Empire of Japan (internal politics 1914–1944)

This article describes the political situation in Japan (1914–1944), dealing with the realities of Japanese policy over the years of the two World Wars.

Japanese policy from 1914 to 1915

Since the Meiji period, Japan had been a nominal constitutional monarchy, but the name did not obscure the fact that Japan’s form of government was more akin to an aristocratic oligarchy.

In World War I, Japan fought alongside the Allied Powers. In 1915, Japan presented its Twenty-One Demands to China. The demands used the war as a pretense for gaining additional territorial holdings in China. When the United States entered the war in 1917, Japan signed the Lansing-Ishii Agreement, which prevented interference in the Open Door Policy that allowed all nations to engage in commerce with China. With the allied victory over the Central Powers, Japan gained many German possessions in China, including the Shandong Peninsula. Japan also received the South Pacific Mandate from the League of Nations. Japan actively used the mandate to gain control over various islands in the South Pacific. Japan used economic development and immigration to push the expansionary goals of the young Japanese Empire.

Japanese policy from 1919 to 1927

This epoch is known as the "reconciliation period", during which great social disorder occurred (e.g., the Rice Revolution of 1918-1919), menacing the dominion of government Gangs.

In 1918, Hara Takashi, the leader of the conservative party...
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