Japan and the United States-from challenger to colony

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America’s first contacts with Japan were aggressive. The United States forced Japan to open its doors to trade and western influence. At one point the US even planned to make Japan a colony. The thought to expand towards Asia began right away after the war with Mexico when American acquired the Pacific coast. Secretary of State Seward who is famous for purchasing Alaska was an advocate of expansion in Asia. When Japan began its development into an industrial power, most of Asia was already under European domination. In fact it was the British success and Chinese defeat in the Opium Wars which induced Japan to open its doors with the west. With China already under European control the Japanese understood that they were next in line. Their biggest threat initially came from Russia which was expanding rapidly across Eurasia. The Russians were taking control of a number of areas on the periphery of China such as Central Asia, Mongolia and Manchuria. As China weakened Russian influence grew. And it began to be felt in the Korean peninsula as well. The British who were the main competitors with the Russians for control of Asia were concerned about Russian expansion. Although a superior naval power, their disadvantage was that they were weak as a land power. Russia which was building the Tran Siberian railroad at the end of the 19th century was in the position to deploy troops through out the Eurasian landmass. The British tried to compete with the Russians on a number of fronts in Iran and Afghanistan, in Tibet, and in the Far East. Towards the end of the 19th century the British and the Americans agreed to a rapprochement. The Americans who were fast becoming a world power were given the prerogative over the Western Hemisphere while in Asia they promised to defend each other’s interests. The American Open Door policy in China defended the status quo-British superiority in Asia. It advocated like in the case of the Ottoman Empire that the shell of China would be preserved; however, the state would be under European economic control. China would be a puppet of the European powers. Russian endangered this. Her armies were all across the Chinese frontier and in Mongolia and Manchuria. As a result of the Spanish American war, the United States faced China from the Philippines. From its new position it sought to support its interests in China. Together with Britain it supported the Japanese in the Russo-Japanese War of 1905. However in the treaty of Portsmouth that ended the war, Japan was restricted in the gains it received as a result of the war. The very fact that the two warring powers agreed to a peace treaty brokered by the Americans is evidence enough of how powerful the United States had become in the Asia Pacific region. It was not to long thereafter that the US and Japan agreed that the US would respect Japan’s control of Korea in exchange for Japan’s recognition of US control over the Philippines. Japan which took control of Korea after the war believed that the European powers were planning to expand their influence from the Chinese coast to the Korean peninsula and become a strategic threat to Japan. In the age of late nineteenth century and early twentieth century imperialism there was little choice among states. Either they could expand and build their strength or contract and become colonies, protectorates and satellites of great powers. Japan wished to be a governing nation in the world but it was at a disadvantage. The Americans were moving towards them from the west. The European powers and mainly Britain were slowly encroaching from the East. Although the British and the Americans acquiesced in the growth of Japanese power in the Pacific Rim, they were obviously unwilling to allow this Asian country to assume a status equal to them. It was thus that they attempted to deny to Japan what they had taken for themselves-a manifest destiny on a continent. At the time of the Japanese advance into Manchuria, the Japanese had already a presence in Manchuria sanctioned by the western powers as a result of the Russo-Japanese war, and World War I. They controlled the Kwantung peninsula. Historically, Manchuria was not part of China. It was not in the area of the Great Wall. The native inhabitants of Manchuria, the Manchus had conquered China in the 17th century. The Manchus, as the ruling dynasty of China, maintained a legal separation between the two areas-Manchuria and China. Chinese were not permitted to reside in Manchuria. It was only in the 19th century, that Chinese settlers began to occupy Manchuria. When the Japanese helped the Manchus achieve an independent state with the last Emperor of China as the new Emperor of Manchuria, there was an historic basis for their actions. The Americans condemned Japanese action in Manchuria ignoring that had the Japanese not strengthened their presence there the Russians would have. Part of Japanese ideology at this time was their self identity as the liberators of Asia. Asia was indeed under European domination. Even after World War II, America returned most Asian colonies to their European masters. It sought this structure while it was the power behind the scenes. At the time of the Japanese advance into China, China was not a unified and genuinely independent state. China was weak. It was controlled by the European powers as well as the militias of the Nationalists and Communists and warlords. The Japanese sought to do what the Americans do today “defend in the Pacific.”

On the eve of World War II, Japan was heavily involved in a war in China. Its goals in China were to incorporate that region into the Japanese economy and liberate it from European domination. These were lofty goals and somewhat unrealistic because Japan itself was dependent on oil and metal imports from the United States. Across the Pacific, the United States looked at Japan as a weak power. Unlike the governing countries of the world-the European countries and America, Japan did not have access to a market for its manufactured products nor did it have access to natural resources. When Japan sought to acquire these items it was stopped by the United States which wanted to provoke a war with it which the United States was certain to win and more importantly involve the US in the war against Germany. American opinion was against involvement in the war against German which it believed would be an unnecessary sacrifice of American life. In response to the American strategic threat against Japan and American moving its naval base to Hawaii in preparation of military action in Asia, Japan sought a protective alliance with Germany. America understood that the road to the Rhine led through Japan so it sought to encourage Japan to attack it and bring the US into the war. From Japan’s point of view, expansion in the Pacific was not the goal. The Japanese wanted to liberate the Asian continent from European domination and bring it under its protection and influence. However, once the US deprived Japan of its oil supplies, Japan was forced to seek energy and metal resources among the European colonies of Asia. An attack on Indonesia or Malaysia would result in war with Britain. With the US flexing its muscles in the Pacific threatening war, the only hope for the Japanese lay in a preemptive strike against the US. Unfortunately for the Japanese, there was little chance they could succeed. The Americans mercilessly crushed them destroying their protective bases on by one, bombing and killing hundreds of thousands of civilians and finally dropping the atomic bombs on Japan’s population centers unleashing death and destruction. After the war, the US plan for Asia was an American-Asia Co Prosperity Sphere. Japan was separated from the Asian continent and incorporated into the American economic system. The Korean War of the early 1950’s was essentially a conflict between America and Russia over who would control the Korean peninsula. If Russia would gain control over Korea it would be like a dagger pointed at the heart of Japan. However, if America controlled Korea it would be a stepping stone for penetration into China. The American Co-Prosperity Sphere in Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea eventually did incorporate China beginning with Nixon’s visit to China. Today the borders of the American economy reach straight across the Pacific and China into Central Asia.