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Monday, March 24, 2008
History CA2
The economic issues it faced were the main reason for Japan's entry into the Pacific War. Do you agree? Explain your answer.
I do not agree that the economic issues it faced were the main reason for Japan’s entry into the Pacific War. Whereas, I think that militarism is the most important issue that led to the outbreak of the war.
Militarism is the strong army that Japan had in order to expand itself. Expansion to China will solve all Japan’s problems that they faced, and Japan will benefit a lot if they expand to China. Japan wanted to colonize China as they think that it will help them to get more lands. Thus, Japan separated the army into two. One is to conquer China, and the other is to expand to Siberia. Japan was much smaller than China, and thus it is also one of the problems that Japan faced.
The other factor is that Japan is lacking of resources – raw materials and land. They did not have enough raw materials to provide for its people. And protectionism is a problem that is faced by Japan. Other countries practiced protectionism and that caused Japan to have a problem to export goods, and thus, Japan is unable to import goods to other countries, which is related to the economic issues.
As there is a shortage of land, the farmers are unable to produce enough rice and staple food for their people, as most of them used old farming methods. This shows that there are a lot of people, but there is only little food.
The last factor that caused the outbreak of the war is that Japan is fearful of colonization. Many islands of the Asia Pacific have been colonized by the Western Power, and Japan think that they have to be the world power, or else they would be colonized by the Westerners too. Therefore, they decided to expand to China so that it will benefit them. They write slogans, which show that they are anti-westerners, like “Asia for Asians”. This is so that they are able to get the support of the Chinese.
Thus, I think that militarism is the main reason as compared to the economic issues. If the Japanese were not so inspired to fight for their own country due to the militaristic government, the Westerners will not feel so threatened. And it may be possible that Japan is still able to export goods although there is protectionism, they may be able to negotiate with them if they are not so strong or harsh for their militaristic approach. Protectionism and militarism will not be a problem to them.
XIUHUI
@ 5:28 AM
