Kanji Ishiwara

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Kanji Ishiwara (石原 莞爾, Ishiwara Kanji, January 18, 1889 - August 15, 1949) was a Japanese military officer in the Kantogun. He and Itagaki Seishiro were the men behind the Mukden Incident that took place in Manchuria in 1931. Ishiwara Kanji (1889-1949)

Ishiwara Kanji was an extremely bright, idealistic and iconoclastic officer in the Japanese Army. This account of his career is largely taken from Ishiwara Kanji and Japan's confrontation with the West, by Mark R. Peattie. Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J. 1975

His father was a policeman, and the family was part of the Shonai samurai clan. Peattie feels that the Shonai link may be important in understanding Ishiwara’s radical perspective. This clan had backed the Shogun during the Meiji upheaval, and its members were subsequently shut out of government positions. A dissident spirit was said to have arisen among them, “restless, headstrong and uncompromising; generally against the ruling establishment, yet obsessively concerned with imperial loyalism in order to live down the stigma” of having backed the losing side.

At age thirteen he was enrolled in a military prep school. He was subsequently accepted at the Japanese Military Academy and graduated in 1909. He served in Korea after its annexation by Japan in 1910, and in 1915 he passed the very difficult exams for admittance to the Army Staff College. He graduated second in his class in 1918, a true example of the meritocratic reform instituted by men like Yamagata Arimoto (1838-1922) one of the "founding fathers" of Meiji Japan.

Modern readers might do well to think of the Army Staff College as both the West Point and the Yale of Japan. It was the elite training center for the Army and its graduates were expected to move to the highest ranks in the military. But the “Yale” portion of this simile is that the students came to think of themselves not just as military leaders, but as the leaders of Japanese society as a whole.

The Japanese victories of 1894 (against China) and 1905 (against Russia) engendered great public respect for the Army, and within the Army it engendered a high self-regard as the keepers of the Japanese spirit. Japanese military theorists came to believe that officers and soldiers must be imbued with an attitude of reverence for the Emperor and the nation, and must be willing to sacrifice themselves for this high purpose.

So far, this may not sound too radical. After all, patriotism is supposed to be the ideal motivator for all soldiers.But the Japanese took this to an extreme level--to literally a suicidal level. Japanese soldiers were never to surrender. While dying in the battle was glorious, surrender, capture, withdrawal, or defeat were shameful. Army leaders believed that modern warfare demanded a supreme spirit of dedication on the part of the soldiers, since artillery could break massive troop movements into small units who still needed to carry the battle forward independently.

Military officers were supposed to embody and convey this spirit to the enlisted men. Therefore, officer training had to address both technical skills and spiritual formation. They were taught that they were uniquely qualified to embody and transmit the Yamato damashii, the Japanese spirit. The ideal officer must have the samurai spirit of bushido, and must believe that it was his duty to uphold and preserve the kokutai. Peattie takes a stab at defining kokutai, a slippery term that has enormous importance in understanding Ishiwara and this period in Japanese history: [Kokutai means] that collection of basic national characteristics which were seen as making Japan unique, if not superior, to all other nations. Chief among these were the sanctity and inviolability of the Imperial House, the moral virtues that bound the nation to the emperor, and the view of the nation as one family.

It may seem that the concept of kokutai can be paralleled with a concept like “Americanism,” and therefore could be just as vague and bland as that term is in American parlance. However, it is possible for a broad term to become reified—made into something specific—and used as a political platform or a political weapon. Think of the use of the term “un-American” in the hands of Senator Joseph McCarthy.

In 1925 the Japanese legislature passed the Peace Preservation Law. This law was aimed at Communists and others on the left. It stipulated that that anyone who formed an organization “with the objective of altering the kokutai or the form of government or denying the system of private property” could be imprisoned for as much as ten years. Three years later it was amended to provide the death penalty for violators.

Ishiwara spent several years in various staff assignments and then was selected to study in Germany. He stayed three years in that country (1922-1925), focusing on military history and strategy. He hired several former officers from the German General Staff to tutor him, and by the time he returned to Japan, he had formed a quite remarkable military doctrine of apocalyptic proportions.

In 1919 Ishiwara had become converted to Nichiren Buddhism. Nichiren taught that a period of massive conflict would precede a golden era in which the truth of Buddhism would prevail. Japan would be the center and main promulgator of this faith, which would encompass the entire world. Thus Japan had a sacred mission in history.

Ishiwara thought that the period of world conflict was fast approaching. The chief antagonists in this conflict would be Japan and the United States. In this epic struggle, Japan would rely upon its vision of the kokutai, draw upon the strength and resources of China, and lead the yellow races to defeat the white race. His three years of study in Germany did nothing to change his view; rather, he absorbed military history and theory into his religious view of the world. In a telling incident, just before he left Japan he had a conversation with American Army captain who encouraged him to visit the United States. He retorted, “Captain, the only occasion on which I plan to visit the United States is when I arrive there as chief of the Japanese forces of occupation.”

It is difficult to understand such a hostile remark without recalling that the U.S. Congress had just passed an immigration law that excluded the Japanese. While the main impetus for the law was to restrict immigration from southern Europe, the addition of a clause that excluded the Japanese entirely was taken as a grave insult. A day of national indignation was declared in Japan on July 1, 1924, when the law was to take effect. Rallies were held across the country, and American movies were boycotted. One protestor committed suicide outside the American embassy. Inazo Nitobe, a Quaker who had become the undersecretary general of the League of Nations, declared that he would not set foot in the United States until the law was repealed. Viscount Kentaro Kaneko, a Harvard classmate of Theodore Roosevelt and President of the Japan-America Society, resigned his office, stating that "When I learned the Immigration Bill was passed in so drastic a manner and with such an overwhelming majority, I felt as if the hope of my life were destroyed…."

Ishiwara and Manchuria

Ishiwara, like many Japanese officers, initially regarded the Chinese revolution of 1911 with enthusiasm. His biographer recounts that when he heard of the upheaval in a remote Korean outpost, he took his small band of men to a nearby mountaintop and led them in three rounds of banzai for the Revolution. But he became disillusioned by the subsequent disarray in Chinese affairs, and developed the belief that Japan must lead the Chinese people toward a better way. By 1930 he was writing that “To save China, which has known no peace, is the mission of Japan….”

Ishiwara's apocalyptic understanding of history found a ready audience among fellow officers. He was assigned to the Army Staff College, where he preached his vision of ultimate racial conflict, and then appointed to a critical leadership position with the Kwantung Army in Manchuria. Ishiwara’s lectures were eagerly sought in formal and informal settings, and he came to be highly regarded by both his peers and his superiors.

The Kwantung Army in Manchuria did not need Ishiwara to set it on a divergent path from the Japanese government. This had already occurred. Yamagata’s concern that the military be strictly controlled had led the government to insist that soldiers not participate in political activity. But this policy did not adequately address “political” activity within the military. During the 1920s and 1930s the military seethed with secret societies and not-so-secret study groups among young officers. At the upper levels, senior staff aligned themselves into cliques with conflicting approaches to military strategy, foreign policy, and the nature of government itself. Any Japanese Prime Minister soon found that he not only had to deal with public political parties and movements, he also had to navigate the various factions within the military. By the time Konoe Fumimaro became Prime Minister (1937) the military was in virtual command of the country.

Ishiwara was to play a crucial role in cementing the Kwantung Army’s role in China policy, but even before he arrived in Manchuria the military train had begun to roll down its independent track. The leaders of this army were clear that Japan should seize full control of Manchuria and secure the Japanese "zone of influence" in Mongolia. In June, 1928 they decided to do something about this. A small group led by senior staff officer Colonel Komoto Daisaku assassinated the Manchurian warlord Chang Tso-lin by planting a bomb under his train. Removal of this figure did not, however, have the desired effect. Chang’s son took over, pledged his loyalty to the Kuomintang government in Peking, and Chaing Kai-Shek in turn designated the son as commander of the Northeastern Frontier.

As the Army saw it, the “cowardly” Japanese government did not have the nerve to follow up on Komoto’s bold action. Instead it decided to cover up this rebellious act, forcing Komoto to retire. The Kwantung Army leadership seethed with resentment.

Ishiwara arrived at Kwantung headquarters just five months later. He found his fellow officers to be demoralized and angry. Within three years he had turned this attitude around, planning a secret initiative that would put the Army in control of Manchuria once and for all.

On September 18, 1931, the plot moved forward. Under Ishiwara’s direction a bomb was secretly planted on the tracks of the (Japanese controlled) Southern Manchuria Railway. Based on the pretence that Chinese soldiers had attacked the rail line, Japanese troops quickly seized the Chinese military barracks in the nearby city of Liutiaokou. Ishiwara had not informed the new Kwantung commander, General Honjo Shigeru, of his modest device for moving things forward, but he quickly enlisted his support in responding to this supposed Chinese “outrage” against Japan.

Kwantung Army units moved to seize control of other Manchurian cities. Under Ishiwara, a true believer in the power of the airplane, seventy-five bombs were dropped on the city of Chinchou. Aerial bombing was still a frightening novelty, and the staff at Tokyo Army Headquarters was greatly disturbed at the news. Word quickly spread to European capitals and to America, where it alarmed public opinion. Ishiwara and his fellow officers had come to the conclusion that if the politicians and Tokyo Army leaders didn’t have the spine to follow up on their initiative, then the Kwantung Army might just have to declare its independence, claim that they were following the true imperial way, and set in motion a new “restoration,” just as an earlier generation had done in 1868.

Ishiwara thought it most likely that he would be executed or at least dishonorably discharged for his role in the military takeover of Manchuria. There certainly were political and military leaders in Tokyo who thought he deserved such a fate. However, the initial success of the maneuvers, and a change in the Japanese cabinet brought just the opposite—he was promoted to command of a home regiment and given a medal. “More importantly,” his biographer observes, “he returned to Japan as the object of intense admiration by the younger officers,… where the brilliance and daring of his exploitation of the principle of field initiative became almost legendary.”

Ishiwara and his co-conspirators should have been arrested and court-martialed for violating the principle of Imperial government control of the military. The fact that they received medals, and a parade of honor to the palace, was not because the emperor and his government secretly supported this plot—but because Japanese politicians were deeply afraid of the military. Japan was a society in crisis, due in large part to the government’s inability to respond to the Depression, and while the government had suppressed left-wing movements responding to the crisis—it had done little to suppress the right wing. Fanatical right-wing cells in the Army and Navy were joined by nationalist civilians in a violent campaign to destroy the liberal, capitalist governing structure. The vision of a “Showa Restoration” was widely held in right wing circles. That is, an army-led revolution against the existing power structure, with the “restoration” of correct government under the symbolic leadership of the emperor.

Not the true leadership of the emperor—since Hirohito gave every evidence of opposing militarism, extreme nationalism, and military adventurism. In what might be called a violent game of “capture the flag,” various factions competed for seizure of the Imperial standard and control of the society.

Army Revolutionaries

Shortly after the “Manchurian Incident,” it was discovered that a young officer in the Tokyo general staff had conceived a plot with members of the “Cherry Blossom Society” to murder the entire government by dropping bombs on a meeting of the cabinet. This was to be followed demonstrations demanding the formation of a military government. The officer was given twenty days of confinement and the incident was covered up. In early 1932 a “Blood Brotherhood Band” organized by a Nichiren priest murdered a prominent corporate CEO and a former minister of finance, and with the help of some Navy officers, assassinated Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi.

Ishiwara is a very interesting figure through which to view Japanese politics in the 1930s. In Western eyes he seems not only radical, not only fanatical, but practically delusional in his view of the world. Yet many of his views became the backbone of Japanese propaganda and public self-justification.

Ishiwara believed that Japan could create an ideal state in Manchuria, one where the Chinese, Japanese, Manchurian, and Korean people could dwell in racial harmony. This state would serve as a model for Japan itself, and would help bring change in the home country. This state would also demonstrate to the Chinese that Japan had their best interests at heart, and was the proper candidate for leading all of Asia into a glorious future.

This glorious future included the military defeat of the Western powers and the supremacy of Japan on the world stage. Considered to be the most brilliant graduate from the Army Staff College, and now widely popular with young officers, he was appointed to the General Staff in 1935 as Chief of Operations. This meant that he had the primary responsibility for articulating the Army’s vision for Japan’s future.

Ishiwara had already figured it out. Japan would join with Manchuria and China to form an East Asian League. This League would be a single economic entity, capable of meeting all of its own economic and military needs. Japan would prepare for and then fight a war with the Soviet Union. After the USSR was defeated, Japan would move to the south, capturing Southeast Asia, and then particularly Australia, “to solve our population problems….” Then Japan would be ready to tackle the United States.

The Navy had a different idea. Their leaders thought that the Army should simply hold Russia at bay while the Navy struck toward the south. This, of course, meant that the Navy should be greatly strengthened, and the Army should be happy with the resources it had. Ishiwara thought the Army should get the bulk of new resources. These two opposing views were never reconciled.

As Chief of Operations, Ishiwara’s task was to not only set out a strategy, but to figure out how to get there. The reality of Japan’s situation in 1935 was that she was not ready to strike in any direction. The Soviets, alarmed by Japan’s military occupation of Manchuria and its proclamation of the independent country of Manchukuo under the puppet Henry Pu Yi, decided to affect a military build-up in the East Asia. By 1935 they had 14 army divisions in the area (compared to five for Japan), 950 fighter planes (compared to 220 for Japan), and they had stationed long-range bombers that could reach Japan with their payloads (Japan had no such capacity).

Clearly, Japan was in no position to take on Russia (with the world’s largest army), as well as England and the United States (with the world’s two largest navies). Therefore, Ishiwara advocated tackling one adversary at a time. First, Japan would build up its economy and its military. That would require a command economy dedicated to total mobilization. To achieve such national unity, political parties would have to be abolished, venal politicians and greedy businessmen would have to be removed from power, and the nation would move ahead as a “national defense state” under one-party rule. If this sounds like German and Italian fascism, that was intentional. After all, those two countries appeared to be pulling themselves out of the Depression while simultaneously building military capacity. Meanwhile, the liberal capitalist countries seemed to be floundering.

Ishiwara’s Japan would be a selfless giant, aiding its own poor, bringing the boon of good government to Manchuria and China and thus uplifting their people, and leading the world to a new era of harmony. Naturally, he thought, Japanese would take the lead in the new Asia. Japanese would run the largest industries, and the military, and manage foreign policy. The Chinese could handle local government in Chinese provinces and small businesses. The Koreans and other minorities could be paddy farmers. He believed that such a system of enlightened paternalism would lead to the Japanese becoming “rulers of Asia and [thus] be prepared to wage the final and decisive war against the various white races.”

However, should the Chinese be so narrow-minded as to object to this scheme, “then Japan can withdraw [its assistance] from Manchuria and Mongolia and be satisfied to exploit the Chinese people by sheer force in the manner of Western colonialism and to pursue purely materialistic advantage there.”

The Chinese people proved to be very narrow-minded. Both Nationalist and Communist Chinese refused to cooperate with Japan’s ambitious plans for East Asia. By 1937, Japan had become bogged down in a major land war with the Chinese, and Ishiwara’s careful plans had been knocked awry.

The radical assault on the government continued. In 1935, General Nagata Tetsuzan, who had taken steps to foil a variety of plots, was hacked to death by Colonel Aizawa Saburo. Aizawa’s public trial became a circus of right-wing fulmination. This was followed by a major rebellion on February 26, 1936. Hundreds of plotters were involved; assassination squads spread out in the early morning and murdered Lord Privy Seal Saito, Finance Minister Takahashi, and Army Inspector General Watanabe. Grand Chamberlain Suzuki was left for dead. Count Makino was attacked, but managed to escape. Prime Minister Admiral Okada was saved by the fact that the assassins mistook his brother for himself. Meanwhile, officers of the Imperial Guard attempted to storm the Palace and seize control of the Emperor. They were foiled by palace guard commanders.

The plotters intended to force the Emperor to appoint a military government that would carry out a Showa Restoration. Readers may be surprised to learn that Ishiwara Kanji, instigator of the 1931 Manchurian Incident, leapt into action to defend the Emperor. Upon hearing of the rebellion, he headed for military headquarters:

Meeting War Minister Kawashima Yoshiyuki early on the morning of the 26th Ishiwara demanded proclamation of martial law to cope with the rebellion. To Vice Chief of Staff Sugiyama he urged that units be immediately pulled in from garrisons around Tokyo in order to concentrate a massive force to overwhelm the mutineers. Within twenty-four hours both of these measures had indeed been set in motion, and Ishiwara had been named Operations Officer of the Martial Law Headquarters, set up to coordinate plans to deal with the crisis.

As the result of Ishiwara’s efforts, and the grim determination of the Emperor to resist the rebels, and the fact that the public did not rise up in their defense, the plotters surrendered. The Emperor was adamant that the perpetrators be punished, and in secret trials seventeen of the ringleaders were convicted and executed. Fifty received lesser sentences.

The February Incident was the culmination of a systematic attack on the liberal "Saionji group." Saionji Kinmochi and the men he placed around the Emperor—and the Emperor himself—were seen as out of step with a public opinion that increasingly supported the military. Saionji, now age 87, had repeatedly tried to withdraw from politics and cabinet formation. Members of his group, as well as the Emperor, urged him to stay involved.

When the February rebellion began, he was outside of Tokyo but in direct contact with the palace by telephone. It was decided that he should stay out of the capital, so that the rebels could not use him to force the appointment of a military cabinet. The Emperor did not sit by passively, demanding that his officials put down the revolt. He upbraided his Army Minister, declaring "All my most trusted retainers are dead and their actions are aimed directly at me…. We ourselves will lead the Imperial Guards and suppress them."

He was dissuaded from such an action, but his adamant stance, plus support from Ishiwara and other military leaders, finally won the day. The rebel troops returned to their barracks; their officers comforted by the hope for a public trail that would demonstrate their sincerity and vindicate their actions. The Emperor made sure such a trail never took place. The leaders were jailed and tried in secret. The rebellion had been quashed, but the lesson was clear: the Japanese polity was hostage to the military.

Ishiwara Kanji died in 1949. His maverick idealism, and his penchant for being blunt had earned him a following among young officers, but a deep enmity from the Army leadership. In 1937 he had been transferred back to Manchuria as Vice Chief of Staff of the Kwantung Army. He discovered that his Army colleagues had no intention of creation a new pan-Asian paradise, and were quite content to play the role of colonial occupiers, and reap the rewards. Ishiwara denounced the Army leadership, and proposed that all officers take a paycut. He confronted General Tojo over his allocation of funds to an officers' wives club. After becoming an embarrassment to his seniors, he was shunted off to the command of a local fortress area on the seacoast near Kyoto.

Back in Japan, he began to analyze Soviet tactics at Nomonhan (where Japanese forces were defeated by Soviet forces), proposing counterstrategies that were adopted by the Army. He continued to write, and give public addresses. He tried to form an East Asia League which would advocate a true partnership with China and Manchuria, so that Asians could prepare for the Final War. General Tojo, now risen to the highest ranks, felt that Ishiwara should be retired from the Army, but feared the reactions of young officers and right-wing activists. Finally, after Ishiwara publicly denounced Tojo as an enemy of Japan, who should "be arrested and executed," he was put on the retired list and his East Asia League was closed down. Ishiwara went back to his home province, where he continued to write and study agriculture until the end of the war.

Ishiwara was not tried as a war criminal by the US occupying forces. His biographer suggests that his opposition to Tojo, his public statements that Japan should quit China, his view of the attack on the United States at Pearl Harbor as a disastrous blunder, and his post-war advocacy of peaceful rebuilding—all of this led the American authorities to leave him alone. Even so, he was called upon during the trials as a defense witness for others. He displayed his old fire in front of the American prosecutor, observing that Truman should be indicted for the mass bombing of Japanese civilians, and replaying for his audience the last 100 years of Japan-US relations. A portion of his statement can serve as a fit "closing" to this entry:

Haven't you ever heard of Perry? Don't you know anything about your country's history? … Tokugawa Japan believed in isolation; it didn't want to have anything to do with other countries, and had its doors locked tightly. Then along came Perry from your country in his black ships to open those doors; he aimed his big guns at Japan and warned that "If you don't deal with us, look out for these; open your doors and negotiate with other countries too." And then when Japan did open its doors and tried dealing with other countries, it learned that all those countries were a fearfully aggressive lot. And so for its own defense it took your own country as its teacher and set about learning how to be aggressive. You might say we became your disciples. Why don't you subpoena Perry from the other world and try him as a war criminal?

[edit] Reference

• Ishiwara Kanji and Japan's confrontation with the West, by

Mark R. Peattie. Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J. 1975