Season 15, Episode 13: Pacific Positioning

Although the first and second world wars were strikingly different in terms of the relevant tactics, strategies, and technologies employed, they do share some striking parallels. In the decades prior to 1914, the German Empire had been determined to make the “empire” part of their name into a reality. Flush from their victory over the French in the Franco-Prussian War of 1871, they sought many opportunities to create a colonial foothold in various parts of the world and by the 1910s its government was frustrated by both the resistance of native peoples in Africa, China, and the Middle East, but also by what it saw as interference from the British and French Empires, which to be fair, had indeed been interfering. A big motivation for the German Empire’s backing of Austria’s invasion of Serbia which was a major factor in the inception of the first world war was an intense domestic certainty that Germany herself was being purposefully held down by rival colonial powers who were determined to prevent the German Empire from flourishing. While Britain, France, and Italy saw the conflict as arising from unjustified German aggression, Kaiser Wilhelm II and his government argued that the first world war was an act of defiant self-defense.

Similar justifications could be heard from the Empire of Japan throughout the early twentieth century. Japanese fears of being absorbed into a western colonial empire had, since the early days of the Meiji Period, been used to justify the creation of a powerful east Asian empire capable of preserving the resources, peoples, and cultures from western rapacity. Japan’s own colonial projects started, arguably, with forced industrialization of Hokkaido and the annexation of the Ryukyu Islands, which were then renamed as Okinawa Prefecture. Then came Taiwan, a war prize won from China, and the infamous tripartite alliance which forced Japan to surrender their claim to the Liaodong Peninsula, a situation which would be avenged ten years later after they won possession of the port of Lushunko from the Russians in the Russo-Japanese War. Then its government forced Korea to become a protectorate in 1905 and spent the ensuing five years chipping away at their national sovereignty until finally bringing the peninsula under their firm control by 1910. To true believers in the promise of a vast pan-Asian empire, everything seemed to be proceeding according to plan. Then came the first world war.

Like many other nations, Japan used the first world war as a pretense for occupying German Possessions, most notably the Chinese city of Qingdao but also sending the navy out into the vast pacific ocean to take possession of islands claimed by the German Empire, whether said islands had been actively colonized or not. These included the archipelagos commonly known as the Caroline Islands and the Marshall Islands. While some of their fellow Entente Allies initially objected to this land-grab, in truth a lot of them were engaging in similar grabs around the world and thus their objections felt rather hypocritical. The United States, who joined the Entente much later, was especially nervous about Japan’s expanding Pacific influence because of their own recent colonial acquisition of the Philippine Islands.

The Spanish-American War of 1898 was initiated by the sinking of the USS Maine, an armored cruiser of the US Navy which was patrolling the harbor of Havana, Cuba at the time. Subsequent investigations would conclude that the most likely cause of the explosion which shattered the ship’s hull and caused the ship to sink was a fire in the ship’s coal bunker which spread and ignited a powder magazine. The US press at the time, however, was much more enthralled by the accusation that the ship had been purposefully sunk by a Spanish mine. Regardless of what caused the sinking of the USS Maine, it occurred during a time of unrest and upheaval in many of Spain’s remaining colonial possessions, particularly Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippine Islands.

These three colonies were in the midst of their own revolutions for independence when the Spanish-American war erupted in 1898, which made the conquest of those colonies much easier for American troops who were able to ally with local freedom fighters. The war was concluded after three months with Spain giving up its colonial claims over Puerto Rico, Cuba, Guam, and the Philippines.

Shortly after the Philippines was made a United States territory by the Treaty of Paris which ended the war with Spain, local Filipino leaders banded together and signed a declaration of independence, establishing what we now call the First Philippine Republic. The United States refused to recognize the new country, and in 1899 war broke out between US forces and the army of the First Philippine Republic. Two years later, the man who had been elected president of the Philippine Republic was captured and the war declared over, though insurgent fighting would continue in some corners of the archipelago, which by the way contains over seven thousand islands, until 1913.

The United States was, like Japan and Germany, something of a late-comer to global colonialism. In addition to its swift victory over Spain and subsequent absorption of that empire’s territories, 1898 was also the year that the US annexed the islands of Hawaii after a coup led by white sugar plantation owners overthrew Queen Liliʻuokalani. Although the US did not have the same long colonial history as Britain and France, it was learning fast and making up for lost time.

The territory of Hawaii was now given a territorial governor who was appointed by the US president without any input from its indigenous population, the majority of whom had opposed the annexation and clamored to restore their deposed queen. The islands proved to be an attractive place for manufacturing businesses to build factories because, being a territory, it did not have the stringent restrictions on immigration which applied to the states. Xenophobic fears, especially of east Asian immigrants, fueled support for anti-immigration laws throughout the early twentieth century which made cheap labor hard to find. Thus the Hawaiian islands became a kind of hub for immigrants willing to work for wages which would be considered below average in the US but were generally better than they would get in their home countries. Filipino, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean workers came to settle in significant numbers on the islands of Hawaii looking for such opportunities.

To properly understand the Pacific positions of the Empire of Japan and the United States, it helps to imagine not just the islands in question but the waters around them as well. In the central pacific, just north of the 10th parallel, lies the Hawaiian Islands as well as numerous other tiny islands stretching to the east. Southeast of those islands, stretching from just above the 10th parallel all the way to the equator, lies the Marshall Islands and further east are the Caroline Islands, both of which belonged to Japan. Due north of the Caroline Islands are the Ogasawara Islands, which lie just south of Japan’s main island of Honshu. You may recall that the Ogasawara Islands were among Commodore Perry’s landing sites. East of the Caroline Islands and due south of the Japanese territory of Taiwan lies the Philippine archipelago, which was now US territory.

Japan’s seizure of the Marshall and Caroline Islands, though unfavorable to US interests, was made legal by a proclamation of the League of Nations which we now call “The South Seas Mandate.” This mandate officially recognized Japan’s rightful occupation of these islands and granted them the right of governance over its native population, who were described as needing greater cultural, economic, and political development. This authorization specifically forbade Japan from constructing military infrastructure on these islands. The Permanent Mandates Commission, a committee within the League of Nations, had been tasked with oversight of Japan’s south Pacific colonies and subjected them to yearly visits-slash-inspections to ensure that the text of the mandate was being obeyed by the Japanese. However, these visits were preceded by an official request and in the late 1920s the Japanese government made a habit of refusing these requests, which provided even less oversight regarding the empire’s activities within these archipelagos.

Though the Japanese government encouraged migration, this effort was initially slow and attracted mostly laborers who secured jobs from still-developing industrial interests on the islands. However, by 1930 the Japanese population of these islands had boomed to 70,000 as entrepreneurs sought their fortunes extracting or making products using the islands’ primary resources of coconuts and sugarcane as well as numerous valuable minerals. The indigenous population, meanwhile, stagnated as they were relegated to second-class citizen status. They were not granted the same rights and privileges as Japanese citizens and their employment options generally involved performing extremely dangerous work for very little pay. While the Japanese government constructed public schools and technically provided free education for indigenous youths, most of these were boarding schools which separated children from their parents. Although public schools were segregated, the curriculum at the indigenous schools was very Japan-centric, teaching indigenous children state Shinto and emperor worship.

While the mandate forbade the Japanese from building fortifications or military bases on the islands, the Imperial Japanese Navy nevertheless conducted numerous surveys of the islands throughout the 1920s with the aim of assessing how quickly the islands could be militarized in the case of a regional war. This did not technically violate the mandate directly, but it was obviously a gray area.

After Japan’s withdrawal from the League of Nations in 1933, its military and government no longer felt bound to the terms of the South Seas Mandate and began constructing military infrastructure throughout the region. Military theorists, especially in the upper echelons of Japan’s military, believed that airplanes would play a much greater role in future conflicts and thus, aircraft carriers would become increasingly vital in maintaining superiority. The islands of the Marshall and Caroline Archipelagos thus came to be viewed by many Naval strategists as “unsinkable aircraft carriers” which could extend Japanese control over airspace far beyond the geographic boundaries of their south seas colonies.

Meanwhile, the non-indigenous population of the Marshall and Caroline Islands continued expanding throughout the 1930s and included Chinese and Korean migrants. The population of these non-Japanese laborers swelled enough to support micro-economies which included Chinese and Korean restaurants, taverns, and other targeted entertainment groups. However, the labor being performed on these colonies was rarely as glamorous as serving food and drink. Mining and plantation labor were the primary means of employment for most residents and their work was overseen by a small number of venture capitalists who were enriched by their cheap labor. Although the Japanese government had subsidized much of the development of their south seas colonies throughout the 1920s, by the end of that decade these colonies were self-sufficient and capable of not only funding themselves but also enriching Japan’s own faltering economy. By the 1930s, Japanese tourism to the islands also flourished.

The ongoing colonization of the Philippine Archipelago by the United States, meanwhile, certainly bore similarities to Japan’s own colonial efforts but should not be understood as identical. Japan’s colonies were governed solely by civil authorities appointed by their central government. The Philippines were similarly given a governor by presidential appointment, but were also permitted to hold elections for members of a legislative assembly which, in 1912, was transformed into a bicameral legislature with upper and lower houses. Every year, among its other domestic lawmaking work, that legislature supported sending an official request for independence from the United States directly to the President. While US business interests established some production using the Philippines, it was not nearly as popular an investment as Caribbean islands like Cuba and Puerto Rico. In 1919, the Philippine legislature funded its own diplomatic mission to the US with the express goal of achieving approval for independence.

In 1921, it looked like dawn might finally be breaking for those who desired an independent Philippines. President Woodrow Wilson, in his farewell address to Congress, declared that the Filipino people had proved that they were prepared for self-governance and that it was thus the duty of the US government to grant them independence. The administration that followed him disagreed. Subsequent legislature-funded independence missions like the one from 1919 were declared illegal, but this only meant it was necessary to find alternate funding. Public collections were taken throughout the archipelago which successfully funded such missions in 1922, 1923, 1930, 1931, 1932, as well as two missions in 1933. In 1934, another glimmer of hope appeared for advocates of Philippine independence. The US passed a law which called for a rehaul of the Philippine government which would transform the territory from an insular government into a commonwealth. It further required the Philippines to remain a commonwealth of the US for the following ten years, after which time independence would be granted.

The Philippines thus held a constitutional convention to decide what their new commonwealth government would be. This new constitution allowed for domestic presidential elections and continued the bicameral legislature but matters of foreign policy were still primarily within the US’s purview, and any laws which were passed by the commonwealth’s government which concerned currency, immigration, and foreign trade required the approval of the US President. Because of subsequent developments which we will discuss a few episodes from now, it is impossible to say whether the US would have kept its promise to grant independence in a decade but it is not correct to imagine the US colonies in the Pacific as being the same as their Japanese counterparts.

Unlike the many colonies of Japan, which generally featured Japanese people being appointed to important government posts, the Commonwealth of the Philippines had its own president, legislature, and supreme court which were all staffed by actual Filipino people. While it is true that they chafed under the limitations imposed upon their sovereignty, their situation was not the same as an indigenous resident of one of the Marshall Islands who was forced to toil in a dangerous mine to make a living while enjoying no representation or political power whatsoever.

The territory of Hawaii, however, does share some similarity to its Japanese counterparts in that its government was appointed by the US president without regard to the needs or desires of its indigenous populace. Throughout the early twentieth century there were occasional debates in the US Senate and political press regarding whether Hawaii should be set on a path to statehood. The territory was, thanks to the cheap labor which its relatively lax immigration policies allowed, extremely profitable for US businesses, especially the Dole company, which purchased the entire island of Lana’i in 1922 and transformed it into the world’s largest pineapple plantation. For many years, 75% of all pineapples produced worldwide came from Lana’i Island.

Another roadblock preventing Hawaii’s potential statehood for many decades was racism. Southern states in particular took every opportunity to squash any talk of statehood for Hawaii, fearing that such statehood would risk the existence of non-white representatives and senators. The workers of Hawaii, meanwhile, found new innovative ways of bridging the gaps between their various cultures.

Plantation workers frequently hailed from a variety of backgrounds - indigenous, Japanese, Korean, Chinese - and thus needed a means of universal communication when they worked together in the various farms. Over time, the broken English which allowed them to communicate with one another evolved into a language we call “Hawaiian Pidgin.” Interracial marriage, at the time still illegal in many states throughout the US, was permitted in Hawaii and its many immigrants and pre-existing residents thoroughly embraced it. Because of its significant east Asian population, Buddhism became, statistically, one of the archipelago’s most popular religions, along with Japanese Shinto.

The colonial situation in the south Pacific, with Japan’s territories sandwiched between US possessions, convinced many Japanese imperialists that war between Japan and the US was inevitable. It would be preferable, many argued, and perhaps necessary to take the initiative in such a conflict. Although it had been greatly weakened by the Great Depression, the US economy was still much larger than that of Japan’s - even at peak productivity, Japan’s Gross Domestic Product was only around one quarter of that enjoyed by the United States. A protracted war was, therefore, undesirable for Japan, who viewed the US’s increasing military presence in the Philippines and Hawaii with suspicion.

When the Second Sino-Japanese War began in 1937, it was widely condemned by most liberal democratic nations and especially by the United States. The Mukden Incident and subsequent founding of Manchukuo still lingered as evidence of unfounded Japanese aggression and this new war with China only further convinced the leaders of the US that Japan planned to continue conquering large swaths of east Asia without regard to the opinions of the international community, much less respect for international law. In 1938 discussions raged throughout the US halls of power regarding what ought to be done to protect China from Japanese invasion. It was decided that economic measures were a good place to start.

In 1939, as the war between Japan and China ground into a stalemate, the US government began its economic assault by cancelling a 1911 commercial treaty it had signed with Japan. Then in 1940 a series of presidential proclamations and ratifications by Congress embargoed all shipments of critical war materiel to Japan, including aircraft parts, raw materials, and other essential goods. Oil was explicitly excluded from the embargo for the moment, however, in part because it was the objective of the US government to halt Japanese aggression in China and their recent invasion of French Indochina, which began in September of 1940. We’ll talk more about that invasion in the next episode.

The US embargo measures became known as the Export Control Act and they were intended to make further Japanese aggression inadvisable; they were not implemented to be overly hostile or provocative. The reaction in the Imperial Palace of Tokyo, however, was outrage and dismay. The Japanese military was demanding increased funds, soldiers, sailors, equipment, and fuel in order to complete their conquest of China- a conquest which teetered on the brink of reversal. Meanwhile, the US was not only cutting off their supply of critical materiel, they were also supplying the KMT with weapons. The US had not declared war and was showing every sign that they intended to personally stay out of the troubles in Europe and east Asia. The Japanese government, now under Prime Minister Konoe Fumimaro, decided to interpret this embargo as a hostile action.

In late September, 1940, the Empire of Japan signed the Tripartite Act along with Nazi Germany and the Kingdom of Italy. This treaty promised assistance among its three signatories if any of their nations were attacked by a nation they were not already at war with. The obvious intended targets of this treaty were the United States and the Soviet Union. A little over a year after the signing of the Tripartite Act, both the US and the USSR would join the second world war against the Axis of powers who had signed that treaty of mutual protection.

Next time, we will discuss how both those nations would be drawn into the second world war and how the Pacific colonies aligned with the United States would become the next targets for Japanese invasion.