Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan (67 page)

Sait
at once began preparations to recognize Manchukuo. Violation of treaties would be required, and established relations with the United States would have to be risked. The League, international law, and the West now came under intensified attack by Japanese politicians, journalists, military officers, and intellectuals. The League's resolutions on the Sino-Japanese dispute were likened to the Tripartite Intervention of 1895, which had forced the Meiji government to give up the Liaotung Peninsula.
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Army Minister Araki denounced the League for endorsing Stimson's nonrecognition doctrine and for judging Japan's actions to be contrary to the Kellogg-Briand Pact and the League Covenant. General Araki also elaborated on the theme of Asia oppressed by the white West.

Outwardly Japan would proclaim the existence of an independent state; in practice it would exercise suzerainty over a colony.
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On August 25 Foreign Minister Uchida informed the Sixty-third Imperial Diet that:

And in respect to Manchukuo: “this government has unanimously resolved not to compromise one step, even if the country is turned into a scorched earth.”
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Reinforcing Uchida, Mori opined that “the new Manchukuo is a declaration to the world that our diplomacy has become autonomous and independent…. This action is akin to a declaration of diplomatic war.”
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Such ideological bombast and bravado clearly proclaimed the extraordinary notion that Japanese policy was unconcerned, in the short run at least, with national security and economic well-being.
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On September 15, 1932, the Sait
cabinet formally recognized Manchukuo and signed the Japan-Manchukuo Protocol agreement. Japan assumed responsibility for Manchukuo's defense and was granted, in a secret annex, permission to do there what it wanted.
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The League of Nations Lytton Commission, established to investigate the conflict, submitted its report on the Manchurian Incident to the assembly on October 2, but the latter delayed considering it in order to give the Japanese government still more time to get its house in order.

III

No issue caused Hirohito more anxiety than the prospect of the Kwantung Army opening military operations in the Peking-Tientsin area as a result of its offensive in Jehol Province. Prior to the offensive the army high command in Tokyo had tried to regain control by replacing many Kwantung Army senior officers and unifying the bureaucratic agencies in Manchuria. Senior Gen. Mut
Nobuyoshi was given triple appointment as commander of the Kwantung Army, chief plenipotentiary of Manchukuo, and governor of Kwantung—positions that had formerly been divided among three ministries.
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At the same time the size of the Kwantung Army was increased.

In November 1932 Hirohito learned that the Kwantung Army considered Jehol Province (an important source of revenue from opium) to be part of Manchukuo, and planned to invade the province in the spring.
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By December 23, however, advanced units
of the Kwantung Army had already reached Shanhaikuan, the eastern terminus of the Great Wall and the entrance to Jehol Province. There they clashed briefly with the forces of Chiang Hsueh-liang. A more serious clash occurred a week later, on January 1, 1933, and the Japanese occupied the entire town. Hirohito, aware that this latest army advance could complicate relations with the League, tried to warn the army (through Nara) not to allow the incident to expand; two days later he suggested to Makino that the problem be addressed by convening an imperial conference.
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But the entourage was divided; no imperial conference was called.

On January 14, 1933, when Chief of the General Staff Prince Kan'in asked the emperor to sanction more troops in Manchuria, Hirohito warned him about Jehol Province.
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According to Makino (verified by Kido), Hirohito told Kan'in, “We have been very lucky so far in Manchuria. It would be regrettable if we should make a mistake now. So go carefully in Jehol.”
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In other words the emperor instructed Kan'in not to let the operation overreach. What worried him was not territorial expansion per se, but failure, and fear of where accountability for failure might ultimately come to rest.

A few weeks later Hirohito went out of his way to honor Lt. Gen. Tamon Jir
and Gen. Yoda Shiro, former commanders of, respectively, the Second Division and the Thirty-eighth Mixed Brigade of the Korean Army, which had taken part at the beginning of the incident. The generals had just landed at Ushina port in Hiroshima prefecture. Hirohito sent an attaché to deliver a personal message to them. Later he invited Tamon and Yoda to a palace banquet, where they and other ranking officers received gifts bearing the imperial crest.
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Such gifts were, of course, standard palace procedure at imperial fetes, but in this instance indicated that the commander in chief approved and was proud of what his senior officers had accomplished. With lightning speed and very few Japanese casualties, they had expanded the Meiji colonial inheritance for which he was responsible.

On the other hand, grateful though he was, Hirohito still had reason for concern. Military expansion beyond China's Three Eastern Provinces carried dual risks, major war with China and opposition from the Great Powers, particularly the Soviet Union. Already Moscow was rapidly building up its Far Eastern Army, flying in air units from European Russia, and beginning to form a Pacific Fleet.
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When the time for Hirohito to sanction the Jehol campaign arrived on February 4, 1933, Prince Kan'in asked permission to redeploy Kwantung Army units into Jehol. Not bothering to check with the Sait
cabinet on the invasion, Hirohito gave his conditional consent. Expansion to consolidate Japan's acquisition of Manchukuo was acceptable—but not an attack on North China proper. So he would approve the Kwantung Army's Jehol operation, he told Kan'in, “provided that ‘they not advance beyond the Great Wall of China.'”

Four days later, on the eighth, Prime Minister Sait
informed the emperor that his cabinet opposed “the invasion of Jehol because of our relationship with the League of Nations.” Realizing, but not openly admitting, that he had acted too hastily, Hirohito tried to stop the invasion. Nara should tell Prince Kan'in that he (the emperor) had decided to withdraw his previous approval; Nara demurred, pointing out that the chief of the Army General Staff was scheduled for an audience in two days, and it would be better for His Majesty to tell him directly at that time. Hirohito agreed. On February 10, Prince Kan'in came to court, and Hirohito conveyed the Sait
cabinet's disapproval and asked that the Jehol operation be cancelled.
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Contemporary accounts indicate that Hirohito was in quite a bad mood the following day, February 11. Joseph C. Grew, the newly appointed American ambassador, saw him at a court luncheon that day and noted: “The Emperor seemed very nervous and twitched more than usual.”
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In the afternoon Sait
went to Hirohito saying that Japan might be expelled from the League if it car
ried out the invasion of Jehol. He (Sait
) had tried to stop it “but the military strongly insisted that they have already received the imperial sanction.”
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Sait
departed; Hirohito summoned Nara and said, “somewhat excitedly,” that he intended to stop the operation by using a supreme commander's direct order. Nara tells us in his unpublished memoirs that he recommended further reflection: “If Jehol was dangerous for national policy, there was no reason the cabinet could not stop it…. Cancellation should be ordered only by the cabinet. Any attempt to use a direct imperial command was apt to precipitate a major disturbance and cause a great political upheaval.”
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