The way to Pearl Harbor

In July 1937, shots were exchanged between Japanese soldiers stationed outside of Beijing (Peking) and Chinese soldiers; the Sino-Japanese War had formally begun.  Bix claims that Hirohito oversaw every aspect of the war, with all the military leaders reporting separately to him, implying he was responsible for the full course of the war, although Hirohito lacked the military expertise to go into the details of strategic planning, nor did he have a long term vision for the war.  The year 1941 marked some new developments in the course of the war.  Although on the Chinese front, the war reached a stalemate--the Japanese occupied much of the eastern seaboard but was not able to penetrate into inland China, including the hometown of Jung Chang's father, Sichuan Province, a valley surrounded by mountains, where the seat of the Nationalist government of China was moved, the German invasion of the Soviet Union opened up possibility for Japan to invade the USSR from the east simultaneously, and emboldened the Japanese to take over French Indochina, now that the Soviet threat to Japan was gone. (Bix, 394-395)  While the Japanese invasion of China led to US condemnation of Japanese military aggression, US lend-lease support to the Chinese Nationalist Chiang Kai-shek government of over $2 billion in cash and kind over the eight year period, and finally, China's seat in the UN Security Council as a permanent member, it was Japan's advancement into southeast Asia that led to US/British/Dutch economic retaliation in terms of oil embargo and freezing of Japanese assets. The Japanese hard-liners thought that so long as they went tough on the Anglo-Americans, they would get what they wanted.  After the July 1941 Japanese takeover of Indochina, which was through the peaceful negotiations with the French Vichy regime, a puppet of Hitler's,(Bix, 400) the US started economic sanctions against Japan, which fueled the right wing belief in the Japanese government and military that war with the US was inevitable. Next, the Japanese eyed the Dutch East Indies and British Malaya, rich in oil resources that the Americans were now trying to deny them.  All this contributed to heightened tension between the US and Japan, since the US also had its own plan for the Pacific Ocean, and for its possessions there, including Hawaii and the Philippines, and the total oil embargo against Japan. (401)  Some right-wingers in the army and navy, convinced that Hitler would win a quick victory against the USSR,  decided to strike south at the American/British/Dutch controlled regions before turning back to finish the USSR when it was almost dead from Hitler's pounding. (Bix, 402-403) From then (July) to late November, for four months, there was heated debate and divided opinion over how to deal with the Americans, which culminated in the decision for a pre-emptive strike of Pearl Harbor on Dec.8 (Japan time).

Timeline:

July 1937-Aug.1945: the Sino-Japanese war (which the Chinese call the eight-year war). June 22 1941: Hitler's invasion of the USSR. June 23-July 1941: Japanese peaceful occupation of Indochina. July-Nov.1941: US freezing of Japanese assets in the US and total embargo on oil and gasoline exports to Japan.  Dec.8 1941: Japanese bombardment of Pearl Harbor. Dec. 1941: Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies and British Malaya following Pearl Harbor.

Dissenting voices

Prince Konoe, who was the PM in 1941, was faced with a dilemma: he did not feel ready to go to war with the U.S., and on the other hand, he was not ready to withdraw Japanese troops from Indochina as US requested, which was his springboard to southeast Asia.  In August, he tried to organize a summit meeting with Franklin Roosevelt but FDR was in the Atlantic talking with Churchill about the outcome of the war.   Prince Konoe, who had become pro-fascist, still hoped to negotiate a friendlier U.S. attitude toward Japan. In his letter of resignation as PM on Oct.16, 1941, he cited that he could not get Japan into another war before the war in China was resolved.  (417-418) Toward the end of the war, he would argue for ending the war quickly for fear Soviet invasion would not only end the war but also the kokutai.

Hirohito’s road to Pearl Harbor

Hirohito's thoughts obviously underwent several stages between January and November 1941.  He was unwilling to wage a  war against the US for various reasons.  On the other hand, he was committed to the agenda of a "Greater East Asian Co-prosperity Zone" including China and southeast Asia that would provide self-sufficiency for Japanese economy (in energy, food, raw materials, etc.) (411-412, 415-416), which would invariably lead him into a collision with the US.  Bix said that Hirohito had the option up to Oct.1941 to back out of Indochina and avoid a collision with the US, but he opted not to do so.  Not willing to make the imperial house too obvious an aggravator for war, after Prince Konoe's resignation in October 1941, Hirohito rejected the nomination of Prince Higashikuni as the next PM, but instead nominated General Tojo who  was consistently for the  war in southeast Asia, as the PM. (Bix, 418) He seemed to be reconciled with the Army and Navy's suggestions that if Japan was to go to war with the US, it had better do so quickly before its resources ran too low because of the US oil blockade of Japan. From then on, although peace negotiations continued between the US and Japan, Hirohito was fully prepared for war.  Japan's conditions for negotiations were equal treatment of Japan for trade every where in the world, and Japanese troops in Indochina until after the China war was over.  The American response by Cordell Hull, secretary of state, although ready to compromise on China, would not do so on Indochina.  This was interpreted as an ultimatum by Generals Tojo and Togo, hence the eventual decision for war. (428-429, 431-432)  After so much war preparedness, for Hirohito and the rest, instead of waiting for a vague answer from the US, the more certain alternative was aggressively strike out and gamble for its future in Asia. Even though the war between the U.S. and Japan had started, it was difficult to pinpoint exactly who was chiefly responsible for the war. Starting from the Sino-Japanese war, a liason conference, consisting of the Japanese army and navy chiefs of staff and the emperor's advisers, met regularly to discuss war matters. Suspended in November 1937, it was revived in July 1940, 1.5 years before Pearl Harbor. (387) The regular cabinet system and parliament were bypassed in this process. On the other hand, the emperor, whom the military staff briefed in an exhaustive manner, was not like Hitler because he had no vision for a Japanese empire. Up till the last few months before Pearl Harbor, he was debating if Japan should attack the USSR in the north (and recover lost Japanese territories to Russia such as the northern part of the Sakhalin Island, called Karafuto in Japanese), or southeast Asia to secure vital oil supplies. Hirohito was convinced that Japan had rightful claims to Chinese territories but beyond that, he was not sure where he wanted the Japanese empire to end. When the decision was finally made to attack Pearl Harbor, Bix tells us that a "military system to defend economic self-sufficiency, needed for waging a protracted war, would be established following the completion of the first stage of the oceanic offensive in the South Pacific. Apart from that, no long-term, concrete plan for guiding the war through its protracted stage existed." (Bix, 422) Apart from Hirohito, the Japanese army and navy could not agree on every specific detail of their military plan for a long time, including whether to attack the USSR or the US and Britain in southeast Asia, and the estimated chance of Japanese success against the superior American naval forces. The road to Pearl Harbor, therefore, was shaped by many factors and not determined by one single person.

Miscalculations of the  war

Once the war started, Hirohito realized it differed from his plans.  For him and most of his generals, their major concern had been the USSR, and not the US.  Nor did they foresee jungle fighting on the Pacific islands. (444)  Throughout the war in southeast Asia, Hirohito believed the major battlegrounds continued to be in China and Burma. (448) Despite rapid Japanese success in the early phase of the war in SE Asia, they did not have a plan to stop but kept pushing south, stretching their line too thin, as they did in China.  Not known to Hirohito at the time, the Battle of the Midway Islands (June 1942) proved to be a decisive point in the war against the US.  By the time of the battle of Guadacanal (Aug.1942), the US began its offensive.  Despite the weakness of the Japanese troops, Hirohito allowed the war on Guadacanal to last till the end of the year before abandoning the project.  similarly he had the Japanese soldiers fight to the end on the Solomon Islands.(458)  Hirohito's main focus was to recapture the islands at all costs.(459)  And even with the loss of the wars, Hirohito failed to contract his forces in the Pacific (462)  To the Japanese, it was a war of attrition, of warships, transports, air squadrons, and veteran pilots.  It had to come to an end. Finally, in Sept.1943, the cabinet agreed to be on the defensive. (468-469) Meanwhile, to change policy, Prince Konoe and Admiral Okada tried to get PM Tojo out of office.  Since Japan lost almost all the southern Pacific Islands, the Tojo cabinet fell in July 1944. (478) But the succeeding Koiso cabinet did not end war.  And Hirohito still hoped for victory. The heavy losses of the Japanese navy and air force led to the use of kamikaze pilots and makeshift planes in 1944. In the battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa in 1945, Hirohito still held on to a hope of victory even by May 1945, and called for a protracted war in both cases. (484-485)