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Should Emperor Hirohito Be Responsible For The Invasion Of China Case Study

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Should Emperor Hirohito Be Responsible For The Invasion Of China Case Study
Should Emperor Hirohito be responsible for the invasion of China from 1937 to1945?

The Second Sino-Japanese war started officially on the 7th July, 1937. During the eight years of fighting, more than 30 million Chinese were killed including civilians and soldiers. (Wu, 2005) Emperor Hirohito was excused from the trial after World War II and was kept in throne for another 44 years. The fact that the war time Prime Minister Hideki Tojo took all the responsibility at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East for war Crimes in which he made a speech to admit the actions he had done during the war (Tojo, 1994) gave the world an impression that the Emperor was utterly blameless and oblivious to the invasion of China. Although it was …show more content…
As reflected in the reflection of Hirohito in regard to Japan’s military aggression in China recorded by Honjo, Hirohito’s chief aid-de-camp, showed that Hirohito was helpless in losing control of his army “I believe that international justice and good faith are important, and I’m striving to preserve world peace… But the forces overseas (the Kwangtung army) do not need my commands and are recklessly expanding the incident; they seem bent upon overpowering China by military force. This causes me no end of anguish.” It showed that there was no evidence that Emperor Hirohito had participated in the very first planning of invading China. The army which fought with the Chinese in the 918 incident was the Kwantung army. The army was led by a team of notorious army officers who defied the government’s order and acted out the incident by themselves. Its leadership often acted in direct violation of the orders from the mainland Japan or even initiated wars or battles without notifying the government beforehand and suffered from no consequence. Therefore, some may assume that Emperor Hirohito had no information of the invasion of China in the very first …show more content…
It is suggested by Jordan Siedall that the relationship between Emperor Hirohito and the military continued to deteriorate and Emperor Hirohito displayed a strong opposition to Japanese military action in Manchuria. (Siedall, 2013) According to Kido Koichi, aide to Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal, that the opinion of Emperor was not highly regarded. The Emperor was satisfied with the Manchuria Incident as the government had prevented the issue from spreading and the government should pay effort in staying in the same line but the army resented about this and stated that “unless there is no alternative, it would be best to not have the Emperor’s word from now on”(Kido, 1984)
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