Why did the Japanese occupy Manchuria in 1931?

Hi, I'm Tony Ma.

I am a lecture and, um, international History at the University of Sheffield.

And, um, what we're gonna do today is actually explore, um,

some of the issues surrounding the second Sino Japanese war,

which ran from 1937 to 1940 45.

So, um, what I want to do today is actually, um,

go through a series of questions that might interest you.

And the first one of these are that I like to

explore is why the why did Japan invaded Manchuria in 1937.

So when we're considering this question about Manchuria,

what we need to do is actually go back to the mid

to late 19th century and see how this region actually became significant,

Um, for Japanese security.

So what I think is to remember is that Japan came of age

during what we call the age of empire in the late 19th century.

In this period,

Western powers sailed their gumbos into East Asia and forcibly opened places.

Um, like China, Korea, Japan, and Siam, which is modern day Thailand, um,

to Western trade and Western powers also sought

to carve out spheres of influence here.

Outgunned these kind of countries basically submitted

themselves to highly unequal trade arrangements,

um, that increasingly, really undermine their sovereignty.

The major restoration of 18 68 which was a

revolution that really brought about the modern Japanese nation,

was basically a response to this crisis of

external kind of Western powers coming to their shores

to remedy the situation of kind of imperial, um, encroachment.

Leaders of the Japanese revolution believe that

the country not only required modernisation,

but also that Japan had to become an imperial power in of themselves, therefore,

that over the next few decades the Japanese leadership

devoted themselves to the task of self strengthening,

overhauling their political system, strengthening the military,

reforming their police and centralising their education system.

And the whole purpose of this was to create a

stronger nation that would be capable of resisting the West.

So although Japanese leaders were able to cast

off the Western Europe by the 18 eighties,

imperial rivalry in this region didn't actually stop.

China and Russia were both meddling in the affairs of Korea,

which is a neighbour to Japan.

If you think about it and they were there to gain a stronger foothold,

Um and to ward off other imperial powers.

Japanese leaders at the time had similar considerations,

as well as because of the proximity of Korea to the home islands.

For them,

Korea needed to be what they called independent from foreign interference

so that it can act as a buffer zone for Japan.

So the thing about this idea of a buffer zone for the home

islands is what was called the zone quote unquote zone of advantage.

Um,

and this really took hold of Japanese strategic thinking in the late 19th century.

This term was actually coined by Yamagata Arimoto,

which is the Japanese prime minister and

a major geopolitical strategist at the time.

For him, Japan really required this.

What he called the zone of advantage because his zone

helped protect what he called the zone of sovereignty,

which is the Japanese home island,

and Japan were basically only secure Korea as this zone of advantage after it

defeated China in 18 95 and then the Russians in 19 oh five,

Um, and in 1910, Korea becomes a full colony of Japan,

essentially coming into the sovereignty of Japan.

But this concept of the zone of sovereignty or this buffer

zone was an ever expanding one because now that Japan was

firmly in control of Korea and now fell into the category

of this zone of sovereignty that needed to be protected to,

this meant that Manchuria fell into this zone of advantage category.

Um, Manchuria, as you probably all know,

is the Chinese region that borders the Korean Peninsula,

and this place now needs to be secured in order to protect Korea.

This was especially true, um,

as the Russian had given some of its territorial rights

of this region to Japan after the Sino Japanese war.

So now Japan had a vested interest in developing this.

This region and the government poured money

into this territory which fuelled industrial growth,

um at the home islands.

As a result,

Manchuria was a mythologised as a lifeline for the nation and the empire.

The problem was in 1927 the Chinese Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang,

came to power by riding on a wave

of anti imperial national sentiment from southern China.

And they did this by uniting China from war tourism.

Now they sought to displace Japanese dominance in Manchuria and North China.

This development of kind of Chinese nationalism really

coincided with the turbulent time in Japanese society.

Japan, like many other places, um,

in the late twenties was hit hard by the global depression.

The contraction of the global economy essentially rippled through the country.

So we see mass bankruptcies, layoffs plaguing the Japanese economy.

Farmers and small businesses, especially, were really hard hit,

and cities themselves were rocked by strikes

and violence because of the economic hardship.

And, um,

the civilian government was increasingly seen as ineffective in dealing with

this economic crisis and the growing impoverishment of the country.

An ultra nationalist movement which have been growing since the 19 twenties,

really piggybacked onto this volatile context.

This movement had been largely confined in the military,

but their sentiments found traction among civilian

operatives in the late 19 twenties,

and this coalition became increasingly frustrated

with the government's inability to results.

If you do a poverty at home and Japan's limited inroads in the international arena,

the sentiment was particularly strong among the Guangdong Army units,

these were the units have been set up in 19

oh five to police the Japanese territories in Manchuria,

officers here believe strongly,

uh in their role and bring about change at home and securing the region for Japan.

Because in securing Manchuria,

who allowed them allow Japan to prepare what they saw as a final war with the West

and provide Japan with an outlet for the unemployed

at home and from the late 19 twenties,

they really took matters into their own hand,

assassinating what they saw as weak officials and vacillating allies.

That's the Manchurian Incident of September 1931 came as no surprise.

This was an incident where the Quanta Army units blew up the Japanese rely

in Manchuria and used it as an excuse to occupy all the territory.

There is some scholarly debate on the extent of knowledge

of this plot amongst civilians and the military leaders,

Um in Tokyo.

It was likely that they knew something would happen at some point,

but they probably didn't knew the exact plot.

The government responded weakly very weakly to this insurrection,

partly because popular opinion was behind the annexation and

the the prime minister was quite sympathetic to it.

So, in short to kind of sum,

it all up the annexation of Manchuria and the

creation of the Japanese puppet regime of Manchukuo in 1932

was the result of a kind of long term

concern for maintaining security in the age of empire.

But what really triggered this event was this broader sense of social disaffection

among young officers that was brought on by a crisis of capitalism.

This feeling was coupled with a sense of futility,

of Japanese efforts in securing its rightful

membership amongst great powers of the world.

So this toxic combination really created a conducive setting not

only for the Kwantung Army officers to take action,

but for its government and its people to condone it.