Japan (Cherry, Plum, and Chrysanthemum)

Japan (Japanese: 日本Nihon or Nippon; formally 大日本祖国Dai-Nippon Sōkoku or Dai-Nihon Sōkoku; literally Greater Japanese Fatherland; officialy State of Japan) is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, Korea Peninsula and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south. The kanji characters that make up Japan's name mean "sun-origin", which is why Japan is sometimes referred to as the "Land of the Rising Sun".

The country also referred as the Myomi Republic (Myōmi Minkoku; 妙味民国), named after the small village located 81 km north of Minkyo (then Tokyo) where the Imperial Army signed the Instrument of Surrender to the Republican Army in 16 May 1930.

Japan is an archipelago of 6,852 islands. The five largest islands are Honshū, Hokkaidō, Kyūshū, Shikoku and Takasago (Taiwan), together accounting for ninety-seven percent of Japan's land area. Japan has the world's tenth-largest population, with over 150 million people. The Greater Minkyo Area, which includes the de facto capital city of Minkyo and several surrounding prefectures, is the largest metropolitan area in the world, with over 30 million residents.

Prehistory and ancient history
A Paleolithic culture around 30,000 BC constitutes the first known habitation of Japan. This was followed from around 14,000 BC (the start of the Jōmon period) by a Mesolithic to Neolithic semi-sedentary hunter-gatherer culture, who include ancestors of both the contemporary Ainu people and Yamato people, characterized by pit dwelling and rudimentary agriculture. Decorated clay vessels from this period are some of the oldest surviving examples of pottery in the world. Around 300 BC, the Yayoi people began to enter the Japanese islands, intermingling with the Jōmon. The Yayoi period, starting around 500 BC, saw the introduction of practices like wet-rice farming, a new style of pottery, and metallurgy, introduced from China and Korea.

The Japanese first appear in written history in the Chinese Book of Han. According to the Records of Three Kingdoms, the most powerful kingdom on the archipelago during the 3rd century was called Yamataikoku. Buddhism was first introduced to Japan from Baekje, but the subsequent development of Japanese Buddhism was primarily influenced by China. Despite early resistance, Buddhism was promoted by the ruling class and gained widespread acceptance beginning in the Asuka period (592–710).

Buddhism began to spread during the Heian era chiefly through two major sects, Tendai by Saichō, and Shingon by Kūkai. Pure Land Buddhism greatly becomes popular in the latter half of the 11th century.

Feudal era
Japan's feudal era was characterized by the emergence and dominance of a ruling class of warriors, the samurai. In 1185, following the defeat of the Taira clan, sung in the epic Tale of Heike, samurai Minamoto no Yoritomo was appointed shogun and established a base of power in Kamakura. After his death, the Hōjō clan came to power as regents for the shoguns. The Zen school of Buddhism was introduced from China in the Kamakura period (1185–1333) and became popular among the samurai class. The Kamakura shogunate repelled Mongol invasions in 1274 and 1281, but was eventually overthrown by Emperor Go-Daigo. Go-Daigo was himself defeated by Ashikaga Takauji in 1336.

Ashikaga Takauji establishes the shogunate in Muromachi, Kyoto. It is a start of Muromachi Period (1336–1573). The Ashikaga shogunate receives glory in the age of Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, and the culture based on Zen Buddhism (art of Miyabi) has prospered. It evolves to Higashiyama Culture, and has prospered until the 16th century. On the other hand, the succeeding Ashikaga shogunate failed to control the feudal warlords (daimyo), and a civil war (the Ōnin War) began in 1467, opening the century-long Sengoku period ("Warring States").

During the 16th century, traders and Jesuit missionaries from Portugal reached Japan for the first time, initiating direct commercial and cultural exchange between Japan and the West. Oda Nobunaga conquered many other daimyo using European technology and firearms; after he was assassinated in 1582, his successor Toyotomi Hideyoshi unified the nation in 1590. Hideyoshi invaded Korea twice, but following defeats by Korean and Ming Chinese forces and Hideyoshi's death, Japanese troops were withdrawn in 1598. This age is called Azuchi-Momoyama Period (1573–1603).

Tokugawa Ieyasu served as regent for Hideyoshi's son and used his position to gain political and military support. When open war broke out, he defeated rival clans in the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600. Ieyasu was appointed shogun in 1603 and established the Tokugawa shogunate at Edo (modern Tokyo). The Tokugawa shogunate enacted measures including buke shohatto, as a code of conduct to control the autonomous daimyo; and in 1639, the isolationist sakoku ("closed country") policy that spanned the two and a half centuries of tenuous political unity known as the Edo period (1603–1868).

Imperial Restoration era (1854-1930)
On March 31, 1854, Commodore Matthew Perry and the "Black Ships" of the United States Navy forced the opening of Japan to the outside world with the Convention of Kanagawa. Subsequent similar treaties with Western countries in the Bakumatsu period brought economic and political crises. The resignation of the shogun led to the Boshin War and the establishment of a centralized state nominally unified under the Emperor (the Meiji Restoration). Adopting Western political, judicial and military institutions, the Cabinet organized the Privy Council, introduced the Meiji Constitution, and assembled the Imperial Diet. The Meiji Restoration transformed the Empire of Japan into an industrialized world power that pursued military conflict to expand its sphere of influence. After victories in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895) and the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905), Japan gained control of Taiwan, Korea, and the southern half of Sakhalin. Japan's population grew from 35 million in 1873 to 70 million in 1935.

Japan entered World War I in 1914, seizing the opportunity of Germany's distraction with the European War to expand its sphere of influence in China and the Pacific. Japan declared war on Germany on August 23, 1914. Japanese and allied British Empire forces soon moved to occupy Tsingtao fortress, the German East Asia Squadron base, German-leased territories in China's Shandong Province as well as the Marianas, Caroline, and Marshall Islands in the Pacific, which were part of German New Guinea. The Siege of Tsingtao and a swift invasion in the German territory of Jiaozhou (Kiautschou), proved successful and the colonial troops surrendered on November 7, 1914. Japan then gained the German holdings.

By the early of 1920s, the country experienced a brief period of "Taishō democracy" overshadowed by increasing expansionism and militarization which resulted into the public unrest from the left-wing movement

The Civil War (1925-1930)
On 15 March 1925, rebellion broke out in Niigata among the local farmers. This rebellion soon organized by the left-wing movement, led by Nationalist Party (Kokuminto). The Nationalists assembled the National Congress for the People Revolution in Taihoku (Taipei), Takasago on 27 March and gathered by the anti-Imperial Government organizations and movements, such as Social Mass Party and Korean Independent Party.

The Congress resulted the formation of Fatherland Workers and Peasants People’s Army (Sōkoku Norodomingun), led by General Imada Matsutaka as the military wing of the Nationalist and its coalition parties. The Nationalists, led by Nagayama Yoshida pushed for social revolution modeled after Russian Revolution of 1917. The revolution spread throughout Japan, and participants seized military and civil powers in individual cities. The power takeover was achieved everywhere without loss of life and control was firmly in the hands of the largest political party, the Nationalists.

Nevertheless, the rebellion caused great concern around military elements of government for its establishment and the Imperial Government reacted by the sent the troops to suppress the revolutionaries in early April. The revolutionaries and the imperialists fought a protracted battle in Tohoku and Niigata known as the Battle of Aoi-san that would last until 10 April 1925.

The Battle of Aoi-san marked the beginning the Japanese Civil War between the revolutionaries and the imperialists which would lasted from April 1925 until May 1929. The revolutionaries itself composed by the Japanese republicans and leftists and the Korean independent fighters who promised by the Nationalists when the revolutionaries wins, the Korean independence will be restored.

Emperor Taisho’s death in 1926 led the power vacuum in Imperial side. The moderate and more liberal faction of the Imperialists: Shidehara Kijūrō, Etsu Hōtori, Ozaki Yukio and Baron Makoto Ikeda proposed the constitutional amendment to altered the Imperial Government into British-like system with Emperor as mere figurehead of the nation.

The radicals refused the proposal and accused its as “the deviation of the Imperial tradition”. But, the moderates already gained majority in government and for the first (and only time), Imperial Diet amended the Meiji Constitution. Shidehara became the new Prime Minister in 23 August 1927, but failed to maintained the order again.

The People Army successfully defeats the Imperial Army in Kitakyushu, Fukuoka, Kyushu in 27 April 1930. Prime Minister Shidehara agreed to ceasefire and signed the Instrument of Surrender in Myomi hamlet on 16 May 1930. The Revolutionary Government in Hakodate, led by Nagayama Yoshida as its Sōsai and also the Chairman of Kokuminto effectively take over the control on 20 May and moved its headquarters from Hakodate to Tokyo (later Minkyo) five days later.

Early foundation (1931-1939)
On 16 February 1931, the new government of Japan proclaimed and Japan changed its official name from “Empire of Japan” to “State of Japan” (wrote in kanji character as “Japanese Fatherland”, modeled after “German Reich”, official name of Weimar Republic ). Two days later, the Constitution of the State of Japan (more known as “1931 Constitution”) which as the amended version of Meiji Constitution and modeled after the 1920 Estonian Constitution and 1922 Soviet Constitution enacted by the National Congress

Nagayama Yoshida elected as the republic’s first President and Makoto Ikeda as the first prime minister by the National Congress on 19 February 1931

Kokuminto or People’s Party (referred as “the Party”) became the leading, dominated and vanguard party of the new Republic, similar with Communist Party rule in Soviet Union. Opposition movements and organizations banned and only several small parties and organizations which permitted by the government, such as Shakai Taishuto (Social Mass Party) and Rikkento (Constitutional Party) became has the second and third largest seats acquisition in Congress and Legislative Council. The Party Central Committee became the de-facto quasi-legislature beside the constitutional National Congress and the Legislative Council and the Party Politburo became the de-facto central policy making body of the Republic.

The new Republic government recognized by Soviet Union on 28 February, followed by United States on 4 March; British Empire, Spain, French and Germany on 19 March and Italy on 27 March.

April 1931, President Yoshida sent his delegation led by the former Prime Minister, Shidehara Kijūrō to Nanjing for negotiates with Chiang Kai-shek’s Republic of China government over the Sino-Japanese War issues. Japan agreed to signed an armistice with the China and ended the war for good.

In return, Chiang’s government recognized the new Republican government and agreed to transferred northern part of Manchuria into Japan for become the buffer territory between anti-communist Kuomintang China and communist Soviet Union. Committee of Harbin founded in June 1931 for handled the migration of thousand Han peoples from the Japan-controlled Manchurian provinces to the Republic of China territory.

Manchuria later guaranteed the dominion status by the Republican government modeled the British dominion system as the State of Manchukuo with Harbin as its capital, Jiang Yuexin as the first head of state and Hu Jiaoyi as the first prime minister on 18 January 1932. Japan recognized the State of Manchukuo with Dalian Protocol in 25 February 1932.

In February 1932, the senior delegation of Korean independence movement led by Kim Gu and Kim Kyu Sik fled to Minkyo from Shanghai to start negotiations with the Republican government, led by President Yoshida. The negotiations lasted over two months in Osaka to formulate the Japanese-Korean Treaty of Independence Restoration.

The treaty guaranteed Korea became the self-government dominion republic for 10-year period of peaceful transition to full independence. Korea allowed to have their own head of state, own government, own parliament, own constitution, the right for managed their own political and cultural affairs and an autonomous army while Japan still maintained its military bases on Korean territory, control of foreign affairs, and the right for imposing tariffs and quotas on Korean exports. The Republic officially inaugurated on 1 March 1933 with Kim Gu as its first President.

Between 1931-1938, Nagayama Yoshida was the nation’s President and a influential member of the Party Politburo subsequently introduced many radical reforms and projects with the aim of founding a new democratic republic from the remnants of its Imperial past. The reforms included abolition of noble titles and by-names and nationalization all zaibatsu companies, industries, and banks on 1931; abolition of State Shinto and introduction of Great Economic Plan (modeled after Vladimir Lenin’s Soviet New Economic Policy of 1921) on 1932; reformation of Japanese legal system and minimalization of the kanji character use on 1933; standardization of educational curriculum on 1934; rapid up the industrialization in both heavy and light industry sector on 1935; agricultural development in South Seas Mandate on 1936; reformation of Japanese language on 1937; and the establishment of State Agency for Cultural Affairs on 1938.

Under the planned economy system, the state owned all major and important sector companies while some small private enterprises still permitted to exists. Japan invested its interests in Korea and Manchuria which rich in natural resources and South Seas islands on plantation sectors. As results, Japan economy growth significantly 9 years after the end of civil war and became the Asia's leading producer of agricultural products, rubber, coal, cement, manganese, natural gas and other minerals were also of major importance.

World War II (1939-1945)
In 1933, President Yoshida guided the foreign policy to made Japan into the neutral nation but also supported the Pan-Asianism. Different from the Imperial idea, Yoshida’s vision of Pan-Asianism is based from internationalist society idea of socialism. In 5 June 1935 the Party Committee Central meeting, President Yoshida stated “the socialist world only can be achieved by the equal status between the Western and the Eastern”. He added, “the East must united and strengthened its economic power together.”

When Nazi Germany started the invasion to Poland at the end of 1939 and resulted the Second World War in Europe, the radical right wing faction of Kokuminto view this event as the chance for the realization of the Pan-Asianism. But, the left-wing and the centre-right faction of Kokuminto and the against the idea and accuses its as the “new imperialism”. The December 1939 the Party Central Committee meeting filled by heated debates about the possibility for Japan to allied with Germany

Due the success of massive industrialization, Japan re-expanded its national arms industry at the middle of 1930s. By 1939, the weapons, artilleries and tanks productions of Japan reached its peak and the Japanese Army was the largest armies in Asia and Pacific.

A right wing faction of Kokuminto pressured President Yoshida to fulfills the Pan-Asianism idea by joined the Germany in the war with Europe. At first, President refused, but Nakano Seigo and another prominent rightists planned to boycott the Party Congress in 1942. Afraid of the Party internal disunity, President convened the Council of Ministers immediately. PM Yoshinohe agree to step down from his office and after the New Year plenum of the Congress, Nakano Seigo appointed as the new office holder in 5 January 1940

The leftists protested and situation turned chaotic. The workers opposition of the Party called for general strikes and threatened the national economy situation. As the act of responsibility, Nagayama Yoshida step down as the Party Politburo member and left the little power except the charismatic influence as the Party Chairman and ceremonial position as President of the Republic.

As result, President position become more powerless rubber-stamp post and made the rightist gained a chance to take over the national government. Under PM Nakano leadership, Japan formed the alliance with Germany and Italy with the signing of Tripartite Pact in 27 September 1940. On 1 Oktober 1940, Japan declared the war to British Empire and France, and then also Netherland who colonialized the South and Southeast Asia.

With the occupation of French Indochina in the years of 1940–41, the United States placed embargoes on Japan of strategic materials such as scrap metal and oil, which were vitally needed for the war effort. The Japanese were faced with the option of either withdrawing the Southeast Asia campaign and losing face or seizing and securing new sources of raw materials in the resource-rich, European-controlled colonies of South East Asia—specifically British Malaya and the Dutch East Indies (modern-day Indonesia).

The ultranationalist faction of the military, led by Lieutenant General Fukuda Shogi advising PM Nakano to advanced the action and declared the war to United States of America. Its resulted the controversy within the Party and the military, especially from the Navy. Marshal Matsutaka Imada, the Commander-in-chief of National Army said those courageous action is dangerous and endangered the Japan’s interests itself in Asia because the imbalance factor of the army and artillery sizes.

But, PM Nakano agreed with the advice and arranged the attack to American naval base in Pacific. The Imperial Japanese Navy made its surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Oahu, Hawaii, on Sunday morning, 7 December 1941 while the Japanese ambassadors to United States, Nomura Kichisaburō and special envoy Kurusu Saburō tried to negotiate peace and understanding with Washington.

The Pacific Fleet of the United States Navy and its defending Army Air Forces and Marine air forces sustained significant losses. The primary objective of the attack was to incapacitate the United States long enough for Japan to establish its long-planned Southeast Asian empire and defensible buffer zones. The U.S. public saw the attack as a treacherous act and rallied against the Empire of Japan. The United States entered the European Theatre and Pacific Theater in full force. Four days later, Adolf Hitler of Nazi Germany declared war on the United States, merging the separate conflicts.

President Yoshida protest and dissatisfied with those action by Nakano administration and voluntarily resigned from his position as President of the Republic on 9 December because the military did not reported the plan and secretly arranged the attack from him. Marshal Matsutaka Imada elected as the successor of Yoshida, but have no power to regained the public order.

Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese launched offensives against an Allied forces in South East Asia, with simultaneous attacks on Hong Kong, British Malaya and the Philippines.

The South-East Asian Campaign was preceded by years of propaganda and espionage activities carried out in the region by the Japan. The Japanese espoused their vision of an Asia for Asians to the people of Asia, who had lived under European rule for generations. As a result, many inhabitants in the region actually sided with the Japanese.

The Party internal opposition, led by Etsu Hōtori called for denounced the war and seek an armistice with the United States before Japan get the revenge from the Allies for its offensive action. The Kokuminto Party headed by its chairman, Dr. Nagayama Yoshida officially called the people to oppose PM Nakano and his clique on Party Congress of 1942.

As result, PM Nakano take over all President’s constitutional powers from Marshal Imada to handled its to former Imperial general, Suzuki Kantarō with coup d’état on June 1942. Suzuki then became the acting Head of State of Japan from June 1942 until August 1945. Marshal Imada, several ministers, and the Party influential members, including Nagayama Yoshida’s house arrested by Nakano government.

With the help from the resistance factions within the Party, Dr. Yoshida, Marshal Imada and some senior statesmen of the Republic can escaped to Mariana Islands, South Seas Mandates of Japan. The exiled statesmen later formed the National Committee for Fatherland Liberation and its military wings, Fatherland Workers and Peasants People’s Liberation Army on 14 September 1942. Those Committee later more known as the “Nan’yo Government”

Nagayama Yoshida appointed as the President of the exile government and Etsu Hōtori as the prime minister. The junior General of the Army, General Katobushi Toshio became the Army commander-in-chief

The Nan’yo Government sent their delegation to Washington and Moscow to re-negotiate the peace. The United States then recognized the Nan’yo Committee as the legitimate government of Japan on 3 November and Soviet Union on 14 November 1942.

This setback of the Pacific battle was followed in June 1942 by the catastrophic loss of a four carrier task force at the Battle of Midway. Midway was a decisive defeat for the Imperial Japanese Navy, and proved to be the turning point of the war. Australian land forces defeated Japanese Marines in New Guinea at the Battle of Milne Bay in September 1942, which was the first land defeat suffered by the Japanese in the Pacific. Further defeats by the Allies at Guadalcanal in September 1942, and New Guinea in 1943 put the Empire of Japan on the defensive for the remainder of the war. By 1944, the Allies had seized or bypassed and neutralized many of Japan's strategic bases through amphibious landings and bombardment. By early 1945, the U.S. Marines had gotten the control of the Ogasawara Islands marking the beginning of the fall of the islands of Japan.

With the Allies help, Nan’yo Army led by General Katobushi entered the islands from Ryukyu islands on March 1945 and success to captured the entire islands, ceremonially marked with the Fall of Tokyo on July 1945. Nakano Seigo and another war leaders arrested and Nakano administration overthrow by the Allies on August 1945. After concerned the Postdam Declaration, Japan surrendered and ended World War II. In a national radio address of 14 August, General Katobushi announced the surrender to the Japanese people.