 looking to the east. I'm Dr. Zercher. I'm coming from Kobe, Japan this morning for our webcast. I want to introduce my very special guest for this show. The show, we're going to be looking at Japanese history and how it can inform us, educate us about what happened on January 6th in the United States. So my very special guest today is also a professor at Kansai Gaide, like myself. So Dr. Taro Tsuda. He's a graduate from Harvard University in Japanese history in 2019. So he's a new professor at Kansai Gaide. He's just completed his first year of study. Taro had focused on the post World War II period in Japan, but he has expertise also on the topic that we're going to talk about today. And that topic comes from an article that I read a couple of weeks ago. Paul Krugman, who I follow, the liberal economist and New York Times opinion writer, has a blog. And in his blog, there was a listing from Noah Smith. So if you're interested in this topic after you view the show and want to go to the source information, just Google Noah Smith. He has a blog called No Opinion. And there was an entry there that Krugman had noted called Japanese Lessons for the American Coup. And I had vaguely remembered in my studies that there was a period of time before World War II where there was a series of Japanese coups that occurred. And the article or the blog pointed out that they were actually five. And they were by right wing military members attempting to take over the government and move it in a different direction. And the focus of the article is taking a look at what happened there and seeing how it could potentially apply to what we observed earlier this month in the United States, where we had right wing elements also try and undermine the democratic process of transition of presidency from Trump over to the current president, President Biden. So that's our topic today. It's to take a look at what happened in the 1930s with a series of military coups and what lessons we can learn from that that potentially we can apply to how to manage the coup that occurred in the United States, the first one in over 200 years. The previous one was the War of 1812 where the British actually invaded. It was a foreigners who came in and took over the capital building. This time it was Americans who did it. So, Taro, thank you so much for participating in our humble webcast today and looking to the east. Really appreciate it. I think I'd like to start with looking at that period of time, the 1930s and why there was a series of coups that occurred. And maybe if you would highlight one of them so our viewers can understand what was going on in Japan at that time. Sure. Thank you very much for having me and for this opportunity. So I found the article very interesting and it's a fascinating topic. I think it might seem kind of counterintuitive because the Japanese case before World War II is a completely different time period, a completely different place, very distant from the US, very different cultural and geographic context. But actually, I think that because it seems like it's a very different case, you can actually learn a lot of interesting things from the similarities or parallels that exist between Japan in that time period and the US more currently. And so there are a lot of important differences, but also some very fascinating parallels that I kind of noticed. Yeah. So what was the context in the 1930s? Why? I mean, it's quite remarkable. You think of military coups occurring in third world countries, maybe Africa or in Latin America and there'd be a series of them one after the other. But the fact that there were five of them during one decade in Japan, what were the conditions that led to these coups? What was going on there? Well, I think there are several important background conditions to highlight. First of all, in Japan in the early 20th century had already undergone a lot of modernization and industrialization. So in many ways, it was different from the US at the current situation in the US. But it was very much already modernizing and pluralistic society. So it was basically the jazz age. It was the age of very intense urbanization and industrialization, especially after World War I. And so I think the tensions that were unleashed by this process were very responsible for the right wing nationalism that led to the coups. So a growing gap between urban and rural Japan, as well as sort of uneven development. This was the time right after the depression had started the worldwide Great Depression, which had hit Japan very heavily as well, since trade and trade was really much, trade barriers were raised by various countries. This hurt Japanese industry and the economy very much. And so the place that was hurt the most was the countryside in Japan. This was the area which supplied a lot of the soldiers, sort of rank and file soldiers in the Japanese army. So the military, the Japanese military at that time was mostly made up of rural people, non-urban people. That's actually similar to the US military as well, since the voluntary military system has been put in now for decades. Interesting. And your point about the economic tension in the country, I think that also has similarities with the United States right now with the income inequality and certainly with the COVID crisis and how unemployment rates have really hit high levels. I mean, almost as high as the depression, as you mentioned. So these soldiers who were doing the coup, I read that they were they were not high level. They were mostly low level like colonel level or who were these people who were leading the series of military coups against the Japanese government? And I guess what were they trying to accomplish? So they were, they're often known as the junior officers in Japanese history. So they were sort of lower to medium rank officers. And a lot of them were within the path that were not going to reach the most elite levels. And so it was a kind of two tiered system where there was a very elite level of military officers and a lower level. So the elite guys were coming out of University of Tokyo or high level schools and stuff? For the top military academies in OIC. And then there were the lower military educational institutions. So these were people who were not going to probably reach the top levels, most of them at least. And so there was I guess a limit to the amount they could they could rise as well as the fact that they're very shaped by the conditions in the countryside where where they had come from. And so there were a lot of they basically in many ways there was an institutional crisis in Japan in terms of the fact that the the political parties were considered corrupt in very close connection with big business. There were limited opportunities for there wasn't a lot of opportunities for regular people to rise in in politics or in the government. So there was a sense that it was a kind of corrupted or or illegitimate system in many ways. But the places that were untainted in many ways were the military itself and the the imperial house. So I think the goal of many of these officers were to purify the political system and create a system where the military was more in control with the in tandem with the emperor. And even though this isn't a very realistic kind of system that was their goal to create a kind of Shoah. This is called the Shoah period because the era name of the emperor at the time was Shoah. So they wanted to create a kind of Shoah restoration which would supposedly restore the emperor to power unencumbered by the by his corrupt advisors. So that was the kind of idea they. So Taro I mean this just jumps out at me. The insurrection such as it was organized the one that occurred in the United States this month there. I don't know if I could call it emperor worship. But their dedication their belief their allegiance to Trump was remarkable. Basically the cause for the invasion of the Capitol building was what they felt was a lost election. So I find it interesting that these Japanese military members were doing this because they thought it was best for the country and they were focusing on the emperor and the U.S. potential parallel here is that the insurrectionists the seditionists I guess you can call them felt that the election was not done in a fair way that it was a fraud and therefore they wanted to protect and encourage or support the extension of the Trump presidency. So there was kind of like an emperor worship of a sort going on in the United States. I had not thought about that before but now that you mentioned that that's interesting. So go ahead. Oh that's a very that's a very interesting parallel. I guess the main difference I would I would say is that Trump was there in the case of the U.S. and Trump. His supporters are interested very much in him as a character as a person and very inspired by his own statements and words. Whereas the emperor was seen as more a kind of distant abstract figure and they weren't so much interested in him as a individual. So even if even if this coup took place against his will they wanted to use his position or his office as a kind of to raise the status of that. So he they weren't as interested in him as a individual. It wasn't true at the time that he was still the emperor was considered to be descendant from God. Would that be a part of the reason why they felt that they couldn't directly support him but more indirectly because he was so high level that it's it would be disrespectful if they actually did something directly to support them as support the emperor. Right. Yes. There was this idea that he was descended from the gods and he himself was divine in many ways. So so in that sense I guess that as you're saying they wouldn't really relate to him as an ordinary political figure or an ordinary person. Although there are elements of the Trump support that are religious as well. There are some evangelical Christians Christian nationalists I guess who do believe that Trump even though he's not religious in any traditional sense whatsoever he doesn't go to church or talk about God that much. But for whatever reason there are elements of his support group that consider him to be divine in some some way. It's not a majority but it is a minority just just there's a parallel there a little bit. So let's let's for our audience there were a series of five different coups that occurred over the 1930s. Why don't if you don't mind can you illustrate one of them so our our viewers can understand how this actually happened and what the repercussions were if any from the coup. Sure. The one I find to be the most significant and consequential is the is the coup of February 26th 1936. It was the last one mentioned in the piece and in this case there was there was a group of officers who led a mutiny within the Japanese army. So it was the first infantry division of the Japanese army and they led a mutiny where they took over several government buildings including the war ministry the Tokyo police department and they also when targeted some politicians homes and they they targeted the imperial palace itself although they were not able to take that over and as a result of this they they assassinated several top political leaders including two former prime ministers. They tried to assassinate the the the prime minister at the time but they killed his brother instead by mistake and he was hiding in a part of his house so he managed to survive but but they assassinated several important leaders and there was a kind of standoff between the rest of the army and this this breakaway division that that had took over put these these important buildings in Tokyo and so their goals were very much to eliminate eliminate the sort of corrupt establishment politicians and leaders and to create this Shoah restoration which I talked about and kind of take control of the emperor and set up a kind of military dictatorship. How did it turn out? In terms of the coup itself it failed because the rest of the military the senior leadership and the rest of the army did not go along with their plan so I think that's one important aspect of this of these coups in Japan in the 1930s that the army and the military was very divided between this very radical fanatical anti-establishment division and a more establishment military industrial complex focused side of the military so there was a tension between that and eventually the more establishment part of the military to control and the emperor himself was very outraged by this attempted coup and was very adamant in having the people punished who instigated this so they so they were surrounded and and stopped and then eventually arrested and there was a trial several months later of many of these leaders and 17 of the leaders were executed for their role so it but it was a the reason it was important was it was a much bigger scale than any of the attempted coups that had happened before so yeah so let's let's address that why were why didn't the government respond in the way that you described for this 1936 coup to the first coup there were five in a row and I read in the article that some of the leaders of the of coups who that failed would then start another coup so they weren't executed in as in the case that you just described the last one in 1936 why didn't the emperor and the established military just shut this off the first time it happened why did it happen again and again and again I think um it's because uh well first of all they're much smaller in scale and um I don't think it got to the attention and to the um it got sort of raised the alarm bells of the emperor and his people to the same extent and so it was sort of more considered an internal military control issue um of the of the top levels of the military controlling their kind of more rebellious officers and so since there weren't as big consequences and um it was sort of considered a more internal military issue that's why it wasn't suppressed to the same extent and it takes time for I guess the buildup of these things led to um in the bigger scale of this last event led to a stronger response especially since the emperor and his closest advisors were so um determined to punish the the instigators yeah I think one thing I picked up too in the article along these lines is that in the earlier coups they were smaller scale as you pointed out but also there was a sense that uh these these junior military officers they shouldn't be doing this but it's because they're excessive patriotism they're their Japanese spirit or they're they're trying to purify that there was some sense of not punishing them that this was just a a mistake and over in zuberance right so did you is that right is that impression that I read about in the article would you agree that there was a kind of a sense of forgiveness of these earlier coups well these are rural soldiers and they're they're I understand why they're doing this but you know it's wrong but we're not going to punish them and therefore they could do it again in the end that's what happened they ended up running a a next coup and a next coup and a next coup until it culminated in this big one at the end like you mentioned I think I think there was that sense and um I'm not sure how large a percent of the population felt that way but there definitely was a significant strain in the Japanese population that supported the military respected it very highly and supported um military ventures in outside Japan sort of imperialistic ventures because another aspect of this which isn't talked about in the article is that while these coups were happening in Japan there were also cases of military in subordination outside of Japan where the military the Japanese military was stationed like the most famously the Manchurian incident where the officers blew up a part of the Manchurian railway and used that as a pretext to take over Manchuria which led Japan to come into conflict with the League of Nations and eventually leave the League of Nations so oh my yeah so as these things were going on within Japan um there are these cases of insubordination outside as well and this a lot of a big part of the population was very um uh excited about Japan ventures in Manchuria and later it would be excited about Japan's war in in China from 1937 so I think there was significant popular support and um I see support in the media and other cases as well okay all right so yeah the context of my question was within the military and the elite leadership but your answer I think interesting more generally the Japanese population didn't consider these coups as being significantly bad it was in a sense that they supported the military's expansion of power and growth now this this this 1936 coup ended up with a hundred some odd people being arrested and 17 being executed so it failed in that sense but as we all know uh Japan did become a military militarily led emperor focused totalitarian would you say I mean or is that too extreme Japan was still a democracy I guess but it led to what the coup members wanted to achieve even though their coups failed ended up happening Japan as a country as a nation became led by the emperor and led by the military is that correct to some extent um I think uh the article says that um eventually their goals were even though the coup has suppressed their goals were realized anyway um to some extent I think that's the case the military's influence grew but I think I I'd like to um sort of point out that it was a kind of it was a different faction of the military than the people who led led the coup so the people who led the coup wanted pretty much very sweeping system systemic change they were even in some sense credit critics of capitalism they want they wanted a kind of system where um there was more state management or control of the economy despite the fact that they were very anti-communist they wanted some state more state control but the more establishment wing of the military took control and what's interesting is that it wasn't that they took control as a coup they took it more as a gradual slide towards their control because they were given the task of containing these radical elements within the military so it was a kind of in some sense unintended consequence you you might say all right yes as is so often in the case of history or all of our human activity so we just have a few minutes left auto but I want to conclude by by thinking about what what lessons can we take from what we just talked about your illustration of these coups the article makes the point that these series of coups occurred because there wasn't a strict response to the earlier ones until we finally got to 1936 so uh the one conclusion is that the United States now and looking at this should very very strongly find out who was behind this because it does seem to be an organized effort even though the video when we all watched it in early January was chaotic but it does seem to be organized and planned so whoever organized this needs to be arrested and that would include the protesters and also government officials that may have been tacitly supporting them and and then of course leading to the president who in a sense incited all of this by making up the fake issue of fraud in the election so would you agree with that conclusion that looking at what happened in Japan should the United States in order to ensure that doesn't happen again because I guess if we look at Japan this could happen again in in the United States if the response is not handled properly yeah I agree that um there should be sort of definite response and consequences to these sorts of things these kinds of insurrections or break ins to uh or yeah insurrections and but I think also what's important is to address the root causes or the institutional causes of this of the of this kind of sentiment that leads to the coup so socioeconomic causes as well as institutional sort of problems in the system that can lead to this so in Japan's case it would be weak civilian control of the military was something that needed to be addressed to solve it so and then another thing is to be careful about limiting civil liberties or restricting democracy in the name of preventing these things because it can turn around and create a undemocratic system at all in in general which sort of enables the cause that is trying to prevent which happened in Japan with the military gradually gaining more and more control to for the main purpose of creating more order insecurity in Japan so those are those are some lessons that I took from it yeah that's interesting and that debate actually has begun in the United States now about changing the laws so that the arrest and persecution of the criminals who who invaded the Capitol building can actually be carried out the FBI is saying that the international terrorism laws are very very strong but domestic terrorism laws are not and that brings up the whole civil liberties issue that you just addressed well we have run out of time I told you that when we did this the half hour would go by so quickly so thank you so much for being my guest on the show and helping us to understand what happened in the 1930s Japan and also how that potentially can inform the United States to handle our coup in a way to prevent them from occurring again in the future so thank you so much and in the unfortunate case if there's a second coup in the United States I'm going to call you again and have you on the show again thank you very much yep all right bye everyone thank you for viewing our show and I'll see you all in two weeks we'll have a different subject to cover at that time thank you very much aloha everyone