Causes of WWII: Asia-Pacific

Japanese poster showing the

tentacles of Churchill and

Roosevelt in Asia cut off by a

Japanese soldier

12 Steps to War in the Asia Pacific

1. Demise of Japanese and American relationship post Russo-Japanese war of 1905. Japan felt short changed by the peace agreement arbitrated by the US.

2. Japan’s economy was struggling at the beginning of the 20th C and it only got worse as population growth continued and resources remained limited.

3. Post WWI Japan was not treated as an equal by the dominant nations of Europe or the US. This was further exacerbated racist incidents in the US, the 1924 Exclusion Act specifically banned Japanese immigration

4. Growing role of the military establishment in the administration of Japan.

5. Growing nationalist and imperialist movement in Japan that resent the unequal treatment Japan received from the west.

6. 1931 invasion of Manchuria and weakness the League of Nations emboldened the Japanese military.

7. Japan’s 1937 attack on China leading to the Sino-Japanese War which lasted until 1945

8. Creation of an Asian co-prosperity sphere under Japanese influence.

12 Steps to War in the Asia Pacific

9. US embargoes on trade with Japan brought into effect in 1940…including scrap iron and aviation fuel

10. The non-aggression pact between the USSR an Germany was followed by a Russian – Japanese non-aggression pact that guaranteed Russia would not engage in a war in the Asia-Pacific

11. Japan occupied French Indo-China in 1940 and joined the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy.

12. 7 December 1941… Japan launches surprise attack on Pearl Harbour

12 Steps to War in the Asia Pacific

The Historians Debate

Edwin Reischauer

• Japanese miscalculated.

• Japan’s leaders were convinced that America did not have the will to fight a long war, especially if quick Japanese success showed how great the costs could be.

David Shannon

• Economic rivalry was the root cause.

• Japan wished to close the ‘open door’ policy and create her own imperial reserve for Japanese industry.

• Short in raw materials Japan sought to gain SE Asia’s resources and the US sought to protect its access to them!