The economic motivations behind Japanese aggression in the late 1930s: Perspectives of Freda Utley and Nawa Toichi

Journal of Contemporary History

Volumn 32, Issue 2, 1997, Pages 259-280

  Sugihara, Kaoru ^a  

^a OSAKA UNIVERSITY   (Japan)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 34248116562     PISSN: 00220094     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/002200949703200208     Document Type: Article

References (41)

1. Sugihara Kaoru, Ajiakan Boeki no Keisei to Kozo (Patterns and Development of Intra-Asian Trade) (Kyoto 1996), chap. 4.
2. Nakamura Takafusa, Senji Nihon no Kahoku Keizai Shihai (Japan's Control of the Economy of North China during the War) (Tokyo 1983);
3. W.G. Beasley, Japanese Imperialism 1894-1945 (Oxford 1987), chap. 13;
4. Kaneko Fumio, 'Shihon Yushutsu to Shokuminchi (Capital Exports and Colonies)' in Oishi Kaichiro (ed.), Nihon Teikokushugi-sbi 2: Sekai Daikyoko-ki (Tokyo 1987), 331-65;
5. Yamamoto Yuzo (ed.), Manshukoku no Kenkyu (Studies in Manchukuo) (Kyoto 1993).
6. P.J. Cain and A.G. Hopkins, British Imperialism: Innovation and Expansion 1688-1914 (London 1993), 5, expresses a similar view, with regard to the literature on British imperialism. I have borrowed - and adapted - their expression.
7. For Utley's career, see her Odyssey of a Liberal: Memoirs (Washington 1970). For a list of her writings, see her entry to Gale Research Co., Contemporary Authors, vol. 81-84, 578-9.
8. Freda Utley, The Dream We Lost: Soviet Russia Then and Now (New York 1940, revised edn published as Lost Illusion, London 1949).
9. Freda Utley, Lancashire and the Far East (London 1931), 19.
10. For an assessment of the drain theory in light of the more recent literature, see B.R. Tomlinson, The New Cambridge History of India 3.3: The Economy of Modern India 1860-1970 (Cambridge 1993), 11-14.
11. Manchester Guardian, 24 November 1931. The review is signed 'H.G.H.', which Dr Farnie informed me stands for H.G. Hughes, a journalist with the Manchester Guardian.
12. Arno S. Pearse, The Cotton Industry of Japan and China, (Manchester 1929), 12.
13. International Cotton Bulletin, 10, 37 (October-November 1931), 146.
14. Yamazaki Hiroaki, 'Nihon Mengyo Kozoron Josetsu (An Introduction to a Structural Analysis of the Japanese Cotton Industry)', Keiei Shirin, 5, 3, 1968.
15. For78 a comparison with India see A.K. Bagchi, Private Investment in India, 1900-1939 (Cambridge 1972, chap. 7. For a recent discussion of Lancashire and Japan, see Alex J. Robertson, Lancashire and the Rise of Japan, Business History, 32,4 October 1990 87-105, summarized major contemporary English-language publications on the subject, and added a detailed account of a complex mechanism showing how international speculation contributed to the high level of profit attained in the Japanese cotton industry in the 1920s. For a more recent contribution on competition and innovation in the weaving sector, see Abe Takeshi, 'The Development of the Producercenter Cotton Textile Industry in Japan between the Two World Wars', Japanese Yearbook on Business History, 9,1992, 3-27. For a comparison with India see A.K. Bagchi, Private Investment in India, 1900-1939 (Cambridge 1972), chap. 7. For a recent discussion of Lancashire and Japan, see Alex J. Robertson, 'Lancashire and the Rise of Japan', Business History, 32,4 (October 1990), 87-105.
16. See Sugihara Kaoru, 'The Japanese Capitalism Debate, 1927-1937' in Peter Robb (ed.), Agrarian Structure and Economic Development: Landed Property in Bengal and Theories of Capitalism in Japan, Occasional Papers in Third-World Economic History, 4 (London 1992), 24-33.
17. G.C. Allen, Japan: The Hungry Guest (London 1938), 16-17.
18. Freda Utley, Japan's Feet of Clay (London 1936).
19. John E. Orchard, Japan's Economic Position: The Progress of Industrialisation (New York 1930).
20. Book Review Digest (1937, 995-6) lists sixteen reviews with quotations.
21. P.J. Cain and A.G. Hopkins, British Imperialism: Crisis and Deconstruction 1914-1990 (London 1993), chap. 10.
22. See, for example, G.C. Allen, Japanese Industry: Its Recent Development and Present Condition (New York 1939), 111.
23. The London Economist commented: 'There are, despite oppression, many Japanese who are as critical of their own affairs as is Miss Utley, and social revolution may not be as imminent as she suggests.' The Economist, 26 December 1936.
24. Germaine A. Hoston, Marxism and the Crisis of Development in Pre-War Japan (Princeton 1986), chap 4.
25. Hoshino Hitoshi, '"Export Pessimism" in Inter-war Japan', Keizaigaku Zasshi, 88, 2-3 (September 1987), 35-8.
26. See Gail Lee Bernstein, Japanese Marxist: A Portrait of Kawakami Hajime (Cambridge, MA 1976).
27. Matsuo Takayoshi, 'Haisen Chokugo no Kyoto Minshu Sensen (The Kyoto Democratic Front immediately after the Defeat)', Kyoto Daigaku Bungakubu, Kenkyu Kiyo, 18,1978, 255.
28. For a brief summary see Sugihara Kaoru, 'Japan's Industrial Recovery, 1931-1936' in Ian Brown (ed.), Economies of Africa and Asia in Interwar Depression (London 1985), 154-9.
29. This became a reality with the introduction of wartime control. See Takamura Naosuke, 'Mengyo Yushutsunyu Rinkusei-ka ni okeru Bosekigyo to Sanchi Kigyo (The Spinning Industry and Local Weaving Centres under the System of "Linking [the Production of] the Cotton Industry to [the Amount of] Exports and Imports")', Nenpo Kindai Nihon Kenkyu, 9, October 1987, 59-79.
30. J. Gallagher and R. Robinson, 'The Imperialism of Free Trade', Economic History Review, 6-1, 1953, 1-15.
31. Yamada Moritaro, Nihon Shihomhugi Bunseki (Tokyo 1934).
32. In 1948 Nawa stated that he owed his greatest methodological debt to this book in writing Genmen Mondai. See Nawa, Nihon Bosekigyo no Shiteki Bunseki (An Historical Analysis of the Japanese Cotton-Spinning Industry) (Tokyo 1949), 4-5.
33. For a recent synthesis of the revisionist view, see Thomas G. Rawski, Economic Growth in Prewar China (Berkeley, CA 1989). For a riposte, see Chris Bramall's review in China Quarterly, 131, September 1992, 784-93.
34. Mao Zedong, Mao Zedong xvanji (Selected Works of Mao Zedong) (Beijing 1964), 438.
35. In the postwar literature on the history of Japanese trade, Nawa's thesis and Akamatsu's 'wild-geese flying pattern' have been the two dominant themes of discussion. For a recent summary of the literature, see Yamamoto Yuzo and Oku Kazuyoshi, 'Boeki (Foreign Trade)' in Umemura Mataji et al. (eds), Nihon Keizaishi, vol. 5 (Tokyo 1990), 86-131.
36. For a brief discussion on the significance of the supply of natural resources in the postwar period, see Sugihara Kaoru, 'Japan, the Middle East and the World Economy: A Note on the Oil Triangle' in Sugihara and J.A. Allen (eds), Japan in the Contemporary Middle East (London 1993), 1-13.
37. Paul Kratoska, 'The Southeast Asian Rice Trade and its Ramifications, 1850-1950', paper presented to the Workshop on China in the Asian International Economic History, Osaka, May 1993, 7.
38. Mitani Taichiro, 'Kokusai Kinyu Shihon to Ajia no Senso: Shumatsuki ni okeru Taichu Yongoku Shakkandan (International Finance Capital and the War in Asia: The Final Phase of the Four-Power Loan Consortium to China)', Nenpo Kindai Nihon Kenkyu, 2, December 1980, 114-58.
39. Hashimoto Juro, Daikyokoki no Nihon Shihonshugi (Japanese Capitalism in the Age of the Great Depression) (Tokyo 1984), chaps 4 and 5. In the 1960s and 1970s there was a debate on how much weight should be given to the cotton industry and heavy industry, respectively, in accounting for the economic motivations of Japanese imperialism. For a brief summary from the perspective of the 'cotton industry-oriented imperialism' camp, see Nishikawa Hiroshi, 'Sangyo-Boeki Kozo, 2 (The Structure of Industry and Foreign Trade, 2)' in Ishii Kanji et al. (eds), Kindai Nihon Keizaishi o Manabu, vol. 2 (Tokyo 1977), 84-104.
40. See Yamamoto Yuzo, '"Manshukoku" o meguru Taigai Keizai Kankei no Tenkai: Kokusai Shushi Bunseki o chushin to shite (The Development of External Economic Relations surrounding "Manchukuo": An Analysis of its Balance of Payments)' in Yamamoto (ed.), Manshukoku no Kenkyu, 191-236.
41. Sugihara Kaoru, Ajiakan Boeki, chap 10. Kagotani Naoto, 'Ryotaisenkan-ki no Ajia Shijo to Ajiajin Boekisho: Nihon no Kako Menpu no Yushutsu Kakudai ni Kanren shite (The Asian Market and Asian Traders between the Wars: with reference to the Expansion of the Exports of Japanese Processed Cotton Cloth)', paper presented to the 62nd National Conference for the Socio-economic History Society, Tokyo, October 1993. Yanagisawa Asobu, '1920-nendai "Manshu" ni okeru Nihonjin Chusho-Shonin no Doko (The Activities of Japanese Small and Medium-scale merchants in "Manchuria" in the 1920s)', Tochi Seido Shigaku, 92, July 1987, 1-18.