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CounterPunch
September
23, 2002
On the Contemporary
Relevance
of the Manchurian Incident
by Gary Leupp
On September 18, 1931 (70 years before the Sept.
11 attacks), the opening salvoes of World War II were fired in
Manchuria. As I have been reading Bush's comments comparing Saddam
to Hitler, and German justice minister Herta Daübler-Gmelin's
remarks comparing Bush to Hitler, in this season of tortured
analogies, the following comes to mind.
Manchuria as of 1931 was internationally regarded as part of
China, a sovereign country, although like most of China it was
governed by a warlord rather than an effective central government.
Japan's incipiently fascist government had acquired treaty rights
to station forces in Manchuria, protecting its railroad, port
and other interests. Japan was a major imperialist power, having
wrenched Taiwan from China in 1895, established its rule over
Korea in 1905, and acquired a slough of Pacific islands during
World War I. (The "international community" had endorsed
such colonizing activity, the U.S. exchanging its nod for Japan's
acceptance of its imperial dominion over the Philippines and
Guam, the French trading their recognition for Japan's acceptance
of French colonialism in Indochina, etc.)
From Sept. 18 Japan's Kwantung Army in
Manchuria, having provoked an "incident" with local
military forces, fanned out from Mukden and in short order conquered
the whole Chinese province. The action was not authorized by
the Prime Minister, Diet, or even the High Command in Tokyo,
but undertaken after careful conspiratorial planning by a small
cabal of field-rank officers who had a vision of a Greater East
Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. Tokyo had to go along with it, insisting,
on the global diplomatic stage, that its forces had been provoked.
But this attack of the regional superpower
on the weak nation of China met with international indignation,
particularly as Japan established an imaginary state called Manchukuo.
The Japanese sought League of Nations approval for the fait
accompli, but the Lytton commission, in a carefully balanced
statement (prepared by a British lord not at all disposed to
oppose imperialism in principle), condemned it. So the Japanese
delegation walked out, helping seal the fate of the League.
What did Japan need, after all, from a body inherently suspicious
of it, unsympathetic to its national security interests, unable
to comprehend its racial destiny? Why should the League's condemnation
prevent Japan from bringing its superior way of life to the benighted
Manchurian people, and from taking advantage of its mineral resources
and the Lebensraum it could provide Japan's expanding
population? Japan's act of war was in fact an act intended to
secure the peace in a troubled region.
One thing let to another, and six years
later Japanese forces got into a full-scale war with China which
resulted in such unpleasantries as the Rape of Nanking. To prosecute
the war effectively, Japan required oil that the U.S. refused
to supply, which meant Japan needed to attack and conquer the
Dutch Indies, which meant having to take out Pearl Harbor, bases
in the Philippines, Singapore, Hong Kong. All hell broke loose,
and ultimately, the Japanese people paid the price in the form
of Nagasaki, Hiroshima, and conventional bombing of Tokyo and
other cities that was equally destructive.
Just goes to show: stage an unprovoked
attack; lie about it; ignore the world's sentiments; let policy
be set by a cabal of fanatics with visions of grandeur; encourage
racist, condescending views of other peoples; and things can
spin out of control. The world today is a far cry from the world
of Herbert Hoover, Chiang Kai-shek, and Wakatsuki Reijirô,
men at the helm in their nations as of Sept. 1931; there is only
one superpower whose leaders' provocations, ignorance, fanaticism
and racist condescension can trigger another world war. Not a
war between evenly-matched blocs, this time, but one nation's
war against the world, defined at the outset as endless.
Gary Leupp
is an an associate professor, Department of History, Tufts University
and coordinator, Asian Studies Program.
He can be reached at: gleupp@tufts.edu
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