WWI and WWII

Even though Japan had been open to the west for half a century, it was still cautious about relations with the West. In order to perhaps make its name better with the West, Japan entered World War I and declared war on the Central Powers. World War I permitted Japan to expand its influence in Asia and its territorial holdings in the Pacific. Acting virtually independently of the civil government, the Japanese navy seized Germany's Micronesian colonies. It also attacked German possessions in Shandong. The post-war era brought Japan unprecedented prosperity. Japan went to the peace conference at Versailles in 1919 as one of the great military and industrial powers of the world and received official recognition as one of the "Big Five" of the new international order. It joined the League of Nations and received a mandate over Pacific islands north of the Equator formerly held by Germany. Japan was also involved in the post-war Allied intervention in Russia, occupying Russian (Outer) Manchuria and also north Sakhalin (with its rich oil reserves). It was the last Allied power to withdraw from the interventions against Soviet Russia (doing so in 1925).

During the 1920s, Japan progressed toward a democratic system of government and this movement is known as 'Taisho Democracy'. However, parliamentary government was not rooted deeply enough to withstand the economic and political pressures of the 1930s, during which military leaders became increasingly influential. These shifts in power were made possible by the ambiguity and imprecision of the Meiji constitution, particularly as regarded the position of the Emperor in relation to the constitution.

Japan invaded Inner (Chinese) Manchuria in 1931 and set up the puppet state of Manchukuo under the last Manchu emperor, Pu Yi. In 1933, Japan resigned from the League of Nations. The Japanese invasion of China in 1937 (the second Sino-Japanese War) followed Japan's signing of the "anti-Comintern pact" with Nazi Germany the previous year and was part of a chain of developments culminating in the Japanese attack on United States naval forces at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941.

While Nazi Germany was in the middle of its "Blitzkrieg" through Europe, Japan was in the middle of a Blitzkrieg in Asia. In addition to already have colonized Taiwan, Korea, and Manchuria, the Japanese had practically reached Outer China, and had conquered French Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia), Thailand, British Malaya (Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore) as well as the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia). They had also conquered British Burma (Myanmar) and reached the borders of India and Australia, conducting brutal air raids on the city of Darwin, Australia. The Japanese sought awful destruction. They raped, pillaged, and killed. After almost 4 years of war, resulting in the loss of 3 million Japanese lives and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as daily air raids on Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Yokohama, and the destruction of all other major cities (except Kyoto, Nara, and Kamakura, for their historical importance),Japan signed an instrument of surrender on Missouri in Tokyo Harbor on September 2, 1945. As a result of World War II, Japan lost all of its overseas possessions and retained only the home islands. Manchukuo was dissolved, and Inner Manchuria was returned to China; Japan renounced all claims to Formosa; Korea was granted independence; southern Sakhalin and the Kuriles were occupied by the U.S.S.R.; and the United States became the sole administering authority of the Ryukyu, Bonin, and Volcano Islands. International Military Tribunal for the Far East, an international war crimes tribunal sentenced seven Japanese military and government officials to death on November 12, 1948, including General Hideki Tojo, for their roles in World War II.

The 1972 reversion of Okinawa completed the United States' return of control of these islands to Japan. Japan continues to protest for the corresponding return of the 'Hoppou Ryoudo'(Northern territory or Kuril islands) from Russia.