Japan's Imperial Diplomacy: Consuls, Treaty Ports, and War in China, 1895-1938

Introduction

Introduction On November 2, 1937, diplomat Ishii Itarò, head of the Bureau of Asiatic Affairs of the Japanese Foreign Ministry, noted in exasperation in his diary, “It seems that Fascism is happening here not by means of people but through institutions.”1 Ishii summed up trends he witnessed in the Japanese bureaucracy, although the immediate impetus for his remark was Prime Minister Konoe Fumimaro’s announcement of the decision to create the Supreme Command (Daihonei), a new agency that considerably strengthened military power over decisions regarding Japan’s actions in China.2 His comment also reflected his bitterness at the declining power of the Foreign Ministry to manage Japan’s affairs in China proper or to localize and negotiate a settlement to the continuing fighting, as well as his own long and debilitating struggle to influence China policy from a mid-level position and a minority opinion group in the Japanese bureaucracy. In his diary of 1937–1938, Ishii’s caustic and prescient comments about the Japanese leadership and the direction of Japanese foreign and domestic policy offer rare contemporary insights into the coming disaster of war. This study leads up to Ishii’s predicament and his actions dur- 2 Introduction ing the period 1937–1938, when he was chief of the Bureau of Asiatic Affairs, but of necessity its true focus is wider, entailing a comprehensive look at the institutional history and internal dynamics of the Japanese Foreign Ministry vis-à-vis China across a much longer period, 1895–1945. Some might argue that Ishii’s story, that of a lower ranking civil servant, is minor or even irrelevant to the process of decision-making leading to war or that the historical materials specific to him cannot sustain a book-length study. Both these arguments, however, overlook the importance of Ishii’s actions and his career pattern when placed within a closer examination of Japan’s bureaucratic culture, including factionalism; Japan’s management of its rights and privileges in China, which depended on minor bureaucrats in the Foreign Ministry; and the role of mid-level bureaucrats in both implementing and influencing Japan’s China policies, particularly during the crisis periods of the Manchurian Incident and the early years of the Sino-Japanese War, 1937–1945.3 In these contexts, a more dynamic picture emerges of the interaction of metropolitan decision-making (usually by highly placed bureaucrats) with the opinions and ideas of men in the field (usually lower ranking and atypical in other ways of the Japanese bureaucratic mold). Ishii the individual then can be grouped with other like-minded diplomatic bureaucrats with similar patterns of promotion and office-holding. Their collective diplomatic experience with and general expertise on Republican China distinguished them fundamentally from other Japanese bureaucrats: these attributes marked their educational background, patterns of appointment, and most particularly, their outlook on policy. Ishii was, in fact, only the most notable of many men who, having served or during service as one of Japan’s consuls in China, strongly advocated that Japan adopt or adhere to policies in harmony with China’s rising nationalism and national interests. This study thus aims to profile this distinct strain of “China service diplomat.” The central role of the bureaucracy in Japanese politics under the Meiji Constitution has received extensive scholarly attention. Bernard Silberman has most definitively discussed the Meiji founders’ shaping of the bureaucracy by 1900 into “the premier in- Introduction 3 stitution of public interest,” subordinating especially the political parties to its greater legitimacy and meritocratic authority.4 Ishii’s comment points to the further transformation of the bureaucracy during the 1930s and the Pacific War period, as newer “transcendent ” agencies, composed typically of civil and military bureaucrats with new loyalties cross-cutting ministry ties, gained broad powers, and the Prime Minister’s office sought hegemony over Japanese institutional arrangements.5 The Foreign Ministry, despite its peculiarities as a ministry devoted to foreign affairs, offers a particularly good case study of these “revisionist” bureaucratic trends in its rise and decline in influence. And focus on the fate of the China service diplomats within this change allows a sharper view of the consequences of such trends for the internal story of their ministry. In addition, a closer look at bureaucratic politics centering on the Foreign Ministry in this period to 1938 sheds further light on Japan’s road to the Pacific War. Classically, scholars have analyzed this path with much...