Manchurian Crisis

Believe it or not, there was a time when Japan sought absolute domination of its region and that time was almost a decade before the Second World War even broke out. Yes, even in between the First and the Second World Wars, Japan was trying its best to be the hegemon of the Far East and it planned to achieve hegemony in any form necessary. The story of the Manchuria Crisis was just one of these forms.

Manchurian Crisis Timeline

Manchurian Crisis 1931 Summary

The Manchurian Crisis was an artificially instigated operation by the Japanese Kwantung Army in Manchuria in 1931. At the time, the confidence of the Japanese army was at an all-time high, so high in fact that the government in Tokyo rarely dared to challenge the army officials thinking that the army had the means to overthrow even the Japanese government.

Nevertheless, when the Great Depression hit the global economy, even Japan was affected. With over a third of its workforce no unemployed and no serious natural resource to gather, Japan needed new territories from which it could recover from the heavy burden of the Great Depression.

Fig. 1: Pu Yi, the last Emperor of China

The Japanese Kwantung Army organised the Mukden incident. The Japanese themselves sabotaged the Japanese South Manchuria Railway by rigging it with dynamite and blowing it up, though not completely. This was blamed on the Chinese and so the Japanese invasion of Manchuria began.

The League of Nations asked Japan to stop its invasion but these demands were continually ignored. With no one willing to interfere in the conflict Japan occupied Manchuria and on 16 February 1932 established a puppet state of the State of Manchukuo and installed Pu Yi as its leader.

Causes of the Manchurian Crisis

The Need for Manchuria

Following the Great Depression, nations around the world were suffering from the sudden global economic implosion. To keep its economy running, Japan needed new ways to increase exports and limit imports.

Japan's main export was its primary natural resource, silk. Other than silk, Japan had few natural resources. Once the Great Depression eventually reached Japan, not even silk was worth its original price. This happened because people in the United States and several Western European states could no longer afford Japanese silk, which was an expensive textile. The Great Depression brought with it rampant unemployment and, by 1930, Japan lost one-third of its entire workforce.

Fig. 2: The Japanese Empire in 1931, including Japan, the Korean Peninsula and Taiwan

Since 1915, Japan had leased vast territories in Manchuria from China which were used to aid the Japanese economy by mining for natural resources and transporting them back to Japan via Korea using the South Manchuria Railway.

Apart from the woes of the Great Depression, Japan had the Soviet threat from the north to keep in mind. This stemmed from the fact ever since Japan defeated Russia in 1905, Japan had been expecting a revanchist movement from their northern rival.

With this in mind, Japan needed Manchuria for two chief reasons:

1. To have access to the natural resources of Manchuria;
2. To establish a buffer zone between itself and the Soviet Union.

During the First World War, Japan formed entered into an alliance with the Entente and upon the conclusion of the war, was the founding member of the League of Nations. This form of alliance granted Japan the opportunity to expand its sphere of influence in China.

Fig. 3: Japan in red and the territorial gains Japan made in China by 1939 following the Manchurian Crisis

The Mukden Incident

Japan needed a justification to enter and occupy Manchuria. In the end, they opted for a false flag operation that would take place in Mukden, in the north-west of Japanese-occupied Korea.

On 18 September 1931, soldiers of the Japanese Kwantung Army under Lieutenant Suemori Kawamoto sabotaged a section of the South Manchuria Railway. Though the rails were not harmed in a major way (trains were still able to pass over the damaged section), Japan swiftly blamed the Chinese.

Fig. 4: Japanese experts examining the damage caused by the sabotage of the South Manchuria Railway that caused the Invasion of Manchuria

The Mukden incident eventually transformed into a full-scale invasion of Manchuria and the establishment of the new Japanese puppet State of Manchukuo with Pu Yi installed as its head.

Fig. 5: Flag of the State of Manchukuo

Manchurian Crisis League of Nations

The Manchurian crisis proved that the League of Nations had no stopping power nor the ability to stop a crime committed by one state towards another. Japan ultimately left the League of Nations in March 1933.

Fig. 6: Map of the League of Nations describing who joined and left when

There were reasons why the League of Nations did not more forcibly intervene against Japanese aggression. Primarily, it was the age of the Great Depression. No state had the money or the means, or the desire to present itself as a protector in Asia. The closest superpower that could at least theoretically stop Japan was the Soviet Union. However, the Soviet Union joined the League in 1934, by which time Japan had already left the organisation.

Consequences of the Manchurian Crisis

The League's inability to subdue the Japanese presented an opportunity for an emerging European power to wage war in Africa. This was the case for Italy which sought to annex Abyssinia (Ethiopia). Italy's charismatic leader Benito Mussolini had paid close attention to the League's ineptitude to punish Japan. The lack of authority from the League presented itself as an opportunity for Mussolini. In 1935, the Abyssinian Crisis again proved the ineffectiveness of the League of Nations.