Industrial production in Shōwa Japan

Development of industry in Japan during the Shōwa era

Industrial production was a defining characteristic of Shōwa Japan. It originated from the country's attempt to be Westernized.[1]

## Overview

[edit]

Industrialization first appeared in the textile industries, especially cotton and silk production, which were based in home workshops in rural areas. By the 1890s, Japanese textiles dominated the home markets and competed successfully with British products in China and India, as well. Japanese shippers were also competing with European traders to carry these goods across Asia and even to Europe. As in the West, the textile mills employed mainly women, half of them under age twenty. They were sent there by their fathers, and they turned over their wages to their fathers.[2] Japan largely skipped water power and moved straight to steam powered mills, which were more productive and created a demand for coal.

1907 saw the greatest number of labor disputes in a decade, with large-scale riots at Japan's two leading copper mines, Ashio and Besshi, which were only suppressed by the use of troops. None of these early unions were large (the metalworkers union had 3,000 members, only 5% of workers employed in the industry), or lasted longer than three or four years, largely due to strong opposition from employers and the government's anti-union policies, notably the Public Order and Police Provisions Law (1900).[3]

Despite this, Japanese citizens were able to advance through the ranks of society more easily due to the abolishment of the feudal system.[4] Citizens were also more educated, with leaders sending thousands of students to the United States and Europe to gain new knowledge. The government also recruited more than 3,000 Westerners to teach modern science, mathematics, technology, and foreign languages in Japan (O-yatoi gaikokujin).[5]

From 1918 to 1921, a wave of major industrial disputes marked the peak of organized labour power. A prolonged economic slump that followed brought cutbacks in employment in heavy industry.[6] By 1928, the GNP of Japan at current prices peaked at ¥16,506 million. In the mid-1930s, the Japanese nominal wage rates were a tenth of those in the United States (based on mid-1930s exchange rates), while the price level is estimated to have been about 44% that of the US.[7]

In the 1930s, the Japanese economy suffered less from the Great Depression than most industrialized nations, its GDP expanding at a rapid rate of 5% per year. Manufacturing and mining came to account for more than 30% of GDP, more than twice the value for the agricultural sector. Most industrial growth, however, was geared toward expanding the nation's military power.

Beginning in 1937 with significant land seizures in China, and to a greater extent after 1941, when annexations and invasions across Southeast Asia and the Pacific created the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, the Japanese government sought to acquire and develop critical natural resources in order to secure economic independence. Among the natural resources that Japan seized and developed were: coal in China, sugarcane in the Philippines, petroleum from the Dutch East Indies and Burma, and tin and bauxite from the Dutch East Indies and Malaya. Japan also purchased the rice production of Thailand, Burma, and Cochinchina. According to a 2020 study, Japan used its imperial power to boost its industrialization.[8]

During the early stages of Japan's expansion, the Japanese economy expanded considerably. Steel production rose from 6,442,000 tons to 8,838,000 tons over the same time period. In 1941 Japanese aircraft industries had the capacity to manufacture 10,000 aircraft per year. Much of this economic expansion benefited the "zaibatsu", large industrial conglomerates.

Over the course of the Pacific War, the economies of Japan and its occupied territories all suffered severely. Inflation was rampant; the Japanese heavy industry, forced to devote nearly all its production to meet military needs, was unable to meet the commercial requirements of Japan (which had previously relied on trade with Western countries for their manufactured goods). Local industries were unable to produce at high enough levels to avoid severe shortfalls. Furthermore, maritime trade, upon which the Empire depended greatly, was sharply curtailed by damage to the Japanese merchant fleet over the course of the war.

By the end of the war, what remained of the Japanese Empire was wracked by shortages, inflation, and currency devaluation. Transport was nearly impossible, and industrial production in Japan's shattered cities ground to a halt. The destruction wrought by the war eventually brought the Japanese economy to a virtual standstill.

## See also

[edit]

* Economic history of Japan
* Economy of the Empire of Japan
* German–Japanese industrial co-operation before and during World War II

## References

[edit]

1. ^ George Allen, Short Economic History of Modern Japan (1972)
2. ^ E. Patricia Tsurumi, Factory Girls: Women in the Thread Mills of Meiji Japan (1992) p. 83
3. ^ Nimura, K. The Formation of Japanese Labor Movement: 1868–1914 Archived 1 October 2011 at the Wayback Machine (Translated by Terry Boardman). Retrieved 11 June 2011
4. ^ "Japan Answers the Challenge of the Western World". The Meiji Restoration and Modernization. Columbia University. Archived from the original on 2012-10-14. Retrieved 3 September 2012.
5. ^ Hardy's Case, The Japan Weekly Mail, January 4, 1875.
6. ^ Weathers, C. (2009). Business and Labor. In William M. Tsutsui, ed., A Companion to Japanese History (2009) pp. 493–510.
7. ^ Fukao, Kyoji (2007). Real GDP in Pre-War East Asia: A 1934–36 Benchmark Purchasing Power Parity Comparison with the US (PDF).
8. ^ Ayuso-Díaz, Alejandro; Tena-Junguito, Antonio (2020). "Trade in the shadow of power: Japanese industrial exports in the interwar years" (PDF). The Economic History Review. 73 (3): 815–843. doi:10.1111/ehr.12912. hdl:10016/28350. ISSN 1468-0289. S2CID 197866746.

* v
* t
* e

Empire of Japan

Overview|

* Agriculture
* Censorship
* Demographics
* Economy
* Economic history
* Education
* System
* Eugenics
* Foreign commerce and shipping
* Industrial production
* Militarism
* Nationalism
* Essentialism
* Politics
* Statism
* State Shinto
* Kazoku

Emperors|

* Meiji (Mutsuhito)
* Taishō (Yoshihito)
* Shōwa (Hirohito)

Symbols|

* Flag of Japan
* Rising Sun Flag
* National seals of Japan
* Imperial Seal
* Government Seal
* State Seal
* Privy Seal
* Kimigayo

Policies|

* Constitution
* Charter Oath
* Foreign relations
* Imperial Rescript on Education
* Imperial Rule Assistance Association
* Yokusan Sonendan
* Great Japan Youth Party
* Kokutai
* Mokusatsu
* National Spiritual Mobilization Movement
* Peace Preservation Law
* Political parties
* Supreme Court of Judicature
* Tokkō
* Tonarigumi
* Greater East Asia Conference
* Senbu
* Imperial Japanese Airways

Government|

Administration
(ministries)

* Imperial Household
* Home Ministry
* War
* Army
* Navy
* Treasury
* Foreign Affairs
* Agriculture and Commerce
* Commerce and Industry
* Munitions
* Colonial Affairs
* Greater East Asia
* East Asia Development Board (Kōain)

|

Legislative and
deliberative bodies

* Daijō-kan
* Privy Council
* Gozen Kaigi
* Imperial Diet
* Peers
* Representatives

Military|

Armed Forces

* Imperial General Headquarters
* Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office
* Imperial Japanese Navy General Staff
* Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors
* Senjinkun military code
* Nuclear weapons program
* Kamikaze
* War crimes
* Supreme War Council
* Conscription

|

Imperial Japanese Army

* General Staff
* Air Service
* Railways and Shipping
* Imperial Guard
* Imperial Way Faction (Kōdōha)
* Japanese holdout
* Taiwan Army of Japan
* Control Faction (Tōseiha)
* Kempeitai

Imperial Japanese Navy

* General Staff
* Air Service
* Marines
* Tokkeitai
* Fleet Faction
* Treaty Faction

History|

Meiji era

* Meiji Restoration
* Beipu uprising
* Boshin War
* Two Lords Incident
* Satsuma Rebellion
* First Sino-Japanese War
* Triple Intervention
* Boxer Rebellion
* Anglo–Japanese Alliance
* Russo-Japanese War
* Invasion of Taiwan (1874)
* Invasion of Taiwan (1895)

|

Taishō era|

* World War I
* Entry
* Siberian Intervention
* General Election Law
* Washington Naval Treaty
* Manchuria–Mongolia problem
* Taishō Democracy
* Taishō Roman
* Tapani incident
* Truku War
* Racial Equality Proposal

Shōwa era|

* Shōwa financial crisis
* Jinan incident
* London Naval Treaty
* Musha Incident
* Pacification of Manchukuo
* January 28 incident
* Anti-Comintern Pact
* Second Sino-Japanese War
* Soviet–Japanese border conflicts
* Rape of Nanking
* Tripartite Pact
* Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact
* Japan during World War II
* Pacific War
* Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
* Soviet–Japanese War
* Surrender (Potsdam Declaration, Hirohito surrender broadcast)
* Occupation

Territories|

| Colonies|

* Karafuto (naichi after 1943)
* Chōsen
* Kantō-shū
* Nan'yō
* Taiwan

|

Puppet states|

* Manchukuo
* Mengjiang
* Wang Jingwei regime
* Second Philippine Republic
* Empire of Vietnam
* State of Burma
* Azad Hind

Occupied territories|

* Borneo
* Burma
* Dutch East Indies
* French Indochina
* Hong Kong
* Malaya
* Philippines
* Singapore
* Thailand

Ideology|

* Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere
* Yen bloc

Other topics|

* Sonnō jōi
* Fukoku kyōhei
* Hakkō ichiu
* Japanese settlers in Manchuria
* Internment camps
* German pre–World War II industrial co-operation
* Shinmin no Michi
* Shōwa Modan
* Socialist thought
* Taiwanese Imperial Japan Serviceman
* Yasukuni Shrine
* International Military Tribunal for the Far East
* Political dissidence

*[v]: View this template
*[t]: Discuss this template
*[e]: Edit this template