Japan stay's out of WWII.

Howdy,


Lets say that:

1. Japan decides that it will find other trading partners, thus limiting the impact of the trade embargo of the U.S. Would this be possible?

2. If Japan didn't attack the US would this have effected its operations in China for the better?(A theater no one but them and the Chinese were involved in).

3. Speculate on how long Japan could have continued it's Empire.


1. I don't see how this would be possible, by list of country:
a. Great Britain wouldn't have resources to trade due to its conflict with Germany.(This goes for her surrogate states as well)
b. The Soviet Union and the Japanese had multiple border clashes, so why would they trade with each other.
c. Germany is under an effective blockade by the British.
d. South American countries? To small to give the Japanese the resources they required in the amounts needed?

2. The Japanese would have had to devote less men and material to defend islands in the Pacific that (IMO) have/had little strategic value. Could they have added several more divisions to their armies in China? Would this have had any effect at all? I've read in Keegan's book on WWII that the Japanese army in China was effectively hog tied for the most part with pacification duties and generally just trying to keep the peace. So our more sage forum goer's will have to help us with this!


3. Much like the British, I think the cost of having a colony would eventually out weigh it's benefit. I would speculate that if Japan didnt enter an armed conflict with the US, SU, or GB, she would let her colonies go in the mid 60's or early 70s(Not without a little bit of a scuffle though).


On a side note: Was there really anything to the Japanese Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere? Or was it more of a cover for their Imperialist activities?


Yours,

Bill

 

It all comes back to Japanese ambitions in China.

When Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931, it embarked on the road to war with the US. Not that such a course was irreversible at that time, but the Manchurian invasion whetted the Japanese Army's appetite for further territorial conquest in China and, in retrospect, led almost inexorably to full scale war, in 1937, with China. With Japan mired in the Chinese war, it needed more and more resources and, at the same time, angered the US which, somewhat irrationally saw itself as a protector of China.

Without the Chinese war, Japan would have been able to increase and modernize it's industrial infrastructure, and develop additional sources of raw materials, while at the same time improving it's relations with Britain and the US. Almost certainly there would have been no trade embargo and no real shortage of materials for Japanese industry, thus Japan's economy would have steadily improved. A secondary source of friction between Japan and Britain and the US was the extremely ill-advised Tri-Partite Pact with Germany and Italy. Japan gained absolutely nothing from this Pact except further emnity with Britain, the US, and the Netherlands.

To respond to your numbered hypothesis;

1. Japan did make attempts, beginning in 1940, to find other trading partners. Negotiations were begun with the NEI to increase exports, particularly of oil, to Japan. Unfortunately, Japan's already close relations with Germany (which in May, 1940, occupied the Netherlands), made the NEI government reluctant to sell Japan oil which might end up being resold to Germany. Also Japan rather stupidly demanded other political and economic concessions which would have had the effect of turning the NEI into, more or less, a colony of Japan. As a result, the NEI refused to grant any concessions to Japan and eventually joined the US trade embargo

Japan also explored closer economic ties with various Central and South American countries. But by 1940, the US was exerting considerable pressure on these countries to join in an anti-fascist coalition, and they realized that their trade with the US was far more valuable to them that any trade with Japan could ever possibly be.

Japan used a combination of military intimidation and economic pressure to enter into political and trade relations with Asian countries like Siam, but found that such trade was limited and could not provide it's needs in terms of raw materials, nor a ready market for it's civilian exports. With a war raging in Europe, trade with most European countries could not be increased, so Japan was really limited in it's trade options.

2. If the Japanese had not attacked the US (including the Philippines), the outbreak of the Pacific War might have been delayed as much as a year. But with Japan seizing the NEI and the British possessions in Asia, it's almost certain the US would have entered the war eventually. And without occupying the Philippines, Japan would have found it's trade routes with the Southern Resources Area cut off by powerful US forces in the PI. And Japan feared that delaying a war with the US would allow America to complete it's naval rearmament program to the point that it would completely dominate the Pacific; Japan would then have no hope of prevailing in any war, would be forced to give up it's gains in Malaya, Borneo, Singapore, and the NEI, and would have no choice but to remove it's troops from China. It was literally a no-win situation, but the Japanese convinced themselves that by attacking the US immediately there was a slight chance (usually estimated as 10%) of seizing the Southern Resources Area and hanging on long enough for the US public to become dispirited and demand negotiations.

3. It really depends on which parts of the Empire you are talking about. The Southern Resources Area (Malaya, Singapore, Borneo, the NEI), only as long as the US forebears going to war, maybe a year, eighteen months max. China (including Hainan island) about the same, although they might negotiate a short "grace" period to allow an orderly withdrawal of their troops, another year at most. Manchuria, the same as China, but the puppet government of Manchuko might be allowed to remain and maintain a "special" relationship with Japan. This all assumes there was no "Pearl Harbor Style" attack on the US.

It's worth considering that the US, even without Pearl Harbor, always planned (War Plan Orange and later Rainbow 5) an all out war on Japan with total destruction of the IJN, a naval blockade, and an aerial bombardment. The goal was always to force Japan to concede total defeat and end her ambitions of a Pacific empire.

As for the Greater East-Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere, many average Japanese believed in the more benevolent aspects of the scheme, but the Japanese government never meant it as anything more than a cover story for their plans of colonization and political and economic domination of Asia and the Pacific. In practice, it was simply a plan for the exploitation of Asia and the Pacific islands for the sole benefit of Japan. It quickly ruined the economies of the Japanese occupied countries, led to the deaths by starvation, disease, and over-work of countless thousands of innocent people. My mother-in-law and father-in-law (both of Chinese ethnicity), experienced the GEACPS first hand in Borneo and could attest to the brutal nature of Japanese economic exploitation, which far exceeded anything imposed on the helpless natives by European colonial regimes. John Dower, in "War Without Mercy" has some very interesting data on the GEACPS as documented by the Japanese themselves. One of the excuses given by the Japanese for their territorial aggression was the lack of "living space" in Japan; but Dower relates that the Japanese government actually had plans to INCREASE the pre-war Japanese population in order to facilitate colonization of captured territory.

 

Well that was quite educational! Thanks DA for that great piece of information!


Yours,

Bill

 

In the 1920s Japan had found itself in a difficult economic postion. Industrialization could not go forward much more than a decade or two without acress to resources, it was no longer possible to return to a 18th Century agrarian economy. A coalition of the most ambitious business families were able to take control of the legislature and impose the imperialist policy. Although moderates and realistic leaders opposed them the imperialists were able to retain the initiative and force a program of military expansion and eventually war with China. Although the accquizition of the "Northern Resource Area" (Siberia) was favored as the long range goal by the imperialists their inablity to formulate a coherent plan, or control the disparate factions of their group led them blundering into war with China and then the US & Allies.

One of the problems of Japans effort to administrate its empire is that the Army was given the responsibility to govern the newly conquored territorys. Consequently military officers with no government experince, diplomatic training, or any other administrative skills were susposed to manage the government of vast territorys and millions of people.

To work out a WI with Japan as not a participant in WWII you have to reach back into the 1920s and redirect Japans politics so that the imperialists fail to take take power. Some sort of alternative policy for keeping Japans growing population out of poverty has to be found.

 

Actually, it wasn't until 1929 that Japan started to to suffer adverse economic conditions and even then the problems were not nearly as severe as elsewhere. During the Great Depression Japan got off relatively lightly, the most serious effect being the collapse of the Silk Industry which had depended on Western countries purchasing luxury silk garments and silk stockings. The Japanese economy from 1928 through 1933 grew an average of 5% per year. The collapse of the silk trade affected rural families the most, but even then there was not widespread hunger as there was in other countries. Since most Japanese Army recruits, including the officer candidates came from rural areas, and knew very little about economic matters, the loss of the silk trade and it's overall effects on the Japanese economy became exaggerated in Japanese Army ranks. The soldiers and officers saw only the hardships of their families and neighbors, while urban populations barely felt the economic troubles. This outraged the military who felt that only farmers seemed to be suffering from the Depression. This was what drove the military to advocate territorial aggression as an antidote for what was perceived to be the unfairness and weakness of the Japanese economy.

In both Korea and Manchuria, the political/economic administration of those territories was shared between the Japanese Army and the local Japanese Railway companies. The railway corporations tended to economic matters and the military provided security and stability for Japanese enterprises of all types. This administration was fairly efficient, except it ignored the long term problem of alienating the indigenous population and thus fostered latent political instability. In every territory occupied by Japan in it's imperial period, the official policy was that these territories existed to be exploited for the benefit of the Japanese economy. This short-sighted policy was what eventually led to war with China.

The year 1930 is a more likely pivot point for the history of Japan. Until then, Japan was pretty much on track economically and industrially. In that year, the xenophobic Army officers began to agitate for driving foreign investment (which was absolutely critical to further development) out of the Japanese economy. In 1931, Manchuria was invaded and began to drain off development investment yen from the domestic Japanese economy causing a slowing in industrial development at exactly the wrong time. At about the same, the IJA began trumpeting their "social and economic awareness" and their "success" in acquiring Manchuria, which had the effect of boosting military/naval spending to very unhealthy levels, further crippling the economy.

Convinced that their course was the only correct road to economc development, the IJA began a program to seize political power and eliminate the few Japanese economic scholars and administrators who (correctly) cautioned against lavish military spending and territorial aggression which would tend to isolate Japan from world markets. Even if the military had not used murder and violence to intimidate their enemies, it's likely that the military would have eventually been able to seize effective political control as the Japanese Constitution of 1900 enshrined rules which gave the military a virtual veto power over civilian government.