The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945

by John Toland

Every child was taught kodo, the Imperial Way: that the basis for Japanese morality was on (obligation) to the emperor and one’s parents. Without the emperor one would be without country; without parents, homeless. For centuries the Japanese ruler had been benevolent, never attempting to exert his authority. Just as a parent loved and guided his children, he loved and guided his people with compassion. The imperial line had once gone 346 years without sanctioning a single execution throughout the land. Out

Why was it perfectly acceptable for England and Holland to occupy India, Hong Kong, Singapore and the East Indies, but a crime for Japan to follow their example? Why should America, which had grabbed its lands from Indians by trickery, liquor and massacre, be so outraged when Japan did the same in China?‡

How could a nation rich in resources and land, and free from fear of attack, understand the position of a tiny, crowded island empire with almost no natural resources, which was constantly in danger of attack from a ruthless neighbor, the Soviet Union?

Prime Minister Tojo told the Diet that Burma and the Philippines would be granted independence but that it would be necessary to retain Hong Kong and Malaya as vital bases in defense of Greater East Asia.

Tojo’s promise of independence for Burma materialized on August 1. At ten o’clock General Masakazu Kawabe ordered withdrawal of the Japanese military administration. It was a bright morning with occasional spits of rain, and Rangoon was in a holiday mood. One hour and twenty minutes later, at Government House, Burma was declared to be an independent and sovereign country with Dr. Ba Maw as Head of State, and that afternoon he read a proclamation in Burmese declaring war against the United States and Great Britain.

On October 14 the Philippines proclaimed their independence and a week later the Provisional Government of Free India was established, with Chandra Bose as Head of State. The West failed to see the significance of these events. The new governments were puppets of Japan, but through them millions of Asians glimpsed freedom from the white man for the first time.

China, Thailand, Manchukuo, the Philippines and Burma sent representatives to Tokyo for the Greater East Asia Conference early in November.d Chandra Bose attended as an observer. “We

Affected by his own oratory, Bose could not continue. The audience waited, transfixed, until the Indian leader composed himself again. “But we have to pay the price of our liberty.… I do not know how many members of our national army will survive the coming war, but that is of no consequence to us. Whether we individually live or die, whether we survive the war and live to see India free or not, what is of consequence is the fact that India shall be free.” Toshi

In his dissenting, and largely ignored, opinion at the Tokyo Tribunal, Justice Radhabinad Pal of India declared that “if any indiscriminate destruction of civilian life and property is still illegitimate in warfare, then, in the Pacific war, the decision to use the atom bomb is the only near approach to the directives of the German Emperor during the first World War and of the Nazi leaders during the second World War. Nothing like this could be traced to the credit of the present accused.” ‡

said His Majesty. “It would be useless if the people didn’t want an emperor. I think it’s perfectly all right to leave the matter up to the people.” His serenity was like “a blow on the head” to Kido. What had concerned the Privy Seal so much had evaporated under the Emperor’s absolute confidence in his subjects.