The eclipse of the British Empire
Though the British desire to reconstruct the Empire-Commonwealth system in east Asia did not dissipate after the Sino-Japanese War started, the room for British initiative in this part of the world did diminish greatly.
It became increasingly clear during the course of the Sino- Japanese War that Britain had to follow the lead of the United States, which was emerging as the successor to Britain as the hegemonic power in Asia.To put the subsequent development briefly, British interests in China, which British leaders such as Chamberlain wanted to preserve through imperialistic co-operation with Japan, were infringed by the Sino-Japanese War, and the prestige of Britain as the greatest imperial power was shattered by the swift defeat of its forces in Malaya and Singapore in the initial phase of the Asia-Pacific War. And, notwithstanding the true intention of the Japanese,44 the nationalist movements in the British empire gained momentum as the result of the Asia-Pacific War, paving the roads to independence in various parts in Asia.
It is true that, as Cain and Hopkins maintain in British Imperialism 1688-2000, 'the outbreak of World War II did not mark the end of Britain's long history of imperial expansion'.45 But, when the world plunged into the Second World War, the future of the empire was clearly doomed, and, from this perspective, the period from 1931 to 1937 can be regarded as the last one during which Britain could manoeuvre to reorganize the imperialist international order in east Asia, where Britain had long played the central role.
Notes
1 PJ. Cain and A.G. Hopkins, British Imperialism 1688-2000 (Harlow and New York, 2001), chs 13, 25.
2 Cain and Hopkins, British Imperialism 1688-2000, p. 607.
3 Ibid., p. 608.
4 See Peter Cain, 'British Economic Imperialism in China in the 1930s: the Leith-Ross Mission', Bulletin of Asia-Pacific Studies (Osaka University of Foreign Studies), Vol.
7 (1999).5 I have already presented my analysis of Anglo-Japanese relations from 1931 to 1941. See Yoichi Kibata, 'Anglo-Japanese Relations from the Manchurian Incident to Pearl Harbor: Missed Opportunities?' in: Ian Nish and Yoichi Kibata (eds), The History of Anglo-Japanese Relations, 1600-2000, Vol. 2, The Political-Diplomatic Dimension, 1930-2000 (Basingstoke and London, 2000). This chapter contains some parts which overlap with my former article.
6 See John Darwin, 'Imperialism in Decline? Tendencies in British Imperial Policy between the Wars', Historical Journal, 23-3 (1980).
7 Alan Ereira, The Invergordon Mutiny (London, 1981).
8 Paul Haggie, Britannia at Bay. The Defence of the British Empire against Japan 1931-1941 (Oxford, 1981), p. 21.
9 Cain and Hopkins, British Imperialism 1688-2000, p. 463.
10 Kaoru Sugihara, 'Higashi ajia ni okeru kogyoka-gata tsuka chitsujo no seiritsu' (The Formation of a Financial System of the Industrializing Type in East Asia), in: Shigeru Akita and Naoto Kagotani (eds), 1930 nendai no Ajia kokusai chitsujo (Asian International Order in the 1930s) (Kyoto, 2001).
11 S. Howson and D. Winch, The Economic Advisory Council 1930-1939 (Cambridge, 1977), p. 75.
12 The Times, 1 May 1934.
13 Sir Austen Chamberlain to Lloyd George, 19 Jan. 1927, Lloyd George Papers, G/4/3/3, House of Lords Record Office.
14 A.J. Toynbee (ed.), Survey of International Affairs 1926 (London, 1928), p. 489. As a recent assessment of the December Memorandum, see Harumi Goto- Shibata, Japan and Britain in Shanghai 1925-31 (Basingstoke and London, 1995), pp. 38-9.
15 Christopher Thorne, The Limits of Foreign Policy. The West, the League and the Far Eastern Crisis of 1931-1933 (London, 1972), p. 262.
16 Memo by Ashton-Gwatkin, 10 Oct. 1921, quoted in: Frank Furedi, The Silent War. Imperialism and the Changing Perception of Race (London, 1998), p. 30.
17 China General Letter No. 8, 3 Nov. 1933, ADM 116/2973, Public Record Office [PRO].
18 For example, see Clive to Simon, 8 Nov. 1934, FO 371/18185, PRO. This is a detailed report about Indian activities in Yokohama, Tokyo, Osaka and Kobe. See also T.R. Sareen, Indian Revolutionaries, Japan and British Imperialism (New Delhi, 1993), ch.1.
19 Sansom to Crowe, 17 Aug. 1933, BT 11/219, PRO.
20 Haggie, Britannia at Bay, chs 1, 2.
21 W. David McIntyre, The Rise and Fall of the Singapore Naval Base, 1919-1942 (Basingstoke and London, 1979), p. 1.
22 Kibata, 'Anglo-Japanese Relations from the Manchurian Incident to Pearl Harbor', pp. 6-11.
23 See n. 4 above.
24 Shigeru Akita, 'British Informal Empire in East Asia, 1880-1939: a Japanese Perspective', in: Raymond E. Dumett (ed.), Gentlemanly Capitalism and British Imperialism. The New Debate on Empire (London and New York, 1999), pp. 147-52. See also Yutaka Nozawa (ed.), Chugoku no heisei kaikaku to kokusai kankei (Currency Reform in China (1935) and China's Relations with Japan, Britain and America) (Tokyo, 1981).
25 Robert A. Dayer, Finance and Empire. Sir Charles Addis 1861-1945 (Basingstoke and London, 1988), pp. 289-90.
26 Prof. Inoue Toshikazu puts forward an interesting interpretation about the meaning of the Barnby Mission. According to him, the Mission could have offered Japan the opportunity to construct a new regional order with economic co-operation between Japan, Britain and 'Manchukuo', which China could be invited to join. He ascribes the reason for the failure of the Mission not to Japan's military ambition in China, but rather to Britain's inability to provide 'Manchukuo' with the long-term investment necessary for its economic development. This argument, which discusses the problem in terms of financial capacity, has some bearings on the thesis of gentlemanly capitalism, but Inoue does not grapple with the British side. Toshikazu Inoue, Kiki no naka no kyocho gaiko (Co-operative Diplomacy at the Time of Crisis) (Tokyo, 1994), pp. 232-7. The Japanese diplomatic records reveal that there was a difference in attitude towards the Mission between the East Asian Department and the Commercial Department of the Japanese Foreign Ministry.
While the former was rather critical of the British move, the latter was prepared to co-operate with Britain in 'Manchukuo'. Nihon gaiko bunsho (Documents on Japanese Foreign Policy), Showa Period, II-2-3 (Tokyo, 1999), no. 201.27 Neville Chamberlain to Hilda Chamberlain, 6 April 1935, Neville Chamberlain Papers (Birmingham University), NC18/1/912.
28 As Shigeru Akita points out, the new Chinese dollar was officially linked to neither the US dollar nor the pound sterling. It seems that Cain and Hopkins tend to overstate the degree of actual linking of the new Chinese currency with sterling. Akita, 'British Informal Empire in East Asia, 1880-1939', p. 152.
29 Haggie, Britannia at Bay, p. 101.
30 See Andrew J. Crozier, Appeasement and Germany's Last Bid for Colonies (Basingstoke and London, 1988).
31 Cain and Hopkins, British Imperialism 1688-2000, p. 558.
32 Far Eastern Appreciation, 1937, 7 May 1937, CAB 53/31, PRO.
33 Dayer, Finance and Empire, p. 300.
34 Cain and Hopkins, British Imperialism 1688-2000, p. 609, quoting Dayer, Finance and Empire, p. 301.
35 Memo by Ashton-Gwatkin, March 1937, FO 371/21215, PRO.
36 Report of the Interdepartmental Committee on Trade Policy, 7 June 1937, FO371/21247, PRO.
37 For example, see 'Japanese Competition - Imposition of Textile Quotas in Ceylon', CAB 24/249, PRO.
38 JTC (34) 1st Meeting, 27 March 1934, CAB 27/568, PRO.
39 Memo by Beale, 6 April 1937, FO 371/20965, PRO.
40 See Katsumi Usui, 'Sato gaiko to Nitchu kankei' (Sato Diplomacy and Sino- Japanese Relations), in: Akira Iriye and Tadashi Aruga (eds), Senkanki no nihon gaiko (Japanese Diplomacy in the Interwar Years) (Tokyo, 1984).
41 Ibid., pp. 250-1.
42 Nihon gaiko nenpyo narabi ni shuyo bunsho (Chronology of Japanese Diplomacy and Major Documents), Vol. 2 (Tokyo, 1966), p. 362.
43 Kawagoe to Hirota, 5July 1937,Japanese Diplomatic Records, A.2.1.0.C6, Diplomatic Record Office, Tokyo.
44 In spite of Japan's official proclamation about its intention of liberating Asian people from the European imperialist rule, the gist of the Japanese policy towards nationalist movements in territories occupied by Japan was to 'avoid the quick encouragement of the movements for national independence'. Nihon gaiko nenpyo narabi ni shuyo bunsho, Vol. 2, p. 562.
45 Cain and Hopkins, British Imperialism 1688-2000, p. 408.
More on the topic The eclipse of the British Empire:
- PRESSURES FOR CHANGE IN THE BRITISH EMPIRE
- 1931 - a year of change in the British Empire?
- The Four Key Elements of the British Empire
- The emergence of a global British Empire: causes, connections and consequences
- The British Empire
- 32 The First British Empire
- 17 ANTHROPOLOGY AND THE BRITISH EMPIRE
- 33 Deconstructing the British Empire
- 5 Gentlemanly Imperialism and the British Empire after 1945
- Frontier Violence in the Nineteenth-Century British Empire
- Atlantic Empire and the Peoples of the British Monarchy (1603-1815)
- One of the most familiar tropes—even cliches—of British colonialism is the persistent and ubiquitous theme of the relationship between sport, muscular Christianity and empire.
- 2 Gentlemanly Capitalism and the Making of a Global British Empire: Some Connections and Contexts, 1688-1815
- One of the characteristics of British Imperialism 1688-2000 written by PJ. Cain and A.G. Hopkins is the emphasis put on China as an area in which the working of British imperial policy propelled by gentlemanly capitalism was clearly discerned.1
- Historians of different opinions have showed great interest in PJ. Cain and A.G. Hopkins's two volumes, British Imperialism: Innovation and Expansion 1688-1914, and British Imperialism:
- Whilst the previous part considered some of the difficulties that have dogged documentary trade finance, Part II looks to the future. Given the technological advances that have occurred since the advent of the documentary letter of credit, the former is increasingly threatening to eclipse the latter.
- Ireland and the British Dominions
- Gentlemanly capitalism and British expansion in Asia
- The British Rebellion