Why did Japan Join the Axis? (Short Animated Documentary)

the tripartite pact signed by Italy Germany in Japan was a defensive alliance which became the backbone of the Axis powers in World War two it placed Japan firmly on one side of a great global conflict that would soon involved the USSR in the USA and ultimately lead to Japan's defeat but why did Japan join the axis in the first place and what was it hoping to achieve to begin it's important to contextualize what Japan was doing at this point and what it wanted so Japan had been fighting a war against China since 1937 in order to expand it to an empire and have access to Chinese resources this war with China was roundly condemned by France Britain and especially the United States with whom Japan's relationship with had been deteriorating Japan saw these diplomatic disagreements as a threat to its own independence and has more evidence that it wasn't going to be treated as an equal by the Western powers as such it sought new allies in the only two nations that fit the bill were Italy in Germany Japan had already joined the anti Comintern pact in 1936 in an effort to hem in the USSR but this wasn't any sort of formal alliance the issue that Japanese leaders had was that they didn't want to immediately antagonize the Western democracies and so it dallied in making any formal commitments in fact Japan was so cautious during negotiations that Germany in Italy formed their own pact in 1939 because they didn't want to wait any longer so Japan's reasons for joining the axis after all that delay is somewhat complicated there was a strong belief in Japan that Britain and America were trying to build an anglo-american cultural and economic to Germany across the world and thus in Japan's eyes it had to fight this lest it become nothing more than a mere puppet many in Japan saw a Wars inevitable and so sought to join a defensive pact with Germany in Italy in order to deter and thus delay the United States from coming to China's aid however the consequences of joining an anti America defensive pact was that it confirmed to American leadership that Japan was now an openly hostile nation so what about the USSR well Japan wasn't exactly keen on communism but its disdain was more about geopolitical strategy than ideology for Japanese leaders the Soviet Union was a potential rival for influence in China which wasn't something they could tolerate in fact after Japan joined the Axis powers it pushed for the USSR to be formally invited to help resist anglo-american hegemony shockingly though Germany said no and so the next year Japan in the USSR signed a non-aggression pact so that will seems pretty simple right well know there is another reason why Japan joined the axis that many people don't think about and that's that Japan was deeply of Germany in its rising power when Japan was negotiating the tripartite pact the Netherlands and France fell to Germany thus Japanese leaders were concerned that this would mean that Germany would soon be in control of both French Indochina and the Dutch East Indies whose resources Japan deeply coveted as though these negotiations were going on Europe look like this and so Japanese leaders were confident that Germany was going to win as such if it wanted to pry colonies away from Europeans it felt that it needed German backing and to force Germany's hand it declared the creation of the Greater East Asia co-prosperity sphere or the gay acts for short this was to be Japan's rightful sphere of influence in East Asia in which they were tolerate no other great powers all of this said not everybody was keen on the signing of the pact and especially naval officers were concerned that it was Germany simply outsourcing a naval war to Japan and with that Japan joined the Axis powers to summarize Japan joined the axis for several reasons to protect himself against foreign intervention in its war against China to create a coalition opposed to any anglo-american hegemony and to secure its acquisition of resources and territories in Southeast Asia which was actually concerned Germany was the biggest threat - I hope you enjoyed this episode and thank you for watching with the special thanks to my patreon supporters James Bissonnette Colin Castleman danny Maloney Marvin Castle Rob Waterhouse John BJ's Mo Aaron the white Michael Reynolds James Castaneda Gustav Swan Marcus Ozma Jordan Longley James Castaneda Gustav Swan Marcus Ozma Jordan Longley Gareth Turner mr. show Rashid Ali spinning three plates filled - oink oink David Silverman Izzy Winston Cawood Maggie packs Kowski Lexi Schwinn Spencer Lightfoot Kelly moneymaker Robert Wetzel Skye Chappelle and Anthony Beckett

Channel: History Matters

Views: 1,371,418

Rating: 4.9457655 out of 5

Keywords: History, Matters, Short, Animated, Documentary, Simple, Japan, Japanese, of, Pact, Alliance, USA, China, France, Indochina, Netherlands, Italy, Germany

Id: RxsnHaYuHoA

Length: 3min 48sec (228 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 26 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/AbjectSociety]

Easy to follow and information. My only concern is the Korean Peninsula was colored as Japan. Was it occupied or did it gain independence later like Hong Kong, Tibet and Taiwan want?

Edit: Japan used to actually be huge! It was like the Britian/Rome/Germany of Asia. Take your pick.