogg-Briand Pact, the army, blaming Chinese soldiers for the
explosion, invaded Manchuria in northeast China, where Japan’s government and army established
a puppet state called Manchukuo. In January 1933, Japan occupied the province of Jehol (“the key
to Peiping”), in North China thus extending the boundaries of Manchukuo. The League of Nations
*Kwantung means “east of Shanhaiguan,” a pass, east of which was Manchuria.
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