Today the United States is engaged in a gigantic struggle with the Japanese Empire in the Pacific. Since the enemy’s treacherous attack of December 7, 1941, this armed conflict has been hard-fought with heavy casualties on both sides. Because of the conditions of war in the huge theater of operations, naval action has been pre-eminent in the fighting, with air power also widely used by the belligerents.
It is a quirk of history that Japan, originally a small island nation off the mainland of Asia, was to be pitted against the United States, a great continental power, so located geographically as to have a commanding position in the entire Western Hemisphere. And yet these two nations, though possessing marked differences in their physical features, were confronted with basic problems of a kind which led to an early emphasis upon the importance of surrounding bodies of water to their national existence and the accompanying development of sea power. With a long coast line touching upon two great oceans, the United States was not only a continental nation, but one with extensive maritime interests as well. Beginning with the Revolutionary War, the factor of naval strength played a role of ever increasing significance of the military policies of the American Government. Under the impact of historical trends, we reached out and extended our control over a number of insular possessions, especially in the Pacific. With respect to our occupation of the Philippines, this was to place us within a stone's throw of Japanese territory in Formosa. The acquisition and retention of these colonies were made possible by the growing naval strength of the United States.
Sea power played an even more fundamental part in the life of Japan. Surrounded on all sides by water, the Japanese people, if they were to extend the radii of their influence, had to proceed primarily by maritime routes. Because of this fact, the sprawling Japanese Empire of today is essentially insular in character, with Japan proper the center of vast holdings which cover great stretches of ocean. The advance of Japan overseas is one of the outstanding phenomena of contemporary world events, and almost everyone is familiar with the more recent stages in the expansion of the ambitious Asiatic nation. However, it would be a mistake to assume that Japanese imperialism is entirely a product of the twentieth century.1 Territorial expansion is deep-rooted in the long span of Japan’s existence. This is a subject of interest to students of naval affairs, for not only is Japan a principal enemy of ours in the current world struggle, but she will also continue to be an important factor in the Pacific during the post-war period and thereafter.
1 “Japanese empire expansion is nothing new: it is a thousand-year-old institution. The only thing new about it is the ‘method.’ It has been westernized, so grander schemes may be carried out.” Clifford H. MacFadden, An Atlas of World Review, New York, 1940, Map Group No. 64.
From the very outset, Japan’s history as a nation was such as to foreshadow the growth of intense nationalism and the resultant adoption of overseas expansion as a national policy. According to the legendary Japanese account, the Japanese Empire was founded in 660 b.c. by Jimmu Tenno, allegedly a descendant of the Sun Goddess. The latter, so states the myth, invested Jimmu with the three Imperial Regalia—Sword, Mirror, and Jewel—and instructed him as follows: “The land shall be ruled hereditarily by my descendants. You, my grandson, go down and rule it, and may the Imperial House prosper as long as Heaven and Earth!” Jimmu was successful in establishing a central government among the main Japanese islands, but he and his immediate successors were often challenged by unruly subjects in outlying districts.
Early Japan did not constitute in its entirety what is known today as Japan proper. The parent country encompassed sections of the islands of Honshu and Kyushu, the island of Shikoku, and the tip of Korea. It was against the latter territory that the Japanese committed their first act of aggression. At about 200 a.d., Jingo Kogo, the militant Empress of Japan, decided to extend her influence over the entire Korean Peninsula. A Japanese fleet was fitted out for foreign service, and “the Armada sailed upon the Island Empire’s first demonstration against the continent—her first experiment in the use of sea power.” Victorious in this campaign, the Empress returned with 80 spoil-laden ships and with the promise of the Korean king that “until the sun rose in the west, till the rivers flowed backwards, and the stones on earth became stars in heaven,” he and his successors would continue to pay tribute to Japan. Because of this accomplishment, the name of Jingo “has been associated immortally with the traditions of the Japanese navy.”2
Korea remained the chief overseas interest of Japan for a number of centuries, but the Koreans became a difficult problem for their conquerors. The various Korean kingdoms, for the most part, acknowledged Japanese authority, but sometimes they rose in rebellion and Japan frequently had to send armies to the mainland, and finally the Governor’s office was destroyed in 562 by troops of the recalcitrant state of Silla. After becoming the master of the whole peninsula, Silla established good relations with the Chinese Government. In the ninth century, another dynasty seized the ruling power. Japan tried to reassert her control whenever the opportunity presented itself, but her attempts were in vain and she lost her last trace of influence by 936. Korea was destined to have a renewed importance in the subsequent resurgence of Japanese imperialism.
2 Herbert H. Gowen, An Outline History of Japan, New York and London, 1932, pp. 54-6.
Besides the extensive use of warships and transports in the many expeditions to the mainland, the Japanese also displayed an aptitude for the development of commerce with lands both far and near. Japan being an insular country, her inhabitants responded to the attractions of the sea and they proved to be good sailors. Adventuresome Japanese traders took their merchantmen to such distant points as India and the islands now known as the Dutch East Indies. In their conception of water-borne commerce, one of the most logical routes lay to the southward, where the Philippines constituted the first great archipelago encountered when sailing from the Japanese mainland in that direction. Under the influence of this geographical pattern, Japanese seafarers probably touched at the Philippines as far back as the dawn of the Christian era. Beginning with the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, a flourishing exchange of goods materialized between the two countries. Long before Magellan explored the western Pacific, traders from the northern kingdom were making excursions | to the coasts of the Philippines, where they gave cloth, arms, and trifles of various sorts for gold which the natives brought from the mountains.3
After being eliminated temporarily from the affairs of the mainland, the rulers of Japan devoted most of their attention to internal problems. The Japanese were a warlike people, and numerous civil conflicts were fought by opposing factions throughout the country. The martial spirit of the Japanese was indicated by their tenacity in resisting the first and—up to this time—the only attempts by a foreign power to conquer Japan by means of a sea-borne invasion. In the thirteenth century, the Mongols, quickly consolidating their position on the Asiatic continent, tried twice to attack the Japanese islands without success. The second effort involved the concentration of 3,500 ships in the invasion fleet, but they were driven off following a hard battle. This incident in Japanese history is sometimes compared in importance with England’s destruction of the Spanish Armada 300 years later.
3 Report of the Philippine Commission to the President 1900, Washington, 1901, p. 340.
When Europeans first came to Japan in 1542, that country had after nine centuries of national expansion pushed its stubborn frontiers north and south to include most of the four main islands of the Japanese Archipelago, namely, Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu. Not long following the establishment of intercourse between Japan and the West, the island kingdom entered upon a period of violent overseas expansion whose success or failure was to be determined largely by sea power. In the second half of the sixteenth century, Hideyoshi Toyotomi, a commoner by birth, became shogun and achieved an unparalleled unity among the various political factions of Japan. Being an individual of great personal ambition, he cast his eyes in the direction of foreign territories. He encouraged Japanese mariners to sail to Macao, the Philippines, Cambodia, and Annam. In contemplating a program of imperialism, he reverted to the precedent set by Jingo Kogo and turned to Korea, which he meant to seize and use as a gateway for the conquest of China. It was his belief that the subjugation of Korea and China could be accomplished "as easily as a man rolls up a Piece of matting and carries it under his arm.”
The first expedition against Korea was sent forth in 1592, followed by others down to Hideyoshi's death in 1598. At this time, Japan had a formidable fleet, comparable to those of the leading western powers. However, it so happened that the Koreans possessed in their Admiral Yi Sun-sin one of the greatest naval commanders in history. Although Hideyoshi was able to transport a huge army to the peninsular territory, Admiral Yi, with an effective naval force which was centered about a new type of warship, not only defeated but practically annihilated the battle squadrons of the shogun. The Korean commander cut the enemy's lines of communication, destroyed the convoys, and threw Hideyoshi's campaign into utter confusion. Under the circumstances, the large Japanese land forces were maintained in Korea with the greatest of difficulty.
This experience drove home to the Japanese the importance of sea power in the pursuit of overseas expansion by an insular nation like themselves. No lasting triumph could be achieved against a foreign territory unless Japan’s Navy were successful in obtaining complete domination of the intervening waters. Acting swiftly to correct the situation, the Japanese brought their naval forces to a high degree of efficiency and defeated the opposing fleets on a number of occasions, and had. it not been for Hideyoshi’s death, they might have succeeded in conquering Korea, despite the earlier setbacks. Moreover, the exploits of the shogun and his lieutenants proved that Japan was capable of conducting a large-scale war which combined land and sea operations. In the campaigns against the Koreans and their Chinese allies, Hideyoshi transported 200,000 men with equipment and supplies to the Asiatic mainland, which, until Great Britain’s difficulties with the Boers in South Africa, was the greatest force ever sent overseas upon a military undertaking.4
4 Hosea B. Morse and Harley F. MacNair, Far Eastern International Relations, New York, 1941, p. 34.
The riches of India also excited Hideyoshi’s imagination, but next to the program of conquest on the mainland, his most pronounced ambitions dealt with the possibility of annexing Formosa and the Philippines. As in the case of Korea and China, his plans for southern expansion did not materialize, but during the opening part of the seventeenth century, other Japanese entertained similar ambitions. One adventurer, Sigemasa Matsukura, petitioned the Tokugawa Government to allow him to prepare an expedition for an invasion of the Philippines.
Like the Japanese of more recent times, Sigemasa maintained that the Spanish possession was strategically located with reference to Japan, which he gave as a pretext for conquering the insular territory in his successful petition to the throne:
The source of menace to our national peace is Luzon, which is under the control of Spain. I would fain invade Luzon with my soldiers, conquer it and place a garrison in occupation, whereby our national peace would be perpetually maintained. Should my prayer be granted, I would undertake to invade Luzon and subjugate it. And if I do so, I ask that I may be granted an estate of 100,000 koku in that land.
It is entirely possible that only Japan’s abrupt termination of relations with the outside world prevented the renewal, and perhaps successful execution, of her smoldering yearning to acquire Korea, Formosa, the Philippines, and other outlying countries. During the 2¼ centuries that she wore the hermit’s cloak, opportunities probably would have presented themselves in the way of overseas expansion. Moreover, the chances were good that the foremost European nations would not have been able to command a dominating position with respect to Japan, as they later did, if the former had proceeded to seize territory either coveted or controlled by them. This was especially true of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, for then the western powers, hampered by long communications lines and slow means of transportation, would have been hard- pressed to send large forces to the Far East in the face of an emergency. Japan, being an integral part of the area of conflict, would have enjoyed obvious advantages of distance and supply in a campaign, for instance, against Spain in the Philippines.
As it was, the Japanese found circumstances reversed when some of their number revived previous dreams of empire during the decades immediately following the abandonment of isolation in 1853. Japan’s renewal of intercourse with the rest of the world and her readjustment to vastly changed conditions coincided with an intensification of effort by the western nations in East Asia. The former Hermit Kingdom was helpless to challenge the intruders, for her international position, particularly in terms of relative military strength, was now radically different than before. No modern Hideyoshi could rattle the sword with confidence and arrogantly demand tribute from the Spanish Governor-General of the Philippines or inform European representatives in India that the latter country was on Japan’s agenda of conquest. In contrast to the great changes wrought in Europe and America, the long period of isolation had kept Japan in an artificial state of suspension. Disregarding, for the moment, the political and social aspects of human progress, the whole physical structure of the Western world, under the impact of the Industrial Revolution and other powerful stimuli, had undergone a sweeping transformation.
Rapid growth and expansion of their internal economic establishments had prodded j the Western powers into seeking new sources j of raw materials and markets for their manufactured products. This activity, primarily commercial in character, but interlocked with political, and sometimes more irrational, forces traversed the entire Far Eastern region, and its impact reached the very doorstep of Japan. The opening of the Suez Canal, the application of steam and improved techniques of naval construction to the building of warships and cargo vessels, and, above all, the tremendous strides made in perfecting the arts of war, now enabled the Western nations to support their imperial policies in the Far East with mounting quantities of military strength. It was in this respect that the Japanese would have been most handicapped in coping with an external emergency, for her naval vessels and land forces were hopelessly antiquated as compared with those of the Occident. Whatever plans the insular kingdom might adopt for the future, this was the situation confronting the Japanese when, after awakening from their long slumber, they suddenly found themselves playing an active role once more in the affairs of the world.
At the outset, the Japanese, like the Chinese, were regarded by the Westerners as products of a backward Asiatic civilization, and they were treated accordingly. Extraterritoriality and unequal treaties, considered to be the marks of an inferior people, were forced upon them. Hoping to avoid a fate similar to that of the hapless Middle Kingdom, from which recovery would be difficult, Japan applied herself industriously to national rehabilitation. Missions were dispatched to Europe and America in search of new political and social concepts which might be utilized by Japan. Economic reconstruction proceeded vigorously, and it was in this direction that Japan realized some of her most notable achievements. In 1872, the first railroad was opened to traffic, linking Yokohama and Tokyo. Telegraph and postal services were inaugurated, and the foundations laid for the creation and expansion of a modern industrial establishment. Under the impetus of these changes, the total of Japan's imports and exports doubled during the decade 1869-79.5
5 Morse and MacNair, op. cit., pp. 328-29.
It was not until Japan's crushing defeat of China in 1894-95 that widespread concern appeared abroad regarding the apparent intent of the small insular country to embark upon a far-reaching policy of imperialism. Prior to that time, when attention was focused on her struggle to obtain international equality, few understood that certain forces were already at work within Japan which were to produce one of the most pretentious programs of territorial conquest ever contemplated by any nation. Besides keeping Japan aloof from important developments overseas, the long period of isolation caused a different effect in that it had served to crystallize further the intense nationalism and military spirit which characterized the Japanese as a people. This national inheritance, which exerted a major influence in whetting the imperial appetite of Hideyoshi, immediately reasserted itself in similar fashion when Japan resumed intercourse with the outside world.
In 1854, the year that Perry returned to negotiate the Treaty of Kanagawa with the Tokyo Government, Shoin Yoshida, a remarkable Japanese combining the qualities of scholar and militarist, advocated the establishment of a great Japanese empire. His plan called for the outright annexation of Kamchatcha, the Kurile and Luchu Islands, Formosa, part of Manchuria, and the exaction of tribute from Korea. Two contemporaries, a fellow scholar by the name of Sanai Hashimoto, and Lord Hotta, Prime Minister of the Tokugawa Shogunate, also supported a policy of imperialism. These three were accompanied and succeeded by others who reasoned along similar lines. In 1881, expansionist-minded Samurai created the Geny-osha, or Black Dragon Society, the first and one of the more powerful of those secret political organizations which were to work incessantly toward increasing Japan's influence throughout surrounding areas of penetration. Another six years passed, and Lord Tani, in a memorial presented to the throne, emphasized that his country had a mission to perform in the world, and by watching for the proper opportunity, Japan could “obtain the balance of power in the East and thus compel others to esteem and fear us.”6
It should not be implied that all Japanese leaders had decided upon a somewhat clandestine future course of imperialism. In reality, various points of view were present in Japan with respect to the subsequent development of foreign policy, a condition which prevailed, to one degree or another, throughout the following periods of Japanese history. At first, some Japanese thought only in terms of defensive strategy, the major objective being the elimination of external control from the affairs of their country. Even among many of those who possessed visions of overseas expansion, neither the ultimate goals to be reached nor the means for achieving them were well defined. Nevertheless, it was important that a number of outstanding Samurai already advocated such a program, and in the unfolding drama of Japanese politics, this school of thought gained the ascendancy and encouraged the eventual promulgation of Japan’s grandiose pan-Asiatic doctrine. To these nascent Japanese imperialists, the modernization of Japan had a special significance, for in their eyes, national reconstruction would produce the resources of war which were needed before their imperial dreams could be given concrete effect.
6 Harley F. MacNair, The Real Conflict between China and Japan, Chicago, 1938, p. 168.
As in the earlier instances of Jingo Kogo and Hideyoshi, sea power was to be a factor of fundamental significance in the modern era of Japanese imperialism. The very fashion in which the Japanese resumed intercourse with the outside world re-emphasized to them the importance of creating an efficient modern navy, for Perry’s “black warships” did much to encourage the rulers of the Hermit Kingdom to listen to his overtures. During the decade which immediately followed, the Westerners employed naval demonstrations to win further concessions from the Asiatic nation. As one offshoot of this turbulent period, a victory by a United States cruiser over three Japanese vessels added to the discomfort of Japan.7 This surface engagement was the first and only naval battle between Japan and a Western nation from the time of Perry’s appearance to the Russo-Japanese War.
Hardly had the American officer lifted anchor from Japan’s territorial waters in 1853 when the Japanese began to revitalize their decadent naval forces. The next year, the shogun was given a small steam warship by the Dutch Government, and other armed vessels were purchased from foreign countries, notably England and the United States. The real foundations of the modern Japanese Navy began with the acquisition of the Confederate ram Stonewall, built in France in 1864, surrendered to the United States in 1865, and shortly afterward sold to Japan. This ship was soon followed by another of somewhat similar type, built at the Thames Iron Works in 1864-65, which was subsequently used by the Japanese as a gunnery and training unit. British experts were brought to Japan to aid with the program. By 1872, the Japanese Navy consisted of 14 ships with a total displacement of slightly more than 12,000 tons. Except for one small vessel of 138 tons displacement, all these ships were foreign-built. In 1873 work was begun at Yokohama on the construction of two warships, one of 900 and the other of 1,450 tons, the first of which was completed in 1875 and the second a year later.8
7 See James K. Eyre, Jr., “The Civil War and Naval Action in the Far East,” The U. S. Naval Institute Proceedings, November, 1942, pp. 1546-47.
8 G. Nye Steiger, A History of the Far East, New York, 1936, p.610.
While Japan was rebuilding her military and naval machines along western lines, the Tokyo Government quietly but steadily manifested a desire to obtain overseas possessions. As a matter of fact, the Japanese, soon after discarding their self-confinement, began to extend their control over areas where the chances of open conflict with more powerful antagonists were limited. In 1855, Russia and Japan negotiated an amicable partition of the Kurile Islands in the north, and two decades later, the sprawling European empire recognized the Asiatic nation’s claim to all of them. Japan also proceeded to effect a mastery of the East China Sea. She assumed suzerainty over the Luchu Island in 1871 and formally annexed them in 1879, although the Chinese Government did not acquiesce to this change until 1895. An accompanying action saw the Bonin Islands become Japanese territory in 1877. Despite the caution exercised by Japan in advancing overseas, her movements were not entirely free of friction with other countries. In 1873, but five years after the restoration of the emperorship, Japan nearly went to war over the question of Korea, but a decision regarding this buffer territory was postponed to a later date. The following year, a punitive expedition was sent to Formosa and, although withdrawn, represented a national interest in that insular possession which led to its subsequent annexation by the Japanese.
It is not proposed to weigh in detail the explanations offered by Japan in attempts to justify her expansion overseas. During the latter half of the nineteenth century, imperialism, as a time-honored institution, was practiced by the ranking European powers, and Japan’s initial acquisitions of outlying island groups were, to a large extent, measures of self-defense against Occidental encroachment. The Kuriles, the Bonins, and the Luchus were primarily outposts of the Japanese Archipelago, and, as such, should have been under the authority of Japan. However, even during the period when Japanese expansion might have been considered purely defensive in character, the way was being prepared for the more militant program of aggression and conquest. Within a space of two years—1873 and 1874—Japan, by threatening to take action against Korea and Formosa, pointed to the two main currents of all her subsequent imperialism, namely: (1) domination of the Asiatic mainland; (2) control of the sea approaches to the continent and the construction of a great insular empire in the South Pacific. Because of the key positions occupied by Korea and Formosa in the structure of a greater Japan, their eventual acquisition was regarded by the more expansionist-minded Japanese as the real beginning toward the execution of their grandiose plans.
Moreover, as Professor MacNair has properly suggested, the unfolding pattern of Japanese imperialism closely emulated Rideyoshi's outlines of empire:
Although, in a naval-military sense, nothing came of Hideyoshi's designs upon Formosa, the Philippines, and India, the important fact should not be overlooked that it was the Taiko, and not the naval and military leaders of the post-Restoration era of the last seventy years (1868-1938) who originated the twofold, continental and maritime, policy for the expansion of Nippon. The islands of the Pacific, as well as the continent of Asia, fell within Hideyoshi's purview.9
9 MacNair, op. cit., pp. 167-68.
For a long time in the West, it was believed that, historically, the Japanese Army and Navy had been at loggerheads with reference to the direction which Japan's imperialism was to take. The Army was said to favor a continental policy in contrast to the Navy's desire to construct a maritime empire in the South Pacific. We now realize that these two points of view were not diametrically opposed to each other, but instead, interlocking phases of Japan's dream to dominate all of East Asia. Without adequate sea power, Japan could not have hoped to carry out its continental policy, let alone its maritime ambitions. This conclusion is readily discernible in all of Japan's major wars, from the era of Jingo Kogo down through the current period. No largescale operations could be conducted on the Asiatic mainland until Japan's Navy was powerful enough to control the adjoining bodies of water.
In the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95, the Japanese Navy, by crushing the opposing fleet, made possible the successful employment of land forces against the Chinese. The same was true of the Russo-Japanese War, the local action against Germany in the Far East during World War I, the second Chinese war which started in 1937, and the far-flung campaigns against the United Nations since December 7, 1941. As one re-examines the modern era of Japanese imperialism, circumstances were such, until recently, as to place emphasis upon the continental goals of Japan’s expansion. Beginning with the temporary possession of the Liaotung Peninsula in 1895—returned to China as the consequence of pressure from France, Germany, and Russia—Japan’s main objective seemed to be China and the elimination of western influence from that huge nation. It was not until 1939—44 years after she obtained Formosa that Japan, using the latter territory as a springboard to occupy the island of Hainan, was able to continue her southern expansion.
As a matter of fact, had it not been for the conditions peculiar to Japan’s international position during the past 50 years, the Japanese undoubtedly would have made overt efforts long ago to acquire additional territories in the southern region of penetration. Aside from satisfying the ambition of those Japanese expansionists who advocated the early creation of a maritime empire, such a policy would also have aided in achieving a control of China, for strategically and politically, the two programs were inevitably complements of each other. Although this line of reasoning was not widely circulated or publicized by Japanese leaders, there is every reason to believe that shortly after the termination of the war with China, Japan would have employed its ever growing Navy to continue her advance southward if circumstances had permitted. Had this happened, the parallel character of the continental and maritime aspects of Japanese imperialism would have been more apparent to western observers.
Japan’s insistence upon securing Formosa and the Pescadores from China in the Treaty of Shimoneseki pointed to her apparent intent to pursue her imperialistic designs in a southern direction. Japanese writers began to speak enthusiastically of Formosa’s strategic importance with reference to their country’s future expansion in the South Pacific. Equally significant was the remarkable development of the Japanese Navy during the period which immediately followed the successes scored by Japan’s sea power in the conflict with China. At the beginning of the war, Japan had a number of cruisers and gunboats, mostly of comparatively recent construction. When the hostilities terminated, she possesseed 43 seagoing warships, displacing a total of 79,000 tons. In 1897, the Asiatic naval power had a battle fleet of 111,000 tons and 26 torpedo boats. Two of the units added were first-class battleships representing the most advanced types of modern naval architecture.
Still more significant was the building program which the Japanese had under way at that time, which was to give them by 1903 an effective naval force of 78 seagoing vessels, 75 torpedo boats, and 12 other small ships, aggregating more than 200,000 tons. While there existed a general recognition of Japan’s prowess as a sea power, few observers had stopped to examine in detail the import of her growing Navy. One exception was the American naval expert and shipbuilder, Charles H. Cramp, who had examined at firsthand the many warships which were being constructed for Japan in Europe and America. Referring to the rapid increase in the size of the Japanese Navy, Cramp said,
Japan is not only building more ships than any other power except England, but she is building better ships in English shipyards than England herself is constructing for her own Navy. While other nations proceed by steps, Japan proceeds by leaps and bounds. What other nations are doing may be described as progress, but what Japan is doing must be termed a phenomenon.10
10 Charles H. Cramp, “The Coming Sea-Power,” North American Review, Vol. CLXV, October, 1897, p.446.
Cramp went on to make a shrewd analysis of the part which the Japanese Navy was to play in the execution of Japan’s national policies. In a detailed analysis of Japan’s growing sea power, remarkable for its prophetic accuracy, one may note the following observations: (1) the possibility that Japan intended to seize the Philippines, marking one step in the progress of her southern imperialism; (2) the implication that Japan was to be successful in a forthcoming war with Russia; (3) that Japan’s naval expansion was aimed at dominating the entire Pacific, which was to bring her into conflict with the United States; (4) that qualitatively, Japanese warships and naval personnel were on at least a par with the best which the Western nations had to offer.
Some of the more important portions of Cramp’s comments, made in October, 1897, read as follows:
The spectacle of Japan surpassing France and closely following England herself in naval activity is startling. Considering the shortness of the time which has elapsed since Japan entered the family of nations or aspired to any rank whatever as a power, it is little short of miraculous. Yet it is a fact, and to my mind it is the most significant single fact of our time. Nations do not display such energy or undertake such expenditure without a purpose. . . .
Japan may, and probably does, meditate a renewal of her efforts to establish a footing on the Asiatic mainland. Possibly, she may have in view the ultimate acquisition of the Philippine Islands. But, whatever may be her territorial ambitions for the future, it is plain as an open book that she intends, before she moves again, to place herself in a position to disregard and defy any external interference. This may be the true meaning of Japan’s extreme activity in naval preparation at this time. . . .
Hence, viewing the situation from any point at will, the conclusion of any one qualified to judge must be that, in the race for naval supremacy in the Pacific, Japan is gaining, while Russia and the United States are losing ground.
It requires little prescience to discern that the issue which is to settle that question of supremacy as between the powers may not be long deferred.
Though Japan’s naval activity is primarily significant of a purpose to secure general predominance in Oriental seas, and though, as I have suggested, there is no immediate reason for, or prospect of, trouble between Japan and the United States involving naval armaments, yet, in the broad general sense of dignity on the sea, our country can by no means safely ignore or be inattentive to the progress of our Oriental neighbor toward the rank of a first-class sea power in the Pacific Ocean. The completion of her fleet now building will, inside of three years, give Japan that rank, and the future program already laid out will accentuate it. The superior quality of Japan’s new navy is even more significant than its enormous quantity. She has no useless ships, none obsolete; all are up to date.11
11 Ibid., pp. 447-51.
Cramp was not alone in feeling that Japan was to utilize her Navy for the purpose of driving southward in the search of additional colonies. Some foreign observers already believed that the rising Asiatic power, aside from its continental ambitions, intended to obtain a number of insular possessions in the South Pacific, of which Formosa was to be the first. The Philippines, having been more than a passing interest of Hideyoshi and the objective of Japanese adventurers up to the very time that the Tokugawa Shogunate slammed tight the door of Japan, were mentioned in this connection. In seeking the raison d'être behind Japan's possible acquisition of the Spanish colony, it was felt that the occupation of the latter territory, together with Formosa, would have added materially to a growing desire by the Japanese to control the islands flanking the Asiatic continent from north to south and east to west. It is related that one of the first appraisals of this kind was made by President Ulysses S. Grant, who, after returning from a voyage to the Far East in 1879, declared that Japan was destined to rule the Philippines.
Somewhat later, the noted British traveler and colonial expert, Sir Henry Norman, ventured the opinion that Japanese seizure of the Spanish colony was not at all improbable. Writing in 1894, he stated,
Only the excuse of a quarrel is needed to make Japan the heir. Spain, the land of armada and galleon, once the champion of Christendom and the synonym of courage, would be powerless to resist the onslaught of these Vikings of Asia.
Shortly after the Battle of Manila Bay, a similar reaction was voiced by Admiral George Dewey, who apparently chose to ignore the contingency that Spain might be supplanted by the United States in the Philippines. Dewey, as a naval officer, sensed that Japan's increasing strength at sea foreshadowed an acceleration—but not immediately—of her territorial expansion in the South Pacific. John Barrett, former American Minister to Siam, and present with the Admiral on the Olympia as an observer subsequent to the famous naval action of May 1, 1898, recorded the other's prophecy as follows:
I look forward some 40 or 50 years and foresee a Japanese naval squadron entering this harbor, as I have just done, and demanding surrender of Manila and the Philippines, with the plan of making these islands a part of the great Pacific Japanese empire of the future.
I will not live to witness what you will see if you live your ordinary life. That will be the conquest of China by Japan and when that is done conquest of all island possessions from north to south off the Pacific coast of the Far East.12
One could speculate to great length about the effect which Spain’s continued sovereignty in the Philippines and her other Far Eastern possessions might have had upon the political future of East Asia. In any respect, there were some grounds for the belief that the Japanese, exploiting the strategic value of Formosa, would have eventually fallen heir to the Philippines if the United States had not made her appearance there first. In the words of the late Admiral Bradley A. Fiske, U. S. Navy, “The Philippines were so obviously the next steppingstone after Formosa that we cannot even imagine the Japanese as relinquishing the hope of securing them.” From all appearances, the Spaniards themselves appeared convinced that the Japanese intended to include the rich Far Eastern colony within their imperialistic program, and only the war with the United States suddenly shunted this problem aside, in so far as the Europeans were concerned.
12 The time factor of this prediction proved uncannily accurate. Nearly forty years passed and Japan began her attempted conquest of China, to be followed five years later by her invasion of the Philippines. Neither the American naval hero nor his listener lived to see the prophecy fulfilled. Dewey’s statement appeared originally in the Manila Daily Bulletin, December 17, 1937.
The fact is that the outcome of the Spanish-American War, more than any other single event, checked what imperialistic-minded Japanese naval officers regarded as the natural course of their country’s southern expansion. This in itself, served to de-emphasize, until a much later date, the maritime phase of Japanese imperialism as contrasted with the continental program. The reasons for these conclusions are obvious. If Japan had decided to continue her progress southward, which may have been one of the reasons for the tremendous increase in the size of her Navy immediately after the end of the Sino-Japanese War, inevitably the ambitious Asiatic nation would have come into open conflict with some Western power, for all the colonial areas in that region were under European domination. Of the various possibilities open to Japan if such a course were adopted, the Philippines would have been by far the most logical choice. The Spaniards, unlike the other European colonizers in East Asia were weak, especially in sea power, and they were not in a position to defend their overseas possessions against a nation of Japan’s strength.
Subsequent to the defeat of Spain, if the United States had withdrawn from the Philippines, it is entirely possible that the Japanese soon would have gotten at least a foothold in the colony. During 1898 and thereafter, both Great Britain and Japan, who had the predominance of sea power in the Far East between them, and whose then mutual interests culminated in the Anglo-Japanese Alliance of 1902, were determined that the Philippines should not pass into the hands of France, Germany, or Russia. With the United States eliminated as a factor to be considered, the Japanese and the British might well have divided the Philippines between them, with Luzon going to the former and the central and southern portions to the latter. Temporarily, at least, such a division of the long archipelago would have conformed to the strategic positions of the two powers.
Had Japan been successful in gaining at least a part of the Philippines, her newly gained strategic position there would have augured well for an acceleration of Japanese influence throughout the entire South Seas region. The importance of the Philippines to Japan’s advance in the southern area of penetration was understood by observers during later periods. In 1935, at a time when the future of America’s outpost in the western Pacific was widely discussed, an eminent authority on international affairs wrote,
Among persons in high places the statement is also made that under the American flag the Philippines constitute a barrier protecting the Dutch East Indies, Siam, the Straits Settlement and Australia from Japan. The withdrawal of the United States would remove this barrier and upset the equilibrium in the Orient. Unable to resist Japan without the support of the United States, European powers might come to terms with Japan—for example, by reviving agreements of the type of the Anglo-Japanese alliance, which America opposes.13
With the Japanese entrenched in the Philippines shortly after 1898, the Imperial Navy undoubtedly would have stepped into the limelight as the spearhead of Japan’s southern expansion. Under such circumstances, some chauvinistic Japanese naval officer might have proclaimed publicly many years ago—as Admiral Sankichi Takahashi, Commander of the Combined Fleet, actually did in 1936—that
Japan’s economic advance must be directed southward, with either Formosa or the South Sea Island Mandates as a foothold. In this case the cruising radius of the Japanese Navy must be expanded suddenly as far as New Guinea, Borneo, and Celebes.
The American acquisition of the Philippines produced an entirely different type of situation. However much the Japanese might resent the presence of the Americans there, they must wait, for an attack upon the Philippines would bring about war with the United States, which Japan as yet was not ready for. Most of us are familiar with the last forty years of Japan’s history. Successive wars with Russia, Germany, and China brought Japan closer to her goal of controlling the Asiatic mainland. Finally, in December, 1941, she launched invasions of American, British, and Dutch territories in the South Pacific, in which the Japanese Navy was given responsibilities of unprecedented importance in the accelerated program of Japan’s imperialism. Since then, sea power has been the dominant element in the severe struggle between the Asiatic member of the Axis and ourselves.
13 Raymond Leslie Buell, “The United States and the Pacific,” The Political Quarterly, Vol. VI, July-September, 1935, p. 342
As one glances back at the growth of Japan’s imperialism, it is rather difficult to understand why many Americans and other westerners, prior to the outbreak of the current war, had so underestimated the naval strength of the Japanese. Sea power has enjoyed a fundamental role in the national life of Japan since the days of Jingo Kogo. Possessing an aptitude for naval warfare, the Japanese, as long ago as the turn of the present century, had developed a formidable linked whose future was to be inevitably naked with Japan's plans to dominate all East Asia. Moreover, it is now realized that the Imperial Navy was not a conservative factor in Japanese politics, as outside observers had once believed. Admiral Yamamoto and his associates had merely awaited the opportunity to strike. It is in this light that we must consider the future of Japan's sea power when the war is over. As Secretary Knox has properly suggested, the Asiatic nation should be stripped of her naval strength, which in itself would tend to prevent a repetition of Japan's policies of aggression.