留学生高中ib课程作业范文

日本渴望在东亚取得经济优势的程度有多大：这是日本攻打珍珠港的主要原因。

To what extent was the desire of Japan to achieve economic dominance in East Asia: the main reason that Japan attacked Pearl Harbor

 

1941年日本轰炸珍珠港的原因及其在亚太地区的野心可以从日本的长期历史中看出。从历史上可以看出，战争不会因为一个原因而发生。日本对珍珠港的攻击也有几个原因，可以分为四个主要原因。这些都是历史观点，经济、政治和军事上的原因。

从历史的原因来看，从历史上可以看出，日本是一个非常侵略性的国家。即使在对珍珠港的袭击，日本已经与美国华盛顿会议期间很多论点（1921-1922年），曾在远东和太平洋的帝国再分配的主要目标。这次会议的目标与巴黎和平会议是一致的。虽然巴黎和平会议缓和了帝国主义国家与西方国家的关系，但在远东和太平洋，尤其是美国和日本之间，却存在着许多激烈的争论。华盛顿会议试图解决Versailles没有解决的问题。对美国来说，主要目的是限制日本军队的发展。

 

The reasons for Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941 and its ambitions on the Asia-Pacific region can be seen in the long-term history of Japan. As can be seen in the history no war would happen due to a single reason.  Same to this Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor had several reasons and they can be categorized into four main reasons. These are historical perspectives, economical, political and military reasons.

To start with the historical reason, as can be seen in the previous history Japan was a really aggressive country. Even before the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan already had a lot argument with USA during the conference of Washington (1921-1922) which had the main goal of reallocation the collies for those empires in Far East and on Pacific. The goal of this conference was inline with the Paris peace conference. Although Paris peace conference had mitigate the relationship between imperialism country and western country, but it had a lot of serious argument on the Far East and Pacific, especially between USA and Japan. The conference of Washington tries to solve the problem that Versailles dose not solved. For USA the main goal was to limit the development of Japanese army force. Also the treaty of nine countries limited Japan’s advantage of taken all of china for them. In this treaty USA suggest all nine countries to have equal opportunity and open door police on China.

USA was a super powerful country in 19 centuries. During that time the oil supply from USA were 20 times more than the total supply from Japan, Germany and Italy, supply of steel were 2 times more, Thus, if Japan wants to control the Pacific they have to think a smart way of doing this because as can be seen it is extremely hard for Japan to win if they fight USA face to face, so that the best way was attacking Pearl Harbor. On the other side USA also wants the total control of Pacific, the main reason for this was that Japan was too powerful during that period and USA knew that Japan had a huge ambition on it.

As can be seen japan invaded china in September 1931 and cause a huge damage in China [1]. On Japan’s view they want the total country of the pacific, because in their plan the Sino-Japanese war were exceeded the limit, the war had already goes on for over four years, japan had huge amount lacking in their oil supply (only 1.7million tone within the country per year)[2]. They need the resources from East Asia, but to do that the first country they have to cross were Philippines. However at that time Philippines were USA’s colonies [3]. So if Japan could take over the total control of pacific it will benefit them by gain more time when they were attacking Philippines.

On the map Pearl harbor is located in Hawaii. Which is  an important transportation junction[4]  and  also  one of the most important American naval base. Since 1940,Europeans war totally breakout. Japan were responsible for Asia and they had also include Pacific in to their sphere of influence. if japan wants the total control of pacific, the first thing they have to do is to take over Pearl Harbor. Objectively, USA is the biggest threaten for Japan in this area. Also for Japan they are also worried that Germany may get involved after they took over UK and USSR that may affect Japan’s benefit [5].

Japan is an island country that makes them   really eager for resource. The lack of resources is the weakness for this country. Japan has  to import oil and balata from USA to keep their supply for war. USA doesn’t think Japan would stop after they had taken over china, they thought Japan’s final aim was to taken over the Asia to achieve their goal, which were called economic dominance. In July 1940, USA had imposed trade sanctions followed by an embargo aimed at limit Japan’s military aggression in Asia. This movement also made the relationship between USA and Japan even worse. The reason for USA made this sanction was to limit Japan’s aggression in Asia., As a consequence this decision made by USA made Japan  step even slower than before because the trade sanction made the lacking resource problem appealed even more. Japan was desperately needed for oil supply but there were only two places to get it, Siberia and the South Pacific. Japanese was going after Siberia but were forced to give up that strategy after the disastrous 1939 Battle of Khalkhin Gol [6], this battle were between Japan and USSR happened in far east located on the border of Manchu and Mongolia (Japan was defeated).

Another historical reason for Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor was Sino-Japanese war. The war had continued for four years. Before and during this war, USA knows that Japan will be a big threatens for them. USA had supported china with weapons and resources to help china in the war with Japan. Obviously under this condition Japan won’t have enough resources for them to support a long-term fight thus made them even more seeking for the resources in Southeast Asia. On japan side even thought USA had not involved in to the war directly, but because of all those aids to China, Japan had already declared. USA as their enemy and they thought USA was going to involve in this war.

Second reason for Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was economical reason. Economic was also a very serious problem japan was facing. Before second world war Japan had expanded their domestic construction mostly by the benefit they got from Russo-Japanese War[7] and First Sino-Japanese War[8] . In this war Japan got over 200million sliver[9] and the value of other spoils were about 100million yen[10]. Because of this huge amount of money before 1929(wall street crash), they had developed in an inconceivable speed. During 1914-1922 Japan output of merchant ship had increased from 4.9 tons to 61 tons; this amount rise was exceeded most country in Europe. That make Japan a really confident country before the economic crisis, not only the government but also the entire society had a high standard of living.

The turning point for Japanese economic crisis was the worldwide economic crisis in 1929 which followed by a big earthquake. As can be seen Japan is an island country that made the economic problems appeal even more when wars come During this crisis Japan’s economic dropped dramatically and their population increase which results high unemployment rate and a drop in people’s living standard, thus Japan under that condition urgently needed a solution to remit the pressure on their country.

In 1931 Japan invaded china’s northeast; the target this movement was to make china their colonies so that they can immigrate their people in to china to relief the pressure f their population. There was a huge amount of resources in china for Japan to transit this crisis. Second Sino-Japanese breaks out in 1937 and continues until 1941(before pearl harbor even). This war had goes on for four years that had exceeded Japan estimates on this war. Japan main goal during this was to achieve the economic dominance in East Asia. From the previous war Japan had with china (Manchuria 1931, first Sino-Japanese War) they got the taste of wining, so for this time they also expected a win smoothly, but USA didn’t play a good role to Japan. During this period USA was strongly supported china with huge amounts of money in 1940 and had land over 120 million loan to china (Zhenxi loan, Pingzhunlaon)[11]also USA had formed Flying tigers[12] team in to help china with their air force. Based on those supports from USA until 1941 China had hold this war for four years, although in past four years Chinese had damaged a lot but on Japan side they were also facing huge issue.

In addition, the war between Japan and China during 1937-1941's led to Japan's large oil, rubber, other resources and money consumption. In order to find more strategic resources, especially oil, Japan actively expanded in Southeast Asia [A]. But the Japanese plan to occupy Southeast Asia damaged the United States, Britain, Netherlands’ interests, and the United States was wary of Japan, which had imposed a series of embargoes on Japan. In July 1941, Japan occupied French Indochina, the United States announced to implement economic sanctions towards Japan, freezing all Japan’s property in US, including the implementation of embargo towards oil, rubber iron and steel, as well as other strategic materials. Britain and Netherlands have also followed suit, in this case, it made Japan lose 75 percent of its overseas trade and 90 percent of its oil imports [B], Japan's domestic oil reserves could only be maintained for half a year. On December 7, 1941, in order to invade Southeast Asia to take oil there, which was also to protect the sea access, especially to ensure Japan's unimpeded oil tankers in the sea, Japan attacked the United States’ sea fleet in the Pacific Pearl Harbor.#p#分页标题#e#

As can be seen before Second Sino-Japanese War Japan had already suffered the economic crisis. As is well-know war is mostly relay on money and oil supply, after four years of fight Japan’s oil supply was nearly exhausted, plus the sanction USA made on Japan made them very week. Because of all those reasons the relationship between Japan and USA was turned to a very serious situation. Japan realized that is situation must change or they won’t be able to win this war. Thus they need the oil resource in Southeast Asia.

Japan attacking Pearl Harbor, military reason was the most direct reason of this event. To start with Japanese government, as can be seen in the previous history Japanese government had always been aggressive. In 1192, Japan had established the first warrior government----- Kamakura Shogunate, since then Japan started seven hundred years rule by warrior, obviously, as can be even seen in the name of this government it’s an era for warrior, when people talk about the first thing to say are the Samurai spirit it is the supremacy for all warrior. Samurai spirit was praise highly for loyalty and brave Japanese government always use this to inspirit their soldiers to fight for their country. Nitobe Inazo [13], one of the most famous scholar had says that the most important thing for warriors is to obey and finish their missions death is only a means of responsibility, fell to the second, if warriors dose not accomplished their responsibility it is even worse than death they will bear the shame to death. This Samurai spirit had influence Japan a lot when they warring Peal Harbor because of this spirit Japan were always brave enough to challenge stronger country.

As can be seen, USA was the most powerful country in the world at that period time, for military force USA had a huge advantage USA have 0.19 million airplanes 0.1 million tanks, over 200 battleship and 113 submarine, at the same time the supple from all three country were only 0.13 million airplane and 50000 tanks[14]. Thus there was a huge gap between Japan and USA, but Japan had always beat those country were stronger than them e.g First Sino-Japanese war, war with Russia. Japan were very rarely to loss also because their Samurai spirit even thought they knew to attack Pearl Harbor was a really dangers movement and it my cause a madness retaliation from USA, but they still did it not only base on the Samurai spirit but also the pride for themselves.

Another military reason for this attack was until 1941 Second Sino-Japanese War had already goes on for four years although Japan had made a huge damage on Chinese army, but for themselves they had also lost a huge amounts of military force Japan had lost over 620 thousand army in that period time, Thus Japan aware that they can’t hold this war for too long because the longer they take means a larger number of lost in their military force also means an larger gap between them and USA, according to also those reason Japan made the decision the attack Pearl Harbor, Japan made a huge success in this attack, USA lost over 2000 soldiers but Japan had only lost 200 mans[15].

Japan was trying to take the total control of pacific to achieve their goal of military dominance in Pacific, the reason for control pacific I had mentioned before but on the view of military side was because Japan wants to take the advantage in the future war (Pacific War), also for Japanese final goal to achieve the dominance in east Asia, if they take done Peal Harbor that means they will have much less pressure when they invade other country in east Asia like Philippines.

Washington Naval Treaty [16] was signed in 6/2/1922, this was a treaty signed by five main countries, USA, England, Japan, France and Italy. In this treaty it limited the naval force for all five counties the percentage were 5:5:3:1.75:1.75, the maximum tone for the battleship was 35 thousand and the caliber of main artillery can not larger than 16 inch. The original intention of this treaty is to clam down the naval race happened in those country, but in USA point of view they could use this treaty to limit the growth of Japanese naval as the data shows the naval force between USA and Japan was limited to 5:3 this means if Japan made three battleship then USA can make five. This treaty absolutely gives Japanese a lot pressure because this would slow down the speed of Japanese development of their army force especially in their naval, even more then that if Japan wants to control Pacific naval should be one of the most important army force when they have a war with USA, thus this treaty had made Japan to an even more inferior position when they were facing USA also this treaty had made the relationship between this two country even worse, as Japanese point of view they doesn’t think this treaty were fair to them. Because they thought that in the treaty they were not equally treat, as USA and they couldn’t produce as same battleship as USA can.

Due to the too large gap between Japan and the United States in the military, economic strength, Japan was aware that it could not destroy and occupy the United States, it needed the victory of the local war to force the United States to make concessions, namely, to agree with Japan's invasion of Southeast Asia or to give up the embargo on Japan. As a result, Japan chose Pearl Harbor as its target of attack on the United States. Japan took Pearl Harbor as the object of attack, which depended on the following reasons. First, Pearl Harbor was located in the eastern Pacific Hawaii Islands between Japan and the United States, it was about 3,500 nautical miles from Japan, about 2000 nautical miles from the United States, it was the most important base of the US Pacific Fleet, and it was also an important hub of the US Navy in the Pacific, the destruction of Pearl Harbor would make the United States temporarily lose control of the Pacific to help Japan to attack Southeast Asia[C] . Second, Pearl Harbor was the headquarters of the US Pacific Fleet, the main force most took Pearl Harbor as the mother port, and there were sound ship repair, supply facilities, if attacking Pearl Harbor was successful, which could not only destroy the main fleet, but also make the US Navy lose its long combat capability in the Pacific by destroying facilities in the port. If the target was reached, then the US Navy in the two years would not have a big act [D] . Finally, since the Atlantic fleet also supported British and Germany to fight, the US Navy could not allocate all the main fleet of the Atlantic flew to the Pacific to continue to fight with the Japanese, so after the annihilation of the Pacific Fleet, the United States might indeed be unable to maintain the war in the Pacific, the total annihilation of the Pacific fleet would also be possible to force the United States to sign a peace treaty in favor of Japan [E] .

Political reason was also a reason that can’t be ignored. During the Second World War there were three main axis powers, Germany, Italy and Japan. Italy dose not appeal a lot before 1940 because they were busy fighting Ethiopia (1936) thus their main army force was in Africa at that time, for Germany they was response for Europe area, before 1940 Germany had already got huge success in Europe area, they were advance at a incredible speed, until June twenty-two Germany invaded USSR, this movement totally changed Japanese plan for their war.

Germany and USSR had sign an treaty Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact (23/8/1939) in this treaty Germany and USSR both agree on they won’t invade each others. Germany’s original intention of signing this treaty was try to get away the threaten from USSR when they attack France because USSR was located on their back side, so if USSR attack Germany on their back when they invade France then that may cause a big issue for Germany. On USSR point of view, they was not ready for a war yet because of the civil strife the own country were in a really unstable condition so at this period of time USSR dose not want any more problems. Until 1941 every thing was on the right track with in Germany and USSR, but in June 22 Germany broke the treaty and invade USSR. On Japan’s side this movement was not optimistic, Mikado[17] think this movement made by Germany may cause a huge effect on Japanese own benefit, because Germany invade USSR means they were going to involve in to the war in Asia that would effect on Japanese benefit of achieving their dominance in Asia because if Germany get involve in this means they have to share their benefit with Germany. Thus Japanese emperor had immediately appointed Hideki Tō jyō as premier (17/11/1941) to set up a cabinet to cope with this situation. Hideki Tō jyō decide to bring forward of their plan to invade eastern Asia because Germany was put on too much pressure on them in the past four years Germany has made a great progress but Japan was fighting with China for all four years and they still can’t finish this war, thus psychologically Japan as a country were always full of pride of themselves were nowstricken, Japanese badly need a opportunity to release the pressure and also to prove their potential. If Japan want to bring forward their plan of invade eastern Asia the first country they have to deal with would be Philippines that means they can not avoid USA because Philippines was one of USA’s colonies, thus Japan have to take down Pearl Harbor to Gain more time for them when they invade Philippines.

Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor was also closely related to the struggle of its domestic political forces. In 1939, Japan developed two combat orientations, respectively, "south attack on Southeast Asia" and "north attack on the Soviet Union". Japan's two political forces launched a heated discussion and competition for the two plans [F] . Japan originally paid attention to the Soviet Union's rich war resources, it developed a plan to invade the Soviet Union on the north, but because of Japanese defeat caused by Khalkhin GOL between Japan and the Soviet Union in 1939. 7696 Japanese were killed, 1021 were missing, 8647 were wounded, 2350 were sick, the total loss were 18,000 people [G] . Japan's willingness and political power of attack on the north were hit hard, and as Hitler’s lightning win in the west, the Japanese government was so fascinated by the easy victories of Germany, they thought that they could easily win in Southeast Asia and in 1941, they forced the French government to agree with their establishment of air bases in northern Indochina, so that Japanese domestic political and military forces which advocated the expansion in Southeast Asia occupied an absolute position, and the political figures who advocated the attach on the north were squeezed out of the cabinet. However, the strategy of Japan's southern invasion in the south violated the United States and Britain's interests in Southeast Asia, which caused the United States’ sanctions, in order to protect the success of Japan's policy of attack on the south, the Japanese government and the army decided to take risks, in the case of a huge gap between Japan and the United States, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor [H] .#p#分页标题#e#

　To sum up, as can be seen Japan attack Peal Harbor would not happen for any single reason it happened only because of there are lot of reason caused it, By combine those four main reasons we would get to know the essential reasons for Japan attack Pearl Harbor to achieve their economic dominance in East Asia.