While I expect to get flamed for this post, please read it open minedly.
Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor officially began the Pacific War, but American foreign policy misjudgements helped bring about the attack. Among complicated negotiations between the US and Japan, two unreasonable policies of the US are prominent:
1. The demand that Japan withdraw from Indo-China and China.
2. The imposition of an embargo on oil and scrap iron.
Concerning Indo-China, Japan occupied it legally, although the Vichy government would have been powerless to resist militarily.
On China, the US was influenced by propaganda to support Chiang Kai-shek early in its war with Japan. The support was largely engendered by the tradition of 100 years of missionary work in China, and the picture of Chiang and his wife as peace-loving Christians, leading an oppressed democratic people against Japan's militarists.
Henry Luce, born in China, encouraged this attitude, putting the Chiangs on the cover of "Time" magazine as "Couple of the Year" in 1937. Chiang's was a one-party government, complete with secret police and censorship. As a military leader, he was inept. But Americans were bombarded with pro-Chiang publicity, and the considerable power of the Communist opposition was ignored by the media.
American policy towards Japan was influenced by an unrealistic appraisal of the Chinese situation, and by the British government, which persistently attempted to persuade the US to be more severe in its dealings with Japan--undoubtedly to further its own Empire interests. FDR said during the war that the US was not in the war to preserve the British Empire. Yet, British influence on American policy toward Japan had that goal, and American demands on Japan reinforced it, although perhaps unwittingly.
I don't believe that Roosevelt intended to provoke Japan into attacking the US. Certainly, the US had its own Pacific territorial interests to protect. Rather, American policy was dictated by arrogance and a nearly fatal under-estimate of Japanese capabilities and determination. I do not absolve Japan from atrocities in China, from its own ambitions to build an empire, or from the Pearl Harbor attack, although the attack made sense from the Japanese point of view, given the unacceptable demands by the US.
Japanese historians today maintain that the attack was as much an attempt to save face rather than accept America's terms, as it was to paralyze American power in the Pacific.
Considering that Japan imported 80% of its oil products from the US, as well as 90% of its gasoline, 74% of its scrap iron, and 60% of its machine tools, it seems improbable that the US would seek to impose an embargo without expecting some response from Japan. When the attack came, it was stunning in its scope, power,and direction--a testament to crucial miscalculations in American foreign policy.
Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor officially began the Pacific War, but American foreign policy misjudgements helped bring about the attack. Among complicated negotiations between the US and Japan, two unreasonable policies of the US are prominent:
1. The demand that Japan withdraw from Indo-China and China.
2. The imposition of an embargo on oil and scrap iron.
Concerning Indo-China, Japan occupied it legally, although the Vichy government would have been powerless to resist militarily.
On China, the US was influenced by propaganda to support Chiang Kai-shek early in its war with Japan. The support was largely engendered by the tradition of 100 years of missionary work in China, and the picture of Chiang and his wife as peace-loving Christians, leading an oppressed democratic people against Japan's militarists.
Henry Luce, born in China, encouraged this attitude, putting the Chiangs on the cover of "Time" magazine as "Couple of the Year" in 1937. Chiang's was a one-party government, complete with secret police and censorship. As a military leader, he was inept. But Americans were bombarded with pro-Chiang publicity, and the considerable power of the Communist opposition was ignored by the media.
American policy towards Japan was influenced by an unrealistic appraisal of the Chinese situation, and by the British government, which persistently attempted to persuade the US to be more severe in its dealings with Japan--undoubtedly to further its own Empire interests. FDR said during the war that the US was not in the war to preserve the British Empire. Yet, British influence on American policy toward Japan had that goal, and American demands on Japan reinforced it, although perhaps unwittingly.
I don't believe that Roosevelt intended to provoke Japan into attacking the US. Certainly, the US had its own Pacific territorial interests to protect. Rather, American policy was dictated by arrogance and a nearly fatal under-estimate of Japanese capabilities and determination. I do not absolve Japan from atrocities in China, from its own ambitions to build an empire, or from the Pearl Harbor attack, although the attack made sense from the Japanese point of view, given the unacceptable demands by the US.
Japanese historians today maintain that the attack was as much an attempt to save face rather than accept America's terms, as it was to paralyze American power in the Pacific.
Considering that Japan imported 80% of its oil products from the US, as well as 90% of its gasoline, 74% of its scrap iron, and 60% of its machine tools, it seems improbable that the US would seek to impose an embargo without expecting some response from Japan. When the attack came, it was stunning in its scope, power,and direction--a testament to crucial miscalculations in American foreign policy.
