The Nationalist Agenda in Japan

During the Meiji period traditional Japanese pride in their independence and cultural distinctiveness was transformed into something recognizable as modern nationalism as Japan competed for territory and markets in Asia and sought recognition as one of the Great Powers. In the 1920s and 1930s, Japanese nationalism gained broader support and, as in Germany and Italy, came to be identified with antidemocratic and antisocialist movements. Its appeal grew in response to several developments, including resentment of the West for its treatment of Japan after World War I, fears of a united China under Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalists, opposition to “dangerous” ideologies such as socialism and communism, anxieties about Western influence on Japan, and most important, the effects of the worldwide economic depression of the 1930s. With the onset of the Great Depression Japanese exports declined by half, workers’ incomes fell, and unemployment reached 3 million. The failure of the rice crop in northern Japan in 1931 reduced families to begging, eating bark and roots, and selling daughters to brothel keepers. Facing economic catastrophe, increasing numbers of Japanese came to support the ultranationalist claim that authoritarian government and military expansion would solve the nation’s problems.

With strong support in the rural population and the army, ultranationalism became a major force between 1931 and 1936, when its disciples assassinated business leaders and politicians, including a prime minister, and plotted to overthrow the government. The most serious coup attempt took place in February 1936, when officers and troops of the First Division attacked and briefly occupied government buildings in downtown Tokyo. The government suppressed the rebellion and executed its leaders, but to many Japanese those executed were heroes not traitors. Constitutional government survived on paper, but when Japanese and Chinese troops clashed in the summer of 1937 near Beijing, the ensuing war between China and Japan put political authority firmly in the hands of militarists and nationalists.

The Black Dragon Society was one of the many nationalist organizations that flourished in Japan in the first half of the twentieth century. An offshoot of a secret society established in 1881 by former samurai, the Black Dragon Society was founded in 1901. Its original goal was to promote war with Russia as a means of expanding Japan’s influence on the Asian mainland. After the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, which gave Japan a protectorate over Korea, the group advocated an aggressive foreign policy in Asia and denounced democracy, big business, Americanization, socialism, and party politics, all of which were viewed as threats to Japanese culture and their plans for military conquest. Although membership in the Black Dragon Society and similar organizations was small, their self-promotion, assassinations, and strong-arm tactics kept alive their brand of extreme nationalism, allowing it to flourish in the troubled atmosphere of the 1930s.

In 1930 the Black Dragon Society published a two-volume Secret History of the Annexation of Korea, in which it claimed a key role in inspiring early Japanese expansion. It concluded the second volume with the statement that you can read by clicking here.

After reading the document, I would like you to consider and discuss the following: What aspects of the Black Dragon Society’s philosophy caused it to support interventions in Korea, China, and the Philippines? In what ways, according to the authors of the document, has Japanese foreign policy been thwarted in the years since World War I? According to the Society, how has Japan’s domestic situation deteriorated? According to the Society, what are the causes of Japan’s problems, and what solutions does it offer? What might explain the appeal of such ideas to the Japanese populace? Your thoughts…