Quite a few libertarians of my acquaintance have trouble thinking straight about World War II in the Pacific. The recent anniversary of Pearl Harbor brings them out with their arguments that U.S. government provoked the Japanese government into starting the war. Let’s review the facts, with a complementary glance at Japanese colonial monetary arrangements.
Japan emerged as an international power with the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-5. The Korean monarchy appealed to the Chinese and Japanese governments to help it suppress a revolt. Both sent troops. Japan’s troops seized the royal family and installed a new government that repudiated all Korean treaties with China. War followed, and Japan won. China ceded Taiwan and the Pescadores Islands. In 1904-5 Japan fought Russia after breaking off talks over spheres of influence in Korea and Manchuria. Japan started the war by sinking Russian warships at Inchon. Russia ceded part of Sakhalin island to Japan and recognized a Japanese sphere of influence in Korea. Japan annexed Korea in 1910. Early in World War I, Japanese forces occupied German colonies in the Pacific. In 1915 Japan presented the “Twenty-One Demands” to China, which would have reduced China to a Japanese protectorate, but withdrew them in the face of pressure from foreign governments. During the Russian civil war, Japanese forces occupied Vladivostok and nominally controlled a huge territory in eastern Siberia, though they had to retreat after the Red Army defeated anti-Bolshevik forces. In 1919-1920 Japanese forces violently suppressed the Samil independence movement in Korea. In the interwar period the former German colonies in the Pacific became a League of Nations mandate under Japanese administration. In violation of the mandate agreement, Japan established substantial military bases on the islands.
In 1931 Japanese military forces staged an explosion near a Japanese-owned railroad in Manchuria as a pretext to launch an invasion of the region. In 1932 the Japanese army invaded neighboring Jehol province. In 1935 Japan turned eastern Hebein and Chahar provinces into a puppet state. In 1937 a Japanese army unit, conducting unannounced nighttime maneuvers near Peking, came under fire from a Chinese unit fearing an invasion. After a series of further incidents Japan launched another war on China, conquering large areas near the coast. In 1939 the Japanese army attempted to occupy a disputed territory in Mongolia. A large-scale though undeclared war soon resulted in which Japanese forces were defeated by Mongolian and Soviet troops (the Nomonhan Incident). To end the conflict Japan signed a cease-fire pact with the Soviet Union on September 15, 1939. (The Soviet Union under Stalin then proceeded to invade Poland two days later.) In September 1940 Japanese forces invaded French Indochina.
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