Take-home Midterm Examination

Modern History of Japan II

2021/05/18

Answer to all the questions. The answers must be simple and short. A simple copy of my lecture note will be downgraded. Follow the following instruction.

1 Convert your file to a PDF format (.pdf).

2 Name the file as <LAST-First-Course title> like <YAMADA-Taro-History>

3 Upload your pdf file to my JTW-history folder at the file sharing system of the Kyushu University by Saturday June 5. No late submission will be accepted

4 Do not send your work by e-mail. Do not bring it to my office in a USB memory. Thank you for your cooperation

A) Who are the following famous (or notorious) figures in Japanese history?

1. A political-science professor who proposed an original view of Japanese style of constitutional government in Taisho era, in which the government should seek for people’s welfare, while the emperor’s sovereignty is maintained.

2. An operation officer of the Kwantung Army, who developed an apocalyptic view of the upcoming “final war” between Japan and the United States.

3. A minister of finance, who stopped the gold standard and brought a miraculous recovery to Japanese economy after the Great Depression.

4. A prime minister, who was sentenced to be guilty in the war conspiracy crime to wage a war against the United Nations

5. A conservative political leader who led Japan in the late 1940s and signed the San Francisco Peace Treaty in 1951.

6. A conservative political leader in 1950s, who criticized the US-Japan security treaty as “subordinate independence” and normalized the diplomatic relation with the Soviet-Russia in 1956

B) Explain the following special terms (events, incidents, , etc.).

7. The “minpon-shugi”

8. The emperor-as-state-organ theory

9. “A Factory Ship”

10. The Nanjing Massacre

11. Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere

12. Imperial Rule Assistance Association

13. Kokutai

C) Answer to all the following questions.

14. In the prewar politics, what was the major institutional problem of the relationship between the military or bureaucracy and the Diet?

15. What is the special request made by Japan and rejected by the League of Nations in the Versailles Peace Conference?

16. What is the Manchukuo? What did the League of Nation decide on it? What was Japan's reaction to it?

17. What were the consequences of the temporary economic recovery brought by finance minister Takahashi's policy on Japan's foreign relations and policies?

18. What occurred on February 26, 1936? Why is it important?

19. The Pearl Harbor Attack was politically used by the US President Roosevelt. How?

20. What are the three major characteristics that distinguish Japan's New Constitution from its old Meiji version?

21. Around the Korean War, the US changed its occupation policy on Japan. How?

22. Some major countries did not sign the San Francisco Peace Treaty. Which countries are they? And why?