Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan by Herbert P. Bix is a book published in 2000 that won the Pulitzer Prize that details the life and impact of Hirohito, the emperor of Japan who reigned from 1926-89. This book clearly demonstrates the guilt Hirohito had in his country’s imperial conquests in WWII and how he escaped punishment, making it both illuminating and worthwhile to analyze.
Bix begins his book by writing of the end of WWII: Hirohito, in 1946, was pressed to abdicate the throne, as he had appointed Hideki Tojo to be the prime minister of Japan, a decision that greatly encouraged the aggression that occurred in WWII. Furthermore, Hirohito’s family told him to abdicate as a way to both save face and to set a moral example for future monarchs. Hirohito responded by refusing to give up the throne, and he tried to make many excuses as to why he didn't order the war to be stopped. That is, he lied that “The war with the United States and Great Britain, he implied, had been inevitable. Although he had personally opposed it until the very last minute, he had been unable to use his influence to prevent war-partly for fear of a domestic uprising but primarily for constitutional reasons. ‘As a constitutional monarch under a constitutional government, I could not avoid approving the decision of the Tojo cabinet and the time of the opening of hostilities.’” (3). Furthermore, another document was produced later on that portrayed him as an innocent ruler who was forced to give public support for the war by the rabid militarists. Bix writes that he was vastly responsible for the Second Sino Japanese War that cost “nearly 20 million Asian lives, more than 3.1 million Japanese lives, and more than sixty thousand Western Allied lives.” (4). As stated before, Hirohito was a prolific liar. Bix details that he and his cronies “skillfully crafted a text designed to lead to the conclusion that he had always been a British-style constitutional monarch and a pacifist. Hirohito omitted mention of how he and his aides had helped the military to become an enormously powerful political force pushing for arms expansion. He ignored the many times he and his entourage had made use of the Meiji system of government by consensus to stifle a more democratic, less militarized political process. He intentionally fudged the details about his role as both a military leader and a head of state, blurred his motives, and obfuscated the timing of his actions and the logic that informed them. He was silent too about how he had encouraged the belligerency of his people by serving as an active ideological focus of a new emperor-centered nationalism that had grown up around him.” (4). He also refrained from discussing the immediate cause of the wars with other areas like China, how he had personally ordered expansion, as well as the atrocities his soldiers were responsible for. All in all, “In his single-minded dedication to preserving his position, no matter what the cost to others, he was one of the most disingenuous persons ever to occupy the modern throne.” (5). Bix proceeds to write about the events leading before WWII, like the Meiji Revolution and the Russo-Japanese War. That is, “in 1904, Japan launched a surprise attack on the Russian fleet at Port Arthur. The ensuing conflict cost an estimated 110,000 Japanese lives and ended with a brokered peace, no indemnities, riots in the capital, and the prospect that someday Russia would seek revenge.” (9). Hirohito was viewed as a god by many Japanese citizens, as they were indoctrinated to believe that he was the descendant of the sun goddess Amaterasu. Japan became much more nationalistic, racist, and fanatical when it came to things like emperor worship in the years preceding WWII, explaining the ferocity in which they fought the war. Bix writes: “Acting energetically behind the scenes, Hirohito influenced the conduct of his first three prime ministers, hastened the collapse of political party cabinets, and sanctioned opposition to strengthening the peace machinery of the League of Nations. When resistance to his interventions provoked open defiance from the army, he and his advisers drew back and connived at military aggression … From late 1937 onward Hirohito gradually became a real war leader, influencing the planning, strategy, and conduct of operations in China and participating in the appointment and promotion of the highest generals and admirals. From late 1940, when more efficient decision-making machinery was in place, he made important contributions during each stage of policy review, culminating in the opening of hostility against the United States and Great Britain in December 1941 … After defeat in World War II, Hirohito’s life entered a new phase. His immediate priorities shifted to preserving his throne and avoiding indictment as a war criminal.” (11-3).
Bix provides the purpose of his book: “This book therefore challenges the orthodoxy, established long before the Asia-Pacific War and fostered afterward by the leaders of the allied occupation, that Hirohito was merely a figurehead within a framework of autocratic imperial rule, and a puppet of the military. It also challenges the idea that the army was mainly responsible for Japan’s aggression during the 1930s and early 1940s, and points out the long-neglected role of upper-echelon naval officers in lobbying against arms reduction in the 1920s, bombing undefended Chinese cities during the 1930s, and pushing for war in the Pacific at the start of the 1940s.” (14). Hirohito’s relationship with his military was quite strange: while Hirohito had no qualms against reprimanding them, he frequently forgave them for insubordination, so long as he was met with news of military victory. After the war ended, he expressed no guilt for his massive role in causing the catastrophic destruction that was spawned by his imperial conquests, thereby giving credence to the observation that those in power are generally terrible, corrupt frauds and liars who lack any sense of guilt, contrition, and personal responsibility. Bix states that Hirohito was born on April 19, 1901, in the Aoyama Palace in Tokyo. He was the first grandson of Emperor Meiji, and he was named “Hirohito,” a name that suggested the affluence of the people. Hirohito’s father was Yoshihito, who suffered all his life from crippling ill-health. When he was born, he was raised apart from his biological family according to tradition, and was given intensive education. Hirohito focused greatly on honoring his ancestors, as that was a key staple of Confucian tradition. This also ties directly to the monarchy, as they are obsessed with continuing their lineage for as long as possible (which is quite stupid, seeing that everything comes to an end eventually - the dinosaurs have reigned for more than 100 million years, yet even they went extinct when an asteroid beyond their control struck the Earth). One of Hirohito’s tutors, Nogi (who also served Meiji, who had died) committed suicide with his wife after the death of Meiji, seeing their ultranationalism: “While the funeral bells tolled, they proceeded to commit ritual suicide. Mrs. Nogi acted first; he assisted, plunging a dagger into her neck, and then he disemboweled himself with a sword.” (42). His death was viewed very positively by conservative scholars and people who appreciated his signaling his loyalty towards the emperor by slaying himself and his spouse. Overall, Nogi affected Hirohito by “instilling precepts of frugality and stoic virtues of endurance and dignity to which Hirohito never failed to adhere. The brave Nogi was to Hirohito a giver of orders who meant what he said and was willing to lay down his life for his master. Hirohito not only identified with Nogi, he also derived from him the conviction that strong resolve could compensate to some extent for physical deficiencies.” (43). Hirohito, after completing his primary education, was sent to the Ogakumonjo military school for a few years. Hirohito’s education was thoroughly un-democratic, as he was taught that he was a divine entity that was above everyone else and was needed to “lead” the nation. Furthermore, despite holding great power, “until the age of seventeen, Hirohito was reared in total isolation from Japanese daily life and not even allowed free access to the newspaper.” (58). Hirohito continued to be taught by “mostly middle-of-the-road academics associated with Tokyo Imperial University and the Peers’ School. They were a hybrid of the old unchanging Japan and the new, changing everywhere as it followed blindly the path of modernization. As pedagogues who worshipped the Meiji emperor, they constructed an orthodoxy of what the ideal monarch ought to be and do. They always tried to avoid forcing Hirohito to choose between the conflicting moral visions and norms contained in the Confucian model of the virtuous, peace-loving ruler and the Japanese bushidō model of the ideal warrior. Both norms would be attractive to Hirohito, and he would seek to act in ways that conformed to both.” (59). Hirohito as a person had a deep interest in natural science, and studied biology for much of his life (he focused on marine life). Despite reading of evolution, Hirohito didn't entirely reject the notion that he was a divine entity, as he saw that how people viewed him would be useful to his future reign: ‘Hirohito always placed a premium on the values that were inculcated in his youth. And as he grew older, he learned to appreciate only too well the value of ideological illusions in strengthening obedience to official codes of behavior. For him the relationship between modern science and the account of the kokutai, or national polity, taught by his other teachers were reconcilable, not inherently conflictual.” (62).
Hirohito, as a man interested in science, used his knowledge to racially profile different peoples of the world, writing quite lucidly that the Europeans and Americans look down towards other races, thereby making it necessary for Japan to strengthen itself for the sake of self-defense. One of Hirohito’s tutors, Sugiura, taught “that the emperor’s authority derived from the teachings of his ancestors, going back in time to the sacred progenitor of the imperial line. This view connected with Japanese expansionism, as well as with the we-they distinction in ‘race relations’ and the notion that Japan-and the Japanese spirit-was superior to the West and to Western things. It also assumed that for the emperor to lay burdens on his subjects was entirely natural because they existed to sacrifice themselves for him, not the other way around” (69-70). Another one of Hirohito’s tutors, Shiratori, was also an ultranationalist, writing that Korea’s annexation as a colony by Japan was justified, as he stated that it needed Japan's protection against other nations (during WWII sex slaves, known as “comfort women,” would be extracted from Korea, and large numbers of Koreans would be forced to do hard labor, some of which were shipped to Japan - a significant number of those who died in the atomic bombings were Korean laborers who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time). All in all, “Shiratori’s interpretation of Japanese-Korean relations reflects the moral complacency and hypocrisy of Japanese popular attitudes toward Korea at the time of its annexation. He also implies that the imperial project itself was sensible and rational, for annexing Korea established peace in the region and meant progress for Koreans.” (75). Hirohito was also strenuously taught to show little emotion and to speak as little as possible to people other than his family (ex. his royal court), as his persona as a divine being needed to be protected and retained during his entire rule if he was to become the monarch. From a young age, Hirohito focused greatly on the idea of total unity for Japan, as he recognized that modern thoughts and ideologies - antimilitarism, communism, democracy, socialism - were competing with that of emperor worship. Bix writes, “‘Confused realm of ideas,’ ‘extremist thought,’ ‘extravagance,’ ‘luxury,’ ‘military preparedness,’ ‘eternal peace,’ going along with the trend of the time, and achieving total unity as a prerequisite to realizing the national destiny-these were words and concepts that Japan’s conservative ruling elites and military leaders used when describing the situation at the end of World War 1; so did young Hirohito. More broadly these terms belonged to an ideology conservatives paraded in order to deny growing social tensions in Japan. These tensions, the results of the widening gaps in wealth and power between different groups and classes, called for more than rhetorical surgery, however.” (93). That is, there were food riots conducted by peasants who had trouble surviving, while others criticized the obscene wealth of the emperor and his entourage, which served as a clear and terrible contrast to the poverty of many. Hirohito graduated from Ogakumonjo when he was around twenty, and he traveled abroad to Europe to meet with various rulers, including those of Belgium, France, and Italy. In Bix’s own words, “In his first day in Paris, he visited stores and the Eiffel Tower, where he ordered Captain Yamamoto to purchase miniature Eiffel Towers as gifts for his fiancée, Princess Nagako, and for his brothers. Later he toured the Louvre and visited the parliament, the Sorbonne, and the Invalides. He also spent much time while in republican France touring battlefields, military schools, and observing French army maneuvers in the company of Generals Foch and Joffre, and Marshal Pétain. He visited more war monuments and battlefields while in Belgium (June 10-15), as the guest of King Albert I. In the Netherlands (June 15-20), he toured Amsterdam, The Hague, and Rotterdam and was feted at numerous official ceremonies and banquets, including one hosted by Queen Wilhelmina, who later wrote his father a warm letter about the prince’s visit. En route to Paris from The Hague, on June 20, his train stopped in eastern Belgium so that he could visit the city of Liège and tour yet another World War I battlefield … Hirohito arrived in Italy-a country with a large nobility but an insecure monarchy-on July 10, 1921, some fifteen months before Mussolini and the Fascists came to power. He spent eight days visiting Naples, Rome, and Pompeii, often in the company of his guide, King Victor Emmanuel III, soon to be a keen admirer of Mussolini. On July 15 and 16, while staying in Victor Emmanuel’s palace, Hirohito removed his military medals and decorations and twice visited the Vatican, where he exchanged greetings with Benedict XV, the pope who had attempted unsuccessfully to mediate a settlement of World War I and later defended the kaiser from the threat of a war crimes trial. For the remainder of his Italian stay Hirohito attended the usual ceremonial functions, visited patriotic war monuments, and observed a sports tournament held under the auspices of the Italian military, then already under the influence of Mussolini’s Fascist movement.” (109-10). Hirohito on the way home went to French Indochina. He later met with King George V of Britain, seeing how George V was able to retain the monarchy in the tumultuous reforms that followed WWI (by ingratiating himself with the common citizen). George V made a very strong impression on Hirohito, as he learned that he lacked much practical experience when it came to ruling. By the time he was appointed as the emperor (still years in the future), Hirohito had become the chief Shinto priest (again repeating tradition) and “had grasped the utilitarian value of myths to rationalize his own behavior, to buttress the power of the imperial court vis-à-vis other elites in the ruling bloc, and to position himself outside political and secular responsibility. At the same time the more Hirohito lived the role of ‘sacred and direct’ monarch, the more he came to rely on religious belief as a mechanism of power as well as a source of strength under trying conditions.” (122).
Hirohito became the regent of Japan in November 1921 and made much use of his advisors (he listened to lectures every day). He later married Princess Nagako. As an emperor, Hirohito definitively ended the practice of keeping concubines. During his rule, he focused heavily on foreign relations and expansion. Japan reluctantly joined forces temporarily with America: even though it felt it was being discriminated against, it didn't want to fight America, seeing how its economy had improved much during WWI. Another reason why they allied themselves with America was to dissuade Communism at home. As expected, many were dissatisfied with Japan’s appearance of deference and respect towards foreign nations as seen in the treaties which it made, as they viewed it as weakness. This negative attitude carried over to the military, causing Hirohito and military officials to tighten severely the discipline of the soldiers of the Kwantung Army by making it clear that they must not commit crimes and would obey orders without question. This militarization carried on into the classrooms: to indoctrinate young people, Hirohito sent active duty soldiers to serve as teachers in the schools: “By his support for sending active duty officers into the classrooms, he inadvertently endorsed the egoistic assumption of military officers that they were ideally fitted to be the moral leaders of society. In the process, he sanctioned a major step forward in preparing the nation for the mobilization of all its resources in the event of war.” (157). In the 1920s, Japanese citizens began questioning imperial authority (the kokutai), causing Hirohito to attempt to repress discussion of it (in one instance, a professor who said that Hirohito wasn’t the descendant of Amaterasu was faced with huge amounts of external pressure to not publish his book describing his opinions and to recant his statements). To counter the democratic trend, the Nichiren movement (which was very nationalistic and encouraged emperor worship) formed: “Not only did the sect influence many military men who participated in the politics of the interwar period, it also became part of the context in which the idea of Japan’s national mission to unify the world was revived during the course of Hirohito’s formal enthronement.” (169). Hirohito became the emperor when his father died on December 25, 1926, at 1:25 A.M.. When Hirohito became the emperor, in an attempt to increase his popularity and to make himself known (Bix cleverly notes that this was a direct result of his experiences with George V - in order to remain a monarch, said monarch must try to make themselves look as spectacular as possible), he reduced the sentences of many criminals and declared a national holiday. That is, “In November, in towns and cities in every prefecture and metropolitan district throughout the empire, hundreds of thousands of people took part in banquets and award ceremonies; millions of schoolchildren joined in flag parades and lantern festivals. Before the year ended the throne had dispensed millions of yen as an expression of imperial benevolence for the nation’s poor, liberally awarded medals, granted titles, and bestowed posthumous decorations on historical figures from the thirteenth, fourteenth, and nineteenth centuries who were noted for loyalty to the throne. Also, in the name of the emperor, the government reduced the sentences of 32,968 criminals, including the assassin of Hara Kei [a member of the royal court]; commuted the punishments of 26,684 prisoners in the colonies; and granted special amnesty to another 16,878 prisoners. Municipal and prefectural authorities, town and village governments initiated construction projects at all levels that gave unprecedented numbers of ordinary people the chance to participate actively in ushering in the new monarchical era. For a typical example, in colonial Karafuto almost the entire population of more than 295,000 … was mobilized to participate in the enthronement. When the ceremonies ended, the Karafuto colonial government followed up by undertaking more than five hundred memorial projects, ranging from the construction of public parks and agricultural experimental farms to the building of ‘a youth hall, sacred storage places for safekeeping the emperor’s picture, monuments for Japan’s war dead, and government office buildings.’” (189-90). Later on, Hirohito witnessed a display of Japan’s military might: “For hours he watched from an elevated stand as more than 35,000 troops, including 4,500 cavalry, marched past in a chilly drizzle. Two days later he went on to Yokohama for a Grand Review of the Fleet. A total of thirty-nine submarines and 208 ships, including the giant aircraft carriers Kaga and Akagi, and about 45,000 crewmen took part in the final event, along with 25,000 members of the Imperial Reservists Association, and thousands of minor dignitaries from around the country. Hundreds of thousands of ordinary Japanese formed the crowd of spectators in Yokohama … the grand military reviews … emphasized that his abstract, symbolic identity as the nation’s highest religious authority was, in practice, always combined with his concrete image as supreme military commander. Two images, two concepts-but one perception: one emperor performing two distinct but combined roles of equal gravity.” (194).
All in all, Hirohito’s ascension to the throne was an indicator of what his rule would be like: people were taught to love Japan by worshipping Hirohito and looking upon him as a god. His main focuses included indoctrinating and brainwashing the entire population, as he tried to repress free thought, free speech, and criticism of the monarchy. That is, “So began what became an official and accelerating emperor cult … It worked also to strengthen national unity and the subjective ties that bound individuals and groups to the nation through the emperor … the dogma of the divine emperor required that limits be set on rational thought and debate about the monarchy … the limits be set by the policies of repressing ‘unhealthy thought’ (that is, political dissent) and heightening martial spirit.” (195). This new militarism and religious fanaticism caused Hirohito to be sheltered even more: wherever he would go, people and garbage would be cleared ceremoniously from his way: “The excessive, almost morbid need to make Hirohito’s way spotless and germless, and his presence invisible (as all eyes had to be looking down, not at him), provides insight into the assumptions underlying Shinto beliefs … From these deep conceptual and emotional dichotomies would follow a natural, almost inevitable progression during the 1930s and early 1940s: We Japanese confront the world as a racially pure nation; therefore our wars are just and holy wars, and our victories create ‘new orders’ in East Asia.” (197). Of course, this racial bigotry and arrogance would be directly responsible for causing the Second Sino Japanese War. Furthermore, I would like to point out for the sake of clarity that no race is superior to the other: we share infinitely more similarities than differences. Furthermore, we all belong to the human race: unfortunately and ironically, this basic fact wasn’t recognized for most of human history, leading to countless conflicts and unimaginable bloodshed and brutality. Later on, it was recognized by Hirohito and the others that they will have to focus even more on the military, and that they need to become even more nationalistic. Privy Council Vice President Hiranuma (who criticized democracy) stated the following at the beginning of 1931: “Today the Great Powers openly emphasize the League of Nations while behind the scenes they steadily expand their military armaments. We cannot simply dismiss as the foolish talk of idiots those who predict the outbreak, after 1936, of a second world war. Our nation must be prepared to serve bravely in the event of an emergency. If other peoples … obstruct world peace and the welfare of mankind, we must be prepared to display our nationalism in a grand way, based on the spirit of the founding of the state” (227). It should be mentioned that Japan had fallen into the same intellectual trap as other imperialist nations: they viewed themselves in a way that’s both self-righteous and arrogant, denying to themselves that they merely want to enrich themselves by exploiting others by indulging in illusions such as “helping” other areas. To this day, sentiments like this are quite common, seen in how the US continuously tampers with the politics of other nations. The Great Depression made Japan quite hostile, as they continued to engage in their victim mentality: some believed they were being intentionally boycotted by other nations due to their race. Meanwhile, China’s relationship with Japan continued to decline, as the Chinese disliked the seemingly omnipotent presence of Japanese forces, and protested their policies by boycotting their goods, only making them even more paranoid. Japanese forces eventually invaded Manchuria, and made an excuse to attack: they themselves caused an explosion near the South Manchurian Railway line and alleged that Chinese bandits had started it. In Bix’s own words, “During the night of September 18, 1931, Kwantung officers detonated an explosion near the Japanese-controlled South Manchurian Railway line at Liut’iaokou (north of Mukden) and blamed it on the soldiers of Chang Hsueh-liang and armed Chinese ‘bandits.’ Using an incident they themselves had staged as a pretext, and that had left the rail line itself undamaged, Staff Officer Col. Itagaki Seishirō ordered the Independent Garrison Force and the Twenty-ninth Infantry Regiment to attack the barracks of the Chinese Manchurian Army within the walled city of Mukden. Taken by surprise, the Chinese troops fled or laid down their arms.” (235). When Hirohito learned of the incident, he expressed that he was fine if the military was temporarily mightier than he, so long as they successfully seized Manchuria. The Kwantung succeeded in winning further victories, causing the League of Nations to protest its aggressive policies. In response, Japan withdrew from the League of Nations to pursue its own goals. The Kwantung continued to expand, but was halted by the army of Chiang Kai Shek, causing them to settle their bases and to remain where they were for a few more years (until 1937).
Japan set up a puppet government in Manchukuo, as it didn't want Manchukuo to turn against it. Like Italian Fascism and German Nazism, Japanese Imperialism involved loathing external groups in order to bolster a sense of internal unity. This was seen when the education became propaganda: “By the eve of all-out war with China, Japanese public schools, under orders from the Ministry of Education, were inculcating Shinto mythology as if it were historical fact; emperor ideology had become fused with anti-Western sentiment; and a conceptual ground had been prepared for the transformation of Hirohito into a benevolent pan-Asian monarch defending not only Japan but all of Asia from Western encroachment. Emperor Meiji’s image as a Western-style monarch defending Japan (alone) from Western imperialism was thereby enhanced-and stood on its head. From this time one can see a deepening conflict in official ideology between an emphasis on the absolute uniqueness of divine Japan, and the pan-Asian ideal that stressed a fundamental identity shared by the Japanese and their fellow Asians.” (283). To be more specific, in 1935, to deal with the threat of internal rebellion (much of which came from young army officers), Hirohito “lent his authority to a government campaign that fostered unbridled fanaticism. On April 6, 1935, Superintendent of Military Education General Mazaki, a member of Hiranuma’s Kokuhonsha and a dispenser of secret army funds to right-wing newspapers, had issued an instruction to the army on ‘clarifying the kokutai.’ In it Mazaki reminded one and all that Japan was a holy land ruled over by sacred emperors who were living deities. At that point right-wing civilian groups allied with the army formed a League to Destroy the Emperor-Organ Theory and ‘accomplish the clarification of the kokutai.’ Member journalist Ioki Ryūzō and law professor Nakatani Takeo espoused totalitarian ideas of remaking Japan in the image of Germany.” (288-9). Eventually, the February Mutiny happened: it saw many soldiers rebelling against Hirohito. They were eventually put down, however. Hirohito began to focus more on China: “on April 17, 1936, [he] sanctioned the army’s request for a threefold increase in the size of its small China Garrison Force from 1,771 to 5,774 troops. He also approved the establishment of a new military base at Fengtai, a rail junction in the southwest suburb of Peking, not far from the historic Marco Polo Bridge. Strong Chinese protests ensued, but the expanded garrison went ahead with the construction of its Fengtai barracks. Japanese troops were soon conducting training exercises with live ammunition, in close proximity to Chinese military facilities, setting the stage for repeated clashes with Chinese troops.” (307). Japan made treaties with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, thereby sealing their fates with each other: “The Hirota cabinet responded favorably to Nazi Germany’s policies of rapid rearmament on a gigantic scale, anti-Sovietism, economic autarchy, and racial and religious bigotry and intolerance. The signing of the Anti-Comintern Pact with Germany in November 1936 was preceded by the growth of military ties between the Imperial Army and Navy and the German military command, and came on the heels of a series of foreign policy coups by Hitler that destroyed the post-World War I settlement in Europe. A secret protocol to the pact committed the signatories not to assist Moscow in the event of war between one of them and the Soviet Union. A year later Italy joined the pact.” (307-8). To finance the war, the Hirota cabinet stated on August 25, 1936 that “slightly more than 69 percent of the government’s total 1937 budget (or nearly 33 billion yen) would be allocated to the military. This amounted to almost a threefold increase in the 1936 military budget of approximately 10 billion yen, or 47.7 percent of government spending. To pay for all this, taxes would be raised and inflation tolerated, armaments manufacturers and the great zaibatsu enriched, and the patriotism of ordinary wage earners fanned up while their wages were held down.” (311).
The Second Sino Japanese War definitively began on July 8, 1937, at the Marco Polo Bridge Incident: a Japanese soldier had gone missing, and the commander of the forces alleged he had trespassed into enemy territory to find him (it was possible that the “missing” soldier had only gone to the bathroom to relieve himself: imagine his shock when he learned that the war began because of his absence). Regardless, fighting commenced, and Japan alleged that Chinese aggression and general incompetence called for them to enter to take over. The Japanese offensive pressed quickly into China, and found another justification for their aggression: the Tungchow massacre. In Bix’s own words, “The uprising triggered a mood of blind fury against the Japanese occupiers. Assisted by students and workers, the Chinese troops slaughtered eighteen Japanese soldiers, nine intelligence officers, and 223 of the city’s 385 Japanese and Korean residents, including many women and children.” (322). At the Battle of Shanghai, there were 110,000-150,000 Chinese soldiers who fought an initial amount of 12,000 Japanese soldiers. Though the Japanese had fewer troops, they had better technology and were better disciplined, causing them to win, though it took them months to do so, which enraged them: they expected a relatively quick victory, only to be faced with fierce resistance. Hirohito, growing impatient, ordered for the Kwantung to do whatever it needed to for victory, seeing that mercy was counterproductive in the long-run for the military. Despite Japan’s aggression, it made clear to not formally state that it was fighting what was blatantly a war, seeing how it relied on other countries (primarily the US) for its oil supply, and didn't want to deter them too much with its aggression. Furthermore, another reason why Japan was quite vague when it came to what it hoped to accomplish was a direct result of ultranationalism and religious fanaticism: “There existed … an official theology with a great number of theologians … university professors, … priests, and government bureaucrats-to expound it: The emperor was a living god, the descendant of Amaterasu Ōmikami; Japan was the incarnation of morality and justice; by definition its wars were just and it could never commit aggression. Hence its effort to establish the ‘imperial way’ (kōdō) in China and bring people there under the emperor’s benevolent occupation by means of ‘compassionate killing’-killing off the few troublemakers so that the many might live-was a blessing upon the occupied people, and by no means colonial expansion. Those who resisted, naturally, had to be brought to their senses. But formally there was no ‘war,’ only an ‘incident.’ Consequently, from early on in the war the Japanese government regularly referred to the ‘China Incident’ as its ‘sacred struggle’ or ‘holy war’ (seisen). And the longer the struggle dragged on, the more its ideologues insisted on using this term-‘holy war’-which expressed the emperor’s benevolent rule” (326-7). As detailed in the previous quote, wars are frequently justified with propaganda and appeals to vain emotion with little empirical evidence: those who declare war frequently use nationalism, politics, and religion to excuse invading other areas and slaying large numbers of people. For instance, when the Crusades were launched, the Catholic Church portrayed it as a glorified conquest against heretics (Muslims). When WWI commenced, nations called for their males to lay down their lives for the sake of the country, and went to such lengths to have this happen as to have young girls mock males who weren’t going to die for no reason to ensure that they’ll be on the battlefield (it should be pretty obvious by now that Homo Sapiens is quite a wicked, sadistic, and brutal species, seen in the sheer number of these historical incidents). As detailed in the previous quote, euphemisms are frequently employed to make terrible deeds sound okay: “imperial way” is “absolute monarchy,” “compassionate killing” is “heinous murder,” “incident” is “conquest,” and “holy war” is “stupid and brutal conflict.”
The Battle of Shanghai ended on November 9. All in all, “Some three square miles of the city and large parts of its environs had been devastated by artillery shelling and by air and naval bombardment. Nearly a quarter million Chinese had been killed, including many women and children who had fought on the front lines. Japan had suffered 9,115 dead and 31,257 wounded.” (332). The Chinese forces escaped further inland, and were speedily followed by Japan. Eventually, they reached Nanking, then the capital of China. Once the Kwantung reached Nanking, they committed the Nanking Massacre, which saw the rapes, tortures, mutilations, and grisly executions of hundreds of thousands of people, showing just what humanity can descend to if it follows fanaticism and bigotry. That is, “once Nanking fell, Japanese soldiers began to execute, en masse, military prisoners of war and unarmed deserters who had surrendered. They also went on an unprecedented and unplanned rampage of arson, pillage, murder, and rape. The resulting slaughter continued in the city and its six adjacent rural villages for three months, and far exceeded earlier atrocities committed during the Battle of Shanghai and along the escape routes to Nanking … On the night of December 16 and into the morning hours of the seventeenth, with the battle already won and the Chinese remnant troops, mostly unarmed and out of uniform, trying desperately to flee, Japanese soldiers rounded up and indiscriminately executed more than seventeen thousand men and boys … The postwar Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal accepted an estimate of ‘over 200,000’ civilian and prisoners of war ‘murdered in Nanking and its vicinity during the first six weeks.’ The war crimes trial held at Nanking accepted a figure of ‘over 300,000,’ and later uncorroborated estimates made in China increased that figure to 340,000 victims. In December 1937 the first Western news accounts of the Nanking massacres, based on limited access to the city, gave estimates of from ten thousand to more than twenty thousand killings in the first few days. Of the specific battlefield conditions that led Japanese soldiers to commit these horrendous crimes, the ones most frequently cited by Japanese historians are the breakdown of discipline, racial chauvinism, desire for revenge, and ‘extreme psychological frustration.’” (333-5). The so-called “psychological frustration” can be read as a result of fighting for Shanghai for a few months, and when it came to the sexual assault which the Japanese military was infamous for, many women were forced to become sex slaves, and would be disposed of callously once their purpose was served. When it came to the journalism surrounding the Nanking Massacre, the Japanese press expectedly censored most of the information of the atrocities, but displayed a story of two Japanese second lieutenants who wanted to see who could decapitate 100 people first. Some of the people who were culpable for the murders included people in Hirohito’s family, including his granduncle Prince Asaka. Hirohito probably knew of the atrocities, seeing that he spent much of his time being briefed by military officials of the current situation of the war: he showed no remorse and was never documented in his life to have expressed any regret for the conduct of the soldiers who fought for him. During the Nanking Massacre, a foreign ship, the Panay, tried to take some people out of Nanking, only to be bombed by Japanese airplanes. This brought much pressure on Japan, causing the Imperial Navy to apologize immediately and to pay more than $2.2 million - they stated that their bombing of the ship was a complete accident. When it came to the long-lasting effects of the Nanking Massacre, one of the most important is that it turned the American public decisively against Japan. Soon after, the Kwantung continued to conquer more land in China. All in all, by December 1938, “Japanese combat casualties … had reached 62,007 killed and 159,712 wounded; deaths from illness in both China and Manchuria totaled 12,605. Over the course of the next two years, Japanese combat casualties decreased sharply but still remained high. From 30,081 killed and 55,970 wounded in 1939, they declined by almost half to 15,827 killed and 72,653 wounded in 1940. Deaths from illness remained relatively stable, averaging over 11,500 per year. In other words, by the end of 1938 the China war had attained a plateau in respect to its cost in combat casualties, with the annual rate near 24,000.” (347). China’s main response towards Japanese conquest was the temporary alliance of the nationalists, led by Chiang Kai Shek, and the communists, who followed the lead of Mao Ze Dong. While they still frequently fought while they fought the Japanese, they were unified enough to manage an imposing presence. When the Nazis signed the non-aggression pact with the Soviets, Hirohito was shocked. However, when the Nazis declared war on the Soviet Union by invading them in Operation Barbossa, Hirohito and other military officials seized the opportunity (Europe and the world was greatly distracted, after all, by the Nazi juggernaut) to conquer more of China with little impediment. Bix writes that not once has Hirohito made an effort to stop the war: conversely, he encouraged and promoted it.
The Japanese forces were infamous in WWII for how callously they mistreated POWs: Hirohito knew this and did nothing, so long as victories were won. For instance, while Japanese forces captured tens of thousands of Chinese POWs every year, they claimed they only had fifty-six by the end of the war. Hirohito also encouraged the use of biowarfare, seen in tear and poison gas. Hirohito also approved of the destruction of Chinese cities and of genocidal policies that saw the deaths of millions: “Hirohito also knew of and approved the ‘annihilation’ campaigns in China. These military operations caused death and suffering on a scale incomparably greater than the totally unplanned orgy of killing in Nanking, which later came to symbolize the war and whose numbers have probably been inflated over time. At the end of 1938 the North China Area Army inaugurated the first of many self-designated campaigns of annihilation against guerrilla bases in Hepei Province. These operations targeted for destruction ‘enemies pretending to be local people’ and ‘all males between the ages of fifteen and sixty whom we suspect to be enemies.’ They continued off and on for the next four years, gradually becoming larger in scale, more organized, systematic, and widespread. Eventually the Chinese Communist Party labeled them the ‘three alls policy’: that is, ‘burn all, kill all, steal all,’ or, in Japanese, sankō sakusen. Hirohito was apprised of the nature of the pacification problem in North China and on December 2, 1938, signed off on Tairikumei 241, the direction of policy that led to the annihilation campaigns.” (365). All in all, it is estimated by the historian Himeta Mitsuyoshi that the three-alls policy led to the deaths of 2.47 million civilians: “Although detailed empirical analysis of this aspect of the China war, by Japanese scholars, is now under way, it has been clear for some time that the well-planned sankō campaigns were incomparably more destructive and of far longer duration than either the army’s chemical and biological warfare or the ‘rape of Nanking.’” (367). For the rest of the war, Hirohito continued his hypocrisy: he would state that the atrocities of his forces were done with a humanitarian purpose, thereby giving himself an excuse. The Tripartite Pact was later signed, definitively allying Japan with Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. When Japan took over Indochina (which was a colony of France), tensions flared, causing Japan to threaten that it wouldn’t hesitate to go to war with foreign powers that threaten it. In response, America stated that it was a belligerent and stopped sending oil to it, causing Japan to only become more aggressive, seeing that it wanted revenge against America for doing so. Hirohito was informed of the intended surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, and approved it, sealing the fate of Japan: it would indeed fight with America. On December 8, 1941, Japan launched attacks on multiple bases, including Singora, Kota Bharu, and the Clark Air Base, along with Pearl Harbor, causing Roosevelt and America to declare war against Japan. The diary of Hirohito’s naval aide, Jō, reveals that when Hirohito learned of the bombings of other areas, “Throughout the day the emperor wore his naval uniform and seemed to be in a splendid mood.” (437). The whole logic of Hirohito when it came to fighting not just China but America and later Russia was that he erroneously believed the Nazis would conquer Europe, as they had already swallowed Czechoslovakia, France, Poland, and many other areas (Britain and Russia were really the last bastions of defense, but they were able to turn the tide around, saving themselves from being swallowed by the Nazi juggernaut): he believed that once they’re done conquering Europe, they can help his forces fight the Americans and the Chinese. Bix notes that Hideki Tōjō, then the prime minister of Japan, caused the Second Sino Japanese War to be known by the citizens as the euphemism the “War of Greater East Asia,” showing the importance of using sugar-coated language to cover-up terrible events (ex. think of the Holocaust being referred to as “the Final Solution” by the Nazis to make the deed sound sanitary and necessary). All in all, the war lasted another three years and nine months when America entered. While Japanese forces had taken huge amounts of territory before the arrival of the Americans, they were soon pushed back: they had expanded, but they didn't fortify their positions enough (an error known as overextension; the Americans used the strategy of island-hopping to defeat many Japanese forces). Also, America had many planes and aircraft carriers as well, which proved completely disastrous to Japan’s merchant fleet (once their ships went down, they sometimes “borrowed” merchant ships to serve as replacements - by the end of the war, most of Japan’s merchant ships were at the bottom of the ocean): “There, in the southern ocean, during the first twenty-six months of the war, the naval air force lost 26,006 warplanes-nearly a third of its total power-and thousands of experienced pilots. Many hundreds of thousands of tons of fighting ships went down. The loss of merchant and naval transport was especially crippling. When, toward the end of 1943, American forces under Adm. Chester Nimitz, commanding Pacific Ocean Areas, finally began their full-scale counter offensives in the Central Pacific, Japan was desperately trying to contract its defense perimeter and rebuild the naval air and sea power that had been destroyed in the brutal and barbaric South Pacific campaigns.” (444). Hirohito, staying true to his arrogance, continued to be blindly optimistic, causing his side to continue to fail in the war.
In 1942, the idea of kamikazes began to gain popularity, though it wouldn’t be until 1944 that they would be used in large numbers (of course, as a last desperate attempt to turn the tide of battle). America first shattered the Japanese offensive by taking over the Guadalcanal, pushing Japanese forces out. Eventually, a massive battle eventually occurred between Japanese forces and the US: Iwo Jima. Japan fought fiercely, doing much damage to enemy forces: “Virtually the entire Japanese garrison of twenty thousand men had fought to death but the Americans had also died, nearly seven thousand of them, with more than nineteen thousand wounded. Thus Hirohito took comfort in the proportionately greater losses that his doomed defenders had inflicted on the invading marines. As Guadalcanal had been, Iwo Jima had become a test of character. And Hirohito had abetted the killing by his bullheaded refusal to accept and deal with Japan’s defeat.” (484). This harsh and uncompromising attitude would be seen again in the Battle of Okinawa, which saw much bloodshed: “The battle for Okinawa had begun on April 1. It lasted until mid-June and cost an estimated 94,000-120,000 Japanese combatants and 150,000 to 170,000 noncombatants, including more than seven hundred Okinawawans whom the Japanese army forced to commit collective suicide. American combat losses were approximately 12,500 killed and more than 33,000 wounded; among these casualties were more than 7,000 sailors, reflecting the toll taken by kamikaze attacks. The war lost, and had been for more than a year, but defeated Japan stubbornly fought on.” (485). Hirohito’s personality made a bad situation worse: his persevering, inflexible, and arrogant character made it impossible for him to even consider surrender. Japan continued to fight fiercely, and was eventually offered an ultimatum in the Potsdam Declaration: either surrender or be totally obliterated. Hirohito and the other fanatical militarists refused to listen once again. “The Americans now accelerated their preparations for the use of atomic bombs and for an invasion of southern Kyushu-termed Operation Olympic-schedule to begin on November 1. At 8:15 A.M. on August 6 a single B-29 destroyed much of the undefended city of Hiroshima, immediately killing an estimated 100,000 to 140,000 people and taking the lives (over the next five years) of perhaps another 100,000 … Two days later, citing as a pretext Japan’s rejection of the Potsdam Declaration, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan. On August 9 the United States dropped the second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, immediately killing approximately 35,000 to 40,000 people and injuring more than 60,000.” (501-2). In response to the two atomic bombings, Hirohito, afraid for his own safety, offered unconditional surrender. Some high officials who were willing to surrender (for the emperor’s safety) offered Japanese soldiers as forced laborers for the Soviet Gulag, clearly demonstrating that they never cared for their own soldiers. When the negotiations were being made, Hirohito took great care to portray himself as a puppet who was only controlled by the military. His underlings, brainwashed into thinking he was a living deity and the embodiment of Japan, did everything within their power to protect him, including incriminating others to be executed in his place. Another way Hirohito benefited himself was showing Japan as a victim, not an aggressor, due to the sheer destructiveness of the atomic bombs. When it comes to what really caused Japan to surrender, Bix writes that when Hirohito ordered his soldiers to lay down their weapons, he didn't speak about the atomic bombs: he only mentioned the new Soviet offensive. In his own words, “Now that the Soviet Union has entered the war against us, to continue … under the present conditions at home and abroad would only recklessly incur even more damage to ourselves and result in endangering the very foundation of the empire’s existence. Therefore, even though enormous fighting spirit still exists in the Imperial Navy and Army, I am going to make peace with the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union, as well as with Chungking, in order to maintain our glorious national polity.” (530). When Japan surrendered, significant numbers of people committed suicide, though the vast majority of Japanese citizens allowed Americans to enter Japan with relative peace. As Bix writes, many Japanese citizens were afraid of contrapasso: they “worried whether Allied troops would behave as their own soldiers had in China: pillaging, plundering, and raping, and voiced fear of a weakening of the race through miscegenation. The issue of rape and the fear of violence once the occupation troops landed was dealt with promptly. Konoe suggested, and Higashikuni approved, mobilizing prostitutes to deal with the sex-starved Allied troops who would, in only a few weeks, be descending upon the land.” (538). That is, an announcement hypocritically read (completely ignoring the fact that their soldiers had committed mass rape, torture, and slaughter while abroad): “[T]hrough the sacrifice of the Okichis of the Shōwa era, we shall construct a dike to hold back the mad frenzy [of the occupation troops] and cultivate and preserve the purity of our race long into the future…. In this way we shall contribute to the peace of society. Stated differently, we are volunteering [our bodies] for the preservation of the kokutai.” (538). As expected, Hirohito ordered for all criticism of this policy and of his decision to surrender at such a late time to be banned, and his family and other high officials blamed Japanese citizens, not themselves, for Japan’s defeat. Stupidly, they derived a “meaning” from a Japan devastated by war. However, some officials had common sense: “Ishiwara blamed the defeat on the degeneration of the Japanese people’s morals … The gods had willed Japan’s defeat in order to make the nation repent and renew its belief in the kokutai; the military, the police, and the bureaucracy, by oppressing the people, bore great responsibility for what had happened; and the nation should ‘surprise the enemy by carrying out reforms’ before occupation rule even began. Abolish armaments for the duration of the occupation; get rid of the special higher police; end restrictions on speech and belief. And for the next several years, while in retreat from the world, Japan should learn as much as it could from the United States and imitate American ways.” (540).
When General MacArthur entered Japan, he spared Hirohito’s life and rank, as he needed him as a symbol to unify an already broken Japan. Hirohito largely complied with MacArthur to retain his position as emperor, and he allowed for Japan to become a democracy: while he remained the monarch, he was stripped of most of his power, reducing him to the powerless figurehead he always portrayed himself to be. The Tokyo Trial was conducted in 1945 to punish the officials responsible for war crimes. Many of those put on trial defended the atrocities committed by soldiers under them by citing propaganda (ex. that Japan wanted to “help” other nations by ruling them). The actions they were held accountable for also included massacres in the Philippines, which totaled to more than one million civilians perishing. After eleven months (the Tokyo Trial officially began in 1946 and ended in 1947), the verdicts were decided for those charged with war crimes (excluding Hirohito: as stated before, he was allowed to keep his position to make the transition of Japan from a militant autocracy to a democracy easier). Overall, the Tokyo tribunal “documented the mistreatment and murder of Allied prisoners of war and civilians at scores of places in Asia and the Pacific, including most famously Bataan and the Thai-Burma railway over the river Kwai. Evidence of mass atrocities at Nanking was admitted, and during the trial of General Matsui Iwane was reinforced for the Japanese people by press reports of the war crimes trial in Nanking, which sentenced to death Gens. Tani Hisao and Isogai Rensuke, among others, for their role in the mass atrocities of 1937-38. The Japanese killing of civilians in Manila, where indiscriminate American artillery bombardment also contributed to the high death toll, were described in detail. The introduction of evidence on the rape of female prisoners and females in occupied territories, and the prosecution of rape in an international war crimes trial, set positive precedents for the future.” (614). While many Japanese civilians were horrified by the crimes committed in the name of the emperor, others stated that the Tokyo Trial was a show trial, seeing how it was conducted by a different country (and Anglo-Saxons). Also, another problem when it came to justice was the conflict between the communists and nationalists: with the Japanese threat largely removed, they began fighting each other once again. Chiang Kai Shek didn't demand the punishment of Japanese war criminals, seeing that the majority of their depravities were wrought on the Communists: conversely, he went so far as to ingratiate himself with the officer responsible for the three-alls policy, and asked him to help him strengthen his army using his organizational skills. As for the Communists, they didn't care much for Japan, seeing how they viewed the movement towards democracy as a threat towards Communism. Also, when it comes to biological warfare, no one was punished for doing it: the scientists who headed biological warfare in Unit 731, led by Ishii Shirō (who performed extremely brutal experiments on civilians and prisoners of war - ex. vivisection without anesthetic and dismemberment and disembowelment to study the effects of novel strains of viruses which were forcibly introduced into the systems of the victims), were offered immunity in exchange for handing over the information to the Americans. That is, “Among the numerous personal immunities from prosecution that MacArthur and the Allies granted for reasons of national interest were those to General Ishii Shirō and the officers and men of Unit 731 who had been responsible for Japan’s biological warfare in China. The estimates that three to ten thousand mostly Chinese prisoners of war had been killed in Ishi’s biological experiments were ignored. Access to the experimental data on the killings was considered by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and MacArthur more vital than justice.” (617). A huge difference when it comes to Japan and Germany when it comes to their post-war fates was how each handled their wartime past: while Germany felt remorse for the crimes committed under Hitler and fascism, Japan largely tried to avert attention from its deeds, as well as engaging in denial. As Bix himself elucidates, “the main reason why Japanese war crimes were so quickly forgotten had to do with Hirohito himself. The legitimacy of Japan’s wars of aggression-the belief that it had invaded various Asian and Pacific countries in order to liberate them-could not be fully discredited unless he was subjected to trial and interrogation in some forum for his role in the wars, especially his inability or disinclination to hold Japan’s armed forces to any standard of behavior morally higher than loyalty and success. Many Japanese, after all, had been complicit with him in waging war, and the nation as a whole came to feel that because the emperor had not been held responsible, neither should they.” (617-8). Another key difference between Japan and Germany were the fates of the leaders: Germany went through a period of de-Nazification, as Hitler and other officials, such as Goebbels and Himmler, all perished quickly. However, when it came to Japan, only a few war criminals were punished, and Hirohito was allowed to stay on the throne for decades more.
After WWII, Hirohito was told by MacArthur to admit that he wasn’t a divine entity, which he did. After that, in an attempt to boost his popularity, he tried to show himself as an understanding ruler by meeting victims of the war which he started: the Japanese people, instead of attacking him for his stupidity, greed, and cruelty, greeted him with applause and emotion. Hirohito’s popularity skyrocketed, though he knew that he would never be able to deceive the people into thinking that he was a god any longer. Japan, to the pleasure of America, largely dropped its militarism and fanaticism over the decades and became a democracy that focused largely on peace. However, there was the Yasukuni Shrine incident: Class A war criminals who were executed in the Tokyo Trial were secretly buried there. As the Yasukuni Shrine was very important and was supposed to be reserved for heroes, this caused much controversy, especially when Hirohito himself went there. In an act of censorship, “the Yasukuni War Museum had transformed the Asia-Pacific war symbolically by removing the emperor from nearly all Shōwa-era exhibits. Virtually all connection between him, emperor ideology, and the wars of the 1930s and early 1940s was effaced. Visitors could come and depart the museum without ever suspecting that Hirohito had once been the vital energizing leader of the war.” (683). Hirohito eventually got an intestinal ailment, and died on January 7, 1989: he was never punished for the crimes which he was responsible for. During his eulogy, one of the main speakers lied, saying that Hirohito loved peace and was against Japanese aggression in WWII. Also, while he lay dying, his doctor stated that he was a moral exemplar, an irony that shouldn’t be lost to those who had been victimized by his direct orders and his complicity. Hirohito’s son Akihito became the new emperor on November 12, 1990. Bix ends his book with the following words: “As the twentieth century ended, although developments in Japan hinted that constitutional change might take place, it seemed unlikely that Akihito would ever be brought forward to lead the nation as dramatically as Meiji or as disastrously as Shōwa. His personality, abilities, education, and interests all seemed to rule out such a role. So too did the many problems still unresolved from World War II-problems inherent in the institution of the Japanese monarchy itself rather than in the particular occupant of the throne … some future national leadership may rise and find effective ways to make use of the new monarch or his successors. Whether they will move the institution as their predecessors did-to prevent the deepening of democracy and growth in the popular sense of political empowerment-is a crucial issue for Japan in the new millennium.” (687-8).
Personal thoughts:
Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan is a fantastic book due to the amount of information it provides the audience with. This book clearly demonstrates not only the validity of Hirohito’s war guilt, but of the importance of foreign relations and open-mindedness: many lives would’ve been spared and much suffering avoided if people only practiced tolerance, empathy, and compassion. Overall, Hirohito is still a controversial figure for good reason, and his life is a clear warning against all kinds of bigotry, seeing how many of his underlings committed terrible crimes in his name. While this book can be somewhat tedious, it is still a worthwhile read due to the lucid picture it is able to provide the audience. I highly recommend Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan to anyone interested in WWII, Hirohito, foreign relations, politics, and change and continuities over time.
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