Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-sh8wx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-16T21:29:18.811Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Historical background

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2010

Norio Tamaki
Affiliation:
Keio University, Tokyo
Get access

Summary

In June 1937, Prince Konoe was handed an imperial edict and ordered to form a cabinet. Exactly a month later, the Marco Polo Bridge Incident occurred, engineered by elements of the Japanese army, and it developed into the Sino-Japanese War. More than two years before the German invasion of Poland, Japan was effectively at war. In July 1940, the second Konoe cabinet prepared Japanese invasion plans for South East Asia, a direct response to the German success in Europe. Two months afterwards the Tripartite Pact between Japan, Germany and Italy was concluded. In June 1941 the Japanese army and navy invaded French Indo-China, an action which was fatal for the American–Japanese negotiations in which the second Konoe cabinet was desperately, if incompetently, engaged. It was, however, the Tojo cabinet in October 1941 which determined the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on 8 December 1941 (Japan Time) initiating all-out war against the rest of the world in the Pacific area. Despite the spectacular advance of the Japanese forces south-eastwards into Asia, within six months, in June 1942, Japan lost the Battle of Midway. This was indeed, in military and in economic terms, the crucial turning point of the Pacific War. In spite of her achievement, Japan was never in a position to win this war. As early as 1942 Japanese industrial production was in the doldrums and her economic resources were, despite the National General Mobilisation policies, exhausted. Japanese banking, well integrated into the national economy, was in the same boat which ultimately sank in August 1945.

Type
Chapter
Information
Japanese Banking
A History, 1859–1959
, pp. 173
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Historical background
  • Norio Tamaki, Keio University, Tokyo
  • Book: Japanese Banking
  • Online publication: 03 February 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511586415.034
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Historical background
  • Norio Tamaki, Keio University, Tokyo
  • Book: Japanese Banking
  • Online publication: 03 February 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511586415.034
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Historical background
  • Norio Tamaki, Keio University, Tokyo
  • Book: Japanese Banking
  • Online publication: 03 February 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511586415.034
Available formats
×