U.S.-Japan Relations in the Prewar Era and their Effect on Postwar Relations (Part 3)
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概要
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The 1930s started with the Great Depression. The Smoot-Hawley Act, which was enacted soon after the onset of the depression, brought about beggar-thy-neighbor nationalism and trade wars, inwhich world trade drastically shrank. The collapse of the raw silk market that followed the Wall Street crash hit the Japanese agrarian community hard. Economic distress in rural Japan gave rise to social unrest and a radical reformist view. In China, meanwhile, with cooperation among the powers having broken down, the Washington system seemed to have lost its effectiveness. The Manchurian Incident of 1931 was a kind of coup d'etat by the Kwantung Army, but public opinion in Japan rather supported it as a breakthrough in the difficulties both in China and Japan. While the Japanese government was unable to control the situation, the Japanese army escalated its operation in China without being deterred by any major powers, which were all occupied with their domestic problems. The Japanese action ran counter to America's moralistic China policy, but it was not until the war started in Europe and Japan moved towards Southeast Asia that the United States finally started economic sanctions against Japan. Under intense economic pressure, Japan was told to withdraw not only from Southeast Asia but also from China. On the other hand, political frictions between the two countries did not change their basic trade relations, boycott movements against Japanese consumer goods and higher tariff barriers on some Japanese imports notwithstanding. The United States remained Japan's biggest export market and continued to be Japan's biggest supplier throughout the decade of the 1930s. Japan, on the other hand, remained the U.S.'s second largest supplier next to Canada and continued to be America's third biggest buyer surpassed only by Britain and Canada throughout the decade. In FDI, the United States was the largest investor in Japan throughout the 1930s, though US investments declined as the Japanese government's domestication policy became restrictive. When the war ended and the American troops landed in Japan, they met little resistance. The peaceful occupation helped usher in the close postwar U.S.-Japan ties. The cooperativeness of the Japanese after the surrender was largely attributable to the underlying prewar friendship between the two countries, which close bilateral business relations had helped foster.
- 2006-08-01