Season 14, Episode 8: Obligations, Disasters, and Atrocities

When the Empire of Japan adopted its official constitution in 1890, hope swelled among liberal activists that this document would be the first draft of a more democratic era for Japan. Representative government, universal suffrage, and more robust protections for the rights of the individual were among their primary goals. However, there was significant conservative pushback which sought to instead solidify the values of 1890 into a permanent status quo. As we observed in the events of the preceding episode, conservative sentiment was not limited to the wealthy, politically powerful, or old-school nobility. The man who murdered Hara Takashi was certainly a disturbed individual but he represented the product of conservative fear-mongering around liberal reforms. The ultranationalist rail worker and his fellow working class conservatives weren’t terribly happy under the status quo, but they feared what they believed would be the end result of allowing the people greater freedom and political autonomy - a communist revolution like the one they witnessed taking place in Russia.

It is sadly ironic that Hara Takashi was killed not because of the actual policies he championed, but because of the false claims of his political enemies. Regardless of the merits of said claims, he was actually dead, and his minister of foreign affairs Uchida Kosai was temporarily made the acting Prime Minister. After a week, he would step aside when it was decided that Takahashi Korekiyo would be the new premier.

Takahashi Korekiyo led a fascinating early life, which included traveling to Oakland, California in 1867 at the age of 14 on orders from Sendai Domain, which he served as a samurai. The family he was staying with reportedly tricked him into signing a paper which assumed a debt, after which he was made an indentured servant - essentially a slave. I could not find any details regarding how he escaped from this obligation but somehow he made his way back to Japan in 1868. He returned in the midst of the Meiji Restoration, which abolished his home domain and made him a free agent. He used his experience overseas to launch a career teaching conversational English and took a side job working for the Ministry of Education as a bureaucrat.

He later drifted into finance, working for the Central Bank of Japan in 1892. By 1898, he had been promoted to vice president of the bank. He personally arranged for Japan to take on the foreign loans it needed to prosecute and win the Russo-Japanese War, and in 1913 he was appointed as Minister of Finance in the cabinet of Yamamoto Gonnohyoe and then later in that same cabinet position for Hara Takashi. As a member in good standing of the Seiyukai Party, he was elevated to party president around the same time he was made Prime Minister. However, his elevation to party president was not quite the triumph which it appeared from the outside. He had only joined the party in 1913 and his bureaucratic background made him somewhat unpopular among the leadership of the party. There existed a kind of rivalry between party politicians and career bureaucrats and some within Seiyukai greatly disliked being led by a man who, as far as they were concerned, had not done as much to earn such a high position as others within the party.

Ultimately Takahashi Korekiyo’s premiership was a flop as he was unable to bring the various factions within Seiyukai together for a united agenda and likewise failed to appeal to the other parties in the lower house. In June of 1922, he stepped down as Prime Minister, having served in that position for only seven months. He was succeeded by his own Minister of the Navy, one Kato Tomosaburo, who was named the new Prime Minister.

Kato Tomosaburo had been a longtime naval officer with a stellar career and had served as Minister of the Navy in several preceding cabinets. He had also been extremely busy just prior to being tapped as the next prime minister. Tomosaburo had been named as plenipotentiary, giving him official diplomatic negotiation powers, for the purpose of working out a suitable treaty with Japan’s most influential allies.

After the first World War had ended, there was a general understanding that part of what enabled this horrific conflict of attrition was the glut of weaponry which existed worldwide. Much of the ammunition for these weapons had been expended during the course of the war, but at great expense and with little to really show for said expense. The Japanese Navy, constantly angling for increased funds, planned to build a huge amount of armed naval vessels to support and defend their newly-gained colonies throughout the pacific. Britain likewise had large plans for building new ships. The United States under Woodrow Wilson also announced plans for fleet expansion, which made the Japanese extremely nervous. The Imperial Navy had a rough policy of maintaining a certain ratio of ships in the Pacific to ensure military parity with the US, and a larger US fleet would mean even more appropriations which would need to be lobbied tooth and nail.

However, Wilson’s second term ended in March of 1921 and Warren G. Harding won the election to replace him. Though he was a fellow Republican, Harding was an old-school isolationist and much of his support across the US came from an electorate which was not keen on increased taxes for overseas adventures. In November of 1921, Harding arranged what came to be called the Washington Naval Conference, bringing to the table the five primary nations who had been the big winners of the first World War: Britain, France, Italy, the US, and Japan. Kato Tomosaburo attended along with ambassador Shidehara Kijuro to represent Japan.

By early February 1922, a new treaty, called the Five Powers Treaty or sometimes the Washington Naval Treaty, had been worked out between the five nations and was signed and ratified. To sum the agreement up, each of the five nations pledged to keep their naval infrastructure within certain set limits, both in overall tonnage as well as specific maximum numbers of various categories of vessels. It also mandated a ten-year pause in the building of new capital ships, which were the biggest battleships of the time. As a result of this treaty, overall shipbuilding was reduced and because these nations abided by its terms, the trend of building large battleships, a trend which had been on a sharp upward trajectory since 1905, was practically halted for ten years. The negotiations over this treaty also ended the alliance between Japan and Britain.

This did not come about because of sore feelings on the part of either nation, but because American delegates refused to sign the treaty unless that alliance was terminated. Britain held a separate conference, called the Imperial Conference, which took place in the summer of 1921 and when the issue arose of whether to renew the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, which was set to expire in July of that year, the representatives from various corners of the British Empire, which included Australia and Canada, became deadlocked and the treaty expired on its own. Thus the Americans no longer needed to fear the spectre of being attacked on both coasts by two powerful allied enemies.

Frankly, the Five Powers Treaty of 1922 is a good reminder that sometimes politics can result in good things happening. Some feared that a second world war might soon be fought between the former allies who had triumphed in 1918 but this treaty and many others, combined with the work of the League of Nations, actually resulted in a lasting peace. Not permanent, obviously, but still. While that treaty was being worked out, a separate-but-related treaty was being drawn up regarding China. The United States had long promoted what they called the Open Door Policy with China, which meant that every nation should have equal access to China’s trade and diplomatic relations. This policy had long been largely ignored by fellow colonial powers and now that the first world war had ended, the US feared that China, along with all of its valuable trade and resources, was about to be partitioned into colonies by the Europeans and Japanese. Given that China was in the midst of a civil war, this concern was not entirely unfounded.

The US insisted that its fellow China-facing nations agree to the Open Door Policy and no longer seek out monopolies over trade, port access, or resources. The resulting Nine-Power Treaty was an agreement by these nations to abide by the Open Door Policy. In particular, this treaty required Japan to evacuate Shandong Province, one of China’s easternmost provinces which included Qingdao, which they had seized from the Germans during the first world war and strong-armed China into acknowledging their possession. Although Japan agreed and did indeed evacuate her troops from Shandong, the Nine-Power Treaty notably lacked any enforcement mechanisms. Next season, that treaty is going to be violated and the weak response will do nothing to dissuade anyone.

In June of 1922, just a few months after the Five Powers Treaty had been signed and he returned to Japan, Kato Tomosaburo was installed as the new Prime Minister. His military record earned him the respect of the army and navy but they were anything but satisfied with the general trends after the first world war so far. Japan had been forced to give up what had rightfully been gained through the blood of her soldiers and sailors and now it seemed to many in the top brass that their long-term plan to expand their influence over China had been placed in jeopardy by a bunch of lily-livered politicians who didn’t understand practical realities.

When building his cabinet, Kato Tomosaburo did nothing to inspire any further confidence from the military as the candidates he selected were mostly career bureaucrats and various members of the Upper House of the Imperial Diet, also called the House of Peers. In addition to overseeing the implementation of the terms of both the Five Powers Treaty and the Nine Powers Treaty, specifically reducing shipbuilding plans and returning Shandong Province to China’s possession, he also oversaw the withdrawal of Japanese troops from Siberia. By 1922, the last of the white armies had been routed or were clearly in a state of decline and there was really no reason for Japan to continue supporting their effort, especially when the other intervention powers had long since quit the field against the Red Army and the newly-formed Soviet Government they fought for. Had he lived longer, I think it very likely that Kato Tomosaburo would have experienced an assassination attempt, but he died in office of complications from Colon Cancer in late August of 1923 at the age of sixty-two.

Once again, Uchida Kosai was made acting prime minister until a suitable replacement could be found. However on September 1, a week after Kato Tomosaburo’s death, a horrific disaster struck as Tokyo and much of its outlying area was rocked by what we now call the Great Kanto Earthquake.

While earthquakes were a common occasional terror throughout Japanese history, the quake of 1923 was a different animal entirely. It is estimated to have measured between 7.9 and 8.2 on the Richter Scale and lasted nearly five whole minutes, which would result in catastrophic damage in pretty much any major city in the world today. The building standards and fire codes of 1923 Japan were not at all equipped to withstand such a violent tremor without six-figure casualties. Many buildings across the nation were still built primarily from wood and the ruptures created by the quake resulted in severed gas lines which caused fires. In Kamakura, which was 60 km (that’s 37 miles) from the epicenter, a Great Buddha statue, which is made of stone and weighs approximately 121 tons, was moved 60 centimeters, which is almost two feet.

Tokyo and Yokohama, the two largest urban centers affected by the quake, suffered catastrophic damage which rendered both cities unrecognizable. Among the material casualties was Ryounkaku, the first western-style skyscraper built in Japan which also featured Japan’s first electric elevator. Originally built in 1890, Ryounkaku loomed over the Asakusa district in Tokyo, a twelve-story building which, in spite of its western inspiration, still featured traditional Japanese decor on its exterior. Most of its floors housed a variety of retailers but the uppermost floors were observation decks and it was a very popular destination for both tourists and local residents. It had been previously damaged in an earthquake in 1894 and was subsequently reinforced with steel girders throughout its lower floors. This time, however, the damage was too extensive to justify the expense of repair. The skeletal remainder of the once-proud building was later destroyed in a controlled demolition.

Official estimates concluded that a little over 100,000 lost their lives in the terrible quake of 1923. This number accounts only for those whose bodies were found. If we include the missing, assuming that most went missing because they died, the number jumps to a little over 140,000. For comparison, the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 which left that city similarly devastated had a death toll of around 3,000. Unfortunately, the tragedy of the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 did not stop with the deaths caused only by the massive tremor.

The trouble began in Yokohama. Shortly after the quake ended, the dockworkers’ union in Yokohama sprang into action, quickly organizing a relief effort focused on delivering food and water to the quake survivors. These efforts were met with suspicion by the local police, who had something of a history with this union. The union leader who initiated the relief was a Japanese worker named Yamaguchi Seiken, whom the police had been keeping tabs on since he was accused of causing a disturbance at a May Day rally a few years before.

It’s hard to overstate the level of terror which the Japanese authorities in general experienced during the Russian revolution, which took place only six years before this earthquake. Police in Japan made a habit of surveilling any residents who were involved in organized labor, non-profit community service, mutual aid, or any other supposedly socialist activities. As far as they were concerned, it was only a few slippery steps between disaster assistance and government overthrow.

One of the benefits enjoyed by imperial powers worldwide throughout nearly the whole of human history is access to cheap or free labor from foreign emigres. Imperial Japan was no different, and Japanese shipping companies in particular made a habit of recruiting cheap laborers from Korea to work difficult and dangerous jobs, especially as dockworkers. Yamaguchi Seiken’s union aggressively recruited the Korean workers into their union and thus many of the relief workers attempting to mitigate the horrific suffering in the wake of the great Kanto earthquake were Korean laborers.

Some of what occurred is cloaked in the fog of history as the instigators attempted to give themselves deniability, but it is believed that the chief of the Yokohama Police ordered his officers to put a stop to the union-led relief efforts by spreading misinformation about the Korean workers engaged in the relief work. Accounts indicate that on the night of September 2, just a day after the horrible quake, Japanese police in Tokyo, Kanagawa, and Yokohama informed Japanese residents in various neighborhoods that the Koreans were taking advantage of the earthquake to commit a litany of crimes, including arson, rape, and poisoning water supplies. In some cases, the police casually told residents that it was permissible to kill any Koreans they found in their neighborhood.

In the wake of the disaster and the suffering that inevitably ensued, such police reports were especially potent. Most of the newspapers in these cities were unable to publish anything because of the extensive damage to local infrastructure, so there was no way for residents to fact-check what the police were telling them. Many probably believed that it was better to be safe than sorry, others no doubt had been waiting for just such an opportunity. Residents formed vigilante lynch mobs in many urban areas throughout Kanto, including Tokyo, Kanagawa, and Yokohama, and proceeded to murder any Koreans they found.

The violent pogrom that ensued claimed the lives of more than just unlucky resident Koreans. Many Chinese and Ryukyu residents were also killed as were many Japanese who simply did not seem “Japanese” enough for the bloodthirsty crowds. A young Kurosawa Akira - who would later make some of the greatest films of all time including Seven Samurai, High and Low, and Rashomon - bore witness to this horrific event when his own father was confronted by a lynch mob on suspicion that he was a Korean. The elder Kurosawa wore a heavy beard, an uncommon feature among the Japanese. Luckily, he survived the encounter. Many others did not.

Throughout most of September, these mobs were active throughout cities in Kanto, devising various tests which would help them determine who was Japanese and who would soon be dead. One of the more well-known was a demand that the potential victim pronounce certain Japanese syllables which contained phonemes which Chinese and Korean people tended to pronounce differently, such as /l/ and /r/ or /b/ and /p/. If the person pronounced the syllables in a way that was different from standard Japanese, they would most often be killed by the mob, who would eagerly move on to find their next target.

As the pogrom began, many Koreans fled to the police or to local army barracks in hopes of finding some protection from the murderous mobs. In many instances, the police or army officers brought these people directly to the mobs, who proceeded to murder them. In keeping with the original spirit of this purge, many police officers also proceeded to commit outright murder against local leftwing activists regardless of their ethnic origin.

By mid-September, the military’s top brass decided that the killings had to stop. Arrests were made, order was restored, and a massive coverup operation began. Because the devastation caused by the earthquake had temporarily halted the flow of information, the Japanese government opted to try and pretend that the pogrom never happened. Bodies were burned, local news organizations strictly ordered not to report on the killings, and the entire incident officially reported as the activities of a few bad apples or the product of simple misunderstandings. The official death count was five. Because of the efforts to conceal the truth, the real death toll can never be known but most reputable scholars would place the number at 6,000 or more.

When it became too difficult to deny that any killings took place, the victims themselves were blamed. The government claimed that those who were killed were caught committing crimes, and while the mobs may have gotten a little carried away, their martial spirit was commendable. Takarabe Takeshi, the Minister of the Navy actually praised the mobs for said martial spirit.

What came to be called “The Kanto Massacre” was an appalling, tragic event which, thanks to the efforts of some bad actors, remains divisive to this day. Modern-day Japanese ultranationalists continue to try and finish their former government’s work of covering up the massacre, either proposing lowball death counts or even denying that there was a massacre at all. It took months for the rest of the world to be informed of what happened in Kanto after the massive earthquake that leveled so many of its beautiful cultural treasures and destroyed so much of its vital infrastructure. However, over 735 people were arrested in connection with the Kanto Massacre and faced a variety of charges in the months ahead. I wish I could tell you that they faced fair trials and were given sentences commensurate with the measure of their crimes, but typically their cases were either dismissed due to a lack of evidence or, in the case of guilty verdicts, their sentences were extremely light.

In my opinion, the Kanto Massacre is a decent illustration of a phenomenon called “Elite Panic.” The term, coined by Rutgers University researchers Caron Chess and Lee Clarke, refers to the common reaction to disaster among elite members of society. Rather than emphasizing relief efforts or humanitarian aid, the focus among the elite instead falls upon how to maintain control.

I wish I had a silver lining for the Kanto Massacre, but I don’t. A lot of people were killed without cause, a lot of people who did the killing went unpunished and even celebrated, and accounts of the incident only further drove a wedge between the Japanese and Korean peoples - a wedge which would only get driven deeper in the decades ahead.

Next time, we will discuss the premiership of Kato Takaaki, whose leadership would oversee the fulfillment of many progressive policy demands while at the same time increasing press censorship and suppressing freedom of speech.