Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T01:07:14.965Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 3 - Political Awakening Amid Global Wars

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 November 2020

Get access

Summary

By December 1941, the Japanese government had come to the conclusion that diplomacy would not achieve its aims in Southeast Asia. It was essential to secure direct control over the region and also ensure that no power was in a position to threaten shipping links between Japan and Southeast Asia. The American navy posed the greatest threat, and on December 7, a surprise raid on Pearl Harbor in Hawai‘i destroyed most of the American Pacific fleet.

—Anne E. Booth

IN ITS ATTEMPT to create the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, Japan deemed itself to be following the dictates of imperial economics. Tokyo's modernization was a defensive one, occurring in the wake of China's defeat in the Opium Wars. What it seemed to have learned from the process was how important a secure supply of resources was to industry. Its success in transforming its culture into one that could vie with Western powers was all the more extraordinary when compared to the failure experienced by other non-western polities of the time, especially the ailing Manchu dynasty that was ruling China.

The fall of the Qing in 1911 failed to place China onto any clear path of modernization, and the possibility of the empire being divided among properly modernized nations was all the stronger when the Versailles Treaty of 1919 saw German possessions in China being handed over by the victorious allies to Japan—which was then one of their numbers—instead of being returned to Chinese control. To be sure, no central government existed in China then. It was only after the Kuomintang under Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek succeeded in defeating and co-opting the various warlords with his Northern Expedition in 1926–28 that such an authority came into being.

Chiang managed to complete this feat through violent campaigns that destroyed the urban presence of the Chinese Communist Party in 1927. This achievement did not stop the Japanese from invading Manchuria in 1931. In fact, it may have prompted them to act sooner rather than later.

Type
Chapter
Information
As Empires Fell
The Life and Times of Lee Hau-Shik, the First Finance Minister of Malaya
, pp. 59 - 79
Publisher: ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×