avoi d ing wartheuiplomacyofsirr obertcraioieamdshioem itsumamoru antony m. bes

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AVOI D ING WAR
T H E U I P L O M A C Y O F S I R R O B E R T C R A I O I E
A M D S H I O E M I T S U M A M O R U
1 9 3 7 1 9 4 1
—
ANTONY M. BEST
Submitted for the degree of Ph.D.
London School of Economics and Political Science
September 1992
1
UMI Number: U062391
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ABSTRACT
During the years preceding the outbreak of the Pacific War in December 1941
Britain's Ambassador to Japan was Sir Robert Craigie. His period in Tokyo
has since been the object of a good deal of controversy, with some
observers criticising him for being an abject appeaser while others have
praised him for his skilful diplomacy and for his realism. Similarly his
counterpart, the Japanese Ambassador to London, Shigemitsu Mamoru, has had
his career much scrutinised, and has been variously labelled as an
Anglophile liberal and as a puppet of the Japanese military. Apart from
the dispute over their reputations, ,an analysis of the diplomacy of these
two Ambassadors during the years 1937-1941 is important because both men
were deeply disturbed by the steady deterioration in Anglo-Japanese
relations, and sought to alleviate the growing tensions by espousing
alternatives, designed to establish the grounds for a new understanding,to
the policies pursued by their respective governments.
This study analyses both the practicality and the practicability of the
policies put forward by Craigie and Shigemitsu, and also shows the
influence they exerted on the course of Anglo-Japanese relations. This is
done by investigating not only their roles in the major crises that shook
relations during this period, such as the Tientsin crisis of 1939, the
Burma Road crisis of 1940 and the events immediately prior to the outbreak
of war, but also the whole range of issues that led to increased tensions.
In particular, emphasis is put on the effect that economic forces had on
the relations between the two countries, and how the rivalry arising first
from the Depression and second from the outbreak of the war in Europe in
1939 drove London and Tokyo apart; a process which the two Ambassadors were
powerless to stop. It is hoped that this will prove to be a useful
contribution to the study of the origins of the Pacific War.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
There are a number of people and institutions that I would like to pay
•S
tribute to for their assistance in my endeavours. I am indebted to the
staff of the Public Record Office in Kew, Churchill College Cambridge,
Trinity College Cambridge, the Bodleian Library Oxford, Birmingham
University Library, the British Library for Political and Economic Science,
the School of Oriental and African Studies Library, and the Houghton
Library at Harvard for their kind assistance. I would also like to show my
gratitude to the Bodleian Library for assistance with the Gwynne Papers (on
loan from Vice-Admiral Sir Ian Hogg), to Viscount Simon for allowing me to
quote from the Simon Papers, to the Trustees of the Inverchapel Trust for
the Inverchapel Papers, and to the Houghton Library for the Grew Papers.
Among my colleagues I would like to express my thanks to Professor Donald
Cameron Watt and Professor Chihiro Hosoya for arranging for me to attend
the 'Fifty Years After. The Pacific War Reexamined' conference at Lake
Yamanaka in November 1991, from which I benefitted greatly. At the
conference I met Associate Professor Tetsuya Sakai who in January 1992
sent me a very long and fascinating letter about Shigemitsu Mamoru,* his
words have had a great influence on my thinking. I must also mention my
debt to others who in conversation have helped to shape my views and in
particular to Professor Akira Iriye, Professor Makoto Iokibe, Professor
Yoichi Kibata and Dr Takahiko Tanaka. My greatest thanks go to my
supervisor Professor Ian Nish who has helped me enormously over the last
six years, steering me away from generalizations, writing innumerable
letters and references on my behalf, he has my deepest respect.
I am also happy to thank family and friends, to Andrew Bell for listening
to me drone on and on about the past, to Jasper the Dog for stopping me
from sitting at the word processor too long, and to all the friends met at
the LSE and the PRO. To my brother David for help with the word processor,
to my mother and father for not only being great parents but also for
acting as my editors. Lastly to Serena Hirose, to whom I dedicate this
work, for being her lovely self, for introducing me to Japan, and with my
apologies for the last year and in the hope that we can be together again.
CONTENTS
Title Page 1
Abstract 2
Acknowledgements 3
List of Contents 4
Introduction 5
Chapter One - 'A Strong Nationalist' 13
Chapter Two - 'A Committee Sort of Man' 47
Chapter Three - 'A First Class Ambassador' 87
Chapter Four - 'A Surrender of Vital Principles' 129
Chapter Five - 'An Effort of Appeasement' 186
Chapter Six - 'Our Present Humiliating Position' 235
Chapter Seven - 'Rapidly Increasing Tensions' 275
Chapter Eight - 'Nishi No Kaze Hare' 323
Conclusion 361
Bibliography 371
4
INTRODUCTION
On 8 December 1941 the Japanese Charge d'Affaires in London, Kamimura
Shinichi, was called to the Foreign Office to be presented with a British
declaration of war on his country. This document stated in the lofty tones
of diplomatic language-
'On the evening of December 7th His Majesty's Government in the United
Kingdom learnt that Japanese forces, without previous warning either in the
form of a declaration of war or of an ultimatum with a conditional
declaration of war, had attempted a landing on the coast of Malaya and
bombed Singapore and Hong Kong. In view of these wanton acts of unprovoked
aggression committed in flagrant violation of international law and
particularly of Article 1 of the Third Hague Convention, relative to the
opening of hostilities, to which both Japan and the United Kingdom are
parties, I have the honour to inform the Imperial Japanese Government in
the name of His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom that a state of
war exists between the two countries.'*
This short communication was the culmination of a decade in which, from the
time of the Mukden Incident of 18 September 1931, the interests of Britain
and Japan in East Asia had come increasingly into a state of collision; but
the question arises, was this war unavoidable?
To a number of observers on both sides the depth and range of the clash of
interests between the two countries, with Britain as defender of the status
quo in East Asia and Japan a revisionist power seeking to expel Western
influence from the region, meant that a conflict was inevitable. To other
interested parties, however, the mutual antagonism between Britain and
Japan, the erstwhile allies, was not a cause for fatalism; there were
groups in both countries who believed that though the problems that had
arisen were serious they were not insoluble, and that in the long term the
interests of the two Empires were not incompatible. To these believers in
a rapprochement it seemed expedient for Britain and Japan to sit down and
negotiate in a spirit of compromise and determination to overcome the
obstacle of mutual misunderstanding. There was, however, in the ranks of
those who pushed for this policy a further division. On one side there was
the group who were at heart sentimentalists and yearned to return to the
Elysian days of the Alliance, while on the other there were those who, for
reasons of Realpolitik, saw a closer relationship as a vital necessity in
the harsh international climate of the 1930s. This difference in
motivation meant that there existed different levels of conformity within
each of the two groups. The first, because of its belief that closer ties
were an end in themselves, showed an identity of view between its members
in the two countries. In the second group, because the British and
Japanese members saw reconciliation in terms of their own countries' self-
interest, they were frequently pursuing different and at times directly
contradictory ends: this was a significant disadvantage as the members of
this group tended to wield the greater influence in their respective
countries.
Two figures who can be seen as belonging to this latter group were Sir
Robert Craigie, the British Ambassador to Japan from September 1937 to
December 1941, and Shigemitsu Mamoru, the Japanese Ambassador to Britain
from November 1938 to December 1941. Both diplomats played a vital role in
the years leading up to the Pacific War, they were deeply disturbed by the
steady deterioration in Anglo-Japanese relations, and sought to alleviate
the growing tensions by espousing alternatives to the negative policies
pursued by their respective governments; thus they hoped to establish the
grounds for a new understanding. In addition, in 1941 they both were aware
of how events were pushing the two countries towards war, and urged their
respective governments to make compromises to avoid this catastrophe. The
fact that these ambassadors shared the view that war could and should be
averted, and that their opinions on this matter were rejected by their
respective governments, is an important comment on the origins of the
Pacific War. It raises a number of questions about such issues as why the
views of those who were closest to the heartbeat of Anglo-Japanese
relations were ignored, how policy was made, what roles the ambassadors
took in this process, and most importantly whether a viable alternative
actually existed to the path that eventually led to war.
There is, however, a problem here, because the use of Shigemitsu and
Craigie as examples of responsible diplomats making realistic assessments
of Anglo-Japanese relations is to beg a very large question, as the
academic debate over the reputations of both these diplomats has never
reached a firm consensus about their position in history. On the subject
of Craigie, one extreme view is the criticism levelled by his
contemporaries in Whitehall and by some later historians that he was an
unrealistic and abject appeaser. A fairly moderate example is the comment
made by the Japanese historian Professor Sato Kyozo who wrote in his recent
essay 'The Historical Perspective and What is Missing' of Craigie's belief
in the importance of the pro-British faction by stating that
'He held the ill-founded and over— optimistic belief that each concession on
the British part would encourage this faction and thus help bring about a
redirection of Japanese policy.... He tended to conceive of Britain's East
Asian policy solely in terms of Anglo-Japanese relations.'2
This view of Craigie is balanced by those who have praised him for both his
skilful diplomacy and his vision. An example of this can be seen in the
work of Professor Donald Cameron Watt, who praised Craigie in his book How
War Came for his 'toughness and negotiating skills' and also noted that he
was-
'... the ablest member of the British diplomatic service in this period to
fail to win proper recognition for his stature and achievements from his
fellow countrymen.... He was stigmatized, quite unfairly, as an
appeaser...'3
Shigemitsu, for his part, has stirred up an even wider disparity of
opinions, in a debate which is complicated further by the fact that he was
one of the defendants at the Tokyo War Crimes Trial. To some Shigemitsu
was an anglophile liberal struggling against the virulent nationalism in
Japan, a view which is most clearly seen in the works of contemporary
commentators such as Kase Toshikazu in Japan and Lord Hankey and Major—
General F.S.G. Piggott in Britain.4 They saw Shigemitsu as a sincere
opponent of the war and as a keen proponent of friendly relations with the
West. Kase, who had been Shigemitsu's Private Secretary at the end of the
war, described the diplomat in his book Eclipse of the Rising Sun as-
'... a man of confirmed liberal views, consistently opposed to any policy
of aggression and aggrandizement. Firmly convinced that the triangular
cooperation of the major naval powers was the key to world peace, he
unswervingly supported the policy of friendly collaboration with England
and America.*5
In contrast to this very favourable assessment three articles by the
Japanese historian Usui Katsumi have portrayed him as a supporter of
expansionism and as a closet ally of the military.6 In particular Usui has
studied Shigemitsu's role as the Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs from
1933 to 1936, and this has led him to write in one essay-
'The Amo declaration, the abrogation of the naval disarmament treaties, the
obstruction of the British loan to China and co-operation with the army in
its separatist manoeuvres in north China, all these important policies and
measures may safely be regarded as part of Shigemitsu’s ovei— all design.’7
Usui also contends that the idea of the need for Japanese expansion in East
Asia continued to shape Shigemitsu's mind while Ambassador to Britain.
Although the controversy over these two diplomats complicates an assessment
of their policies and influence, the actual nature of the disputes qver
their reputations has its positive side in that it helps to shed light on
other issues which are relevant to the origins of the Pacific War. For
example, the denigration of Craigie as an appeaser provides a focus for
studying the influence of Britain's appeasement policy in Europe on
attitudes towards Japan, while the differing assessments of Shigemitsu are
valuable as an entry into the question of what constituted a liberal in
1930s Japan, and whether a powerful moderate pro-Western faction actually
existed at all in that country. The troubled reputations are also
important because they underline the necessity not to look simply at the
ambassadorships of the two men in isolation, which might be the temptation
if there was a consensus about their respective positions, but to study how
their ideas developed, how and to what extent they exerted influence in the
years before their assignment, and finally why they were actually appointed
as ambassadors.
Before delving into the questions raised by this last passage of the role
of the ambassadors before they travelled to their respective posts, it is
necessary to say a little about the upbringing, early career and character
of the two men. To start with Robert Leslie Craigie, he was born in
Southsea in 1883 into the family of a naval officer who went on to become