20th Century Battles in China Offer Insights for Today's Conflicts

Japanese decision-making during the imperial era is poorly understood. One particular example is its decision to attack the United States fleet at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. A second is the 1937 decision to begin an advance up the Yangtze River Valley in China, in open warfare against the regime of Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek.

A better understanding of these decisions can be gained by examining the present-day conflict between Israel and Hamas.

*Palestinians walk through the destroyed streets of Gaza City on December 24. (©AP via Kyodo)*

Japan was never likely to win its war against the combined might of the imperial Western powers active in Asia. Its decision to attack the American fleet is often portrayed as grounded in hubris, or in the belief that a mercantile America would not have the stomach for the fight.

What is rarely mentioned is the rationale that wartime Prime Minister Hideki Tojo actually gave. At an imperial conference on November 5, 1941, he stated: "I fear that we would become a third-class nation after two or three years if we just sit tight."

The Tojo Rationale

Tojo's primary concern was that before the era of naked imperialism preceding the Asia-Pacific War, the rationales for Western domination over Asian and African peoples were based on the virtues of Christianity and the creed of white superiority. Accordingly, non-Christian, Asian Japan could only be maneuvered into a position of subservience by the Western powers. To Tojo, Japan would be hard-pressed to win a war against the West, but given the alternative, the risk was worth taking.

Many will scoff at the notion of imperial Japan suffering undue prejudice before the Asia-Pacific War. After all, Japan was also an imperial power. The counter is that those who fail to see the true vulnerabilities of prewar Japan are oblivious to the extent of Western racism during those years.

*Former Prime Minister Hideki Tojo listens as his death sentence is pronounced at the Tokyo Trials in November 1948.*

Meanwhile, Tojo is typically portrayed as the arch villain of the Japanese regime. His stated rationale is therefore of great significance, and one that should be more prominently debated and understood.

Why Did Hamas attack?

Hamas's decision to launch its October 7 raid into Israel is even more inexplicable than the Pearl Harbor attack. Palestinians had no capability of militarily troubling Israel and could not have resisted an Israeli advance into Gaza. Therefore, Hamas's primary military asset against the inevitable Israeli response was to hold Israeli hostages.

There has been little debate on why Hamas opted to carry out the raid. No consensus has been formed. One suspects Hamas feared that US support and legitimization of autocratic states in the Middle East would lead to its eventual isolation. However, for the present, that is mere speculation. Hamas understood how severe the Israeli response would be, and yet went ahead anyway. It can only be assumed that, as with Tojo, the regime believed it was playing its last card.

A further notable quote concerning the Japanese attack on the American fleet came from Commander-in-Chief of the Combined Fleet, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. He suggested that Japan could win "victory upon victory" during the first six to twelve months of the war. However, if it continued, he would "have no expectation of success."

*Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto (Asia-Pacific War era, undated) (Public Domain)*

That 6-12 month timeframe certainty was far more than Hamas was able to enjoy. Hamas was completely vulnerable to an immediate Israeli military response. In this way, the October 7 raid differs significantly from Pearl Harbor.

The Israel-Hamas War, however, also enjoys broad parallels with another Japanese military operation. That is the Japanese military's advance up the Yangtze River Valley during the Sino-Japanese War.

Japan's Imperial Ambitions

The Sino-Japanese War is particularly poorly understood. It occurred in the imperial era and was a component of China's so-called "century of humiliation." In truth, the era stretched back to the 1840s. By the 1930s, decades of imperial meddling had resulted in China's breakup into warlord-led regions.

China was awash in foreign troops. Its major cities contained international settlements, inside which foreigners enjoyed extraterritoriality. There was no central government. The Chinese landmass was embroiled in regional conflicts. Meanwhile, a broader civil war was playing out between the Nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek and the Communists under Mao Zedong.

The Japanese are commonly said to have "invaded" China. However, Japanese troops were already based in China under treaty agreements that all of China's imperial guests enjoyed. The manifestations that led to full-scale war between China and Japan were considerably nuanced. Japanese military activity in 1937 and beyond could be better characterized as an aggressive advance than an invasion.

The Marco Polo Bridge

The war began with an incident outside of Beijing at the Marco Polo Bridge. Accounts vary, but the details are largely irrelevant. Mutual distrust between the Japanese and Chinese had already made a military altercation all but inevitable.

The Marco Polo bridge incident was followed by a series of escalations that troublingly included the Tongzhou massacre of around 260 Japanese citizens. Basically, however, the situation remained manageable.

At the time of the Marco Polo Bridge incident, the Japanese were in the process of carving out an empire on the Asian mainland. It was to include the Korean Peninsula, Manchuria, and a piece of northern China. Realistically, China was far too large to fall under total Japanese control in the manner of Korea. Therefore, the Japanese plan was to obtain land in the north while negotiating with Chiang Kai-shek for a position of influence in the south.

Inviting an Adversary to Go Too Far

The next stage of hostilities in the Sino-Japanese War broke out in the southern zone, in Shanghai. There was some initial small-arms fire, the origin of which was unknown. But it was the Chinese who brought about an escalation by attacking the Japanese in force.

Japanese forces were driven towards Shanghai's Huangpu River before reinforcements arrived. Then the Japanese position stabilized, and they outflanked the Chinese. They pursued the Nationalist forces up the Yangtze River Valley, taking Nanjing and Wuhan. However, they failed to induce the Nationalist government to come to terms.

Chiang had sent in his best troops into Shanghai and refused to allow them to withdraw, thus bestowing martyrdom upon them. But, as with Hamas's October 7, 2023, attack, military victory was never his aim. The city of Shanghai was the focal point of the Western presence in China. By bringing the war down from the north to the Yangtze River Valley, Chiang ensured that the conflict would be one that the West could not ignore.

Conflict between Israel and the Palestinian people has been ongoing for decades. Israel has progressively relieved the Palestinians of more and more of their land, but the accompanying violence has never risen to a level that would truly engage the international community. As with the Japanese advance before the Sino-Japanese War, the process was incremental.

In 1937, the Japanese military's responses, and in 2023, those of the Israeli government, were attempts to settle all matters militarily once and for all. However, in both cases, that level of force was likely what their adversaries had in mind. Both Israel and Japan obligingly overplayed their hand, thereby losing the public relations war.

*The Greater East Asia Conference (1943) in front of the National Diet Building, Tokyo. (public domain)*

Preambles Inevitably Exist

Hamas's October 7 raid was initially met with a repulsion that made any level-headed analysis improbable. Additionally, a negative perception of Hamas that has been formed over many years, along with a lack of awareness of the historical grievances of the Palestinian people, and ignorance of living conditions in Gaza, did much to bolster support for Israel's initial military response.

However, once a year or so had passed, public opinion turned. Gaza lay in ruins, and Hamas had little capability to fight. Israel began to lay claim to Gaza itself, while civilians began to starve. Support for Israel eroded, and the decades-long preamble to the October 7 raid came into increasingly sharper relief.

Cognizance of the historical grievances of the Japanese preceding Pearl Harbor has been even slower in coming. However, the present broad recognition of an October 7 preamble may do much to change that. It creates a precedent in which an aggressive attack that resulted in considerable loss of life can nonetheless be dispassionately viewed within its greater context. This could result in both a better understanding of Pearl Harbor and lead to less emotive responses to future "surprise" attacks.

Do Not Overextend

Pre-Sino-Japanese War China was aptly described by Theodore H White and Annalee Jacoby in Thunder Out of China as "everyone's colony and no one's responsibility." Through their military action, the Japanese claimed for themselves the unwanted title of "occupying power" and thereby the liability for both their own imperial aggression and the broader state of chaos and destitution into which the full gamut of imperial powers had driven China.

Japan still suffers from highly negative perceptions, which citizens from those nations that drove China into disintegration in 1912 are more than happy to hypocritically (or ignorantly) support.

Japan's military overextension during the Sino-Japanese War was a lesson that Israel did not learn. As a result of its determination to bring Gaza to heel, Israel, the homeland of the Jews, whose suffering throughout history constitutes a stigma on mankind, now finds itself credited with genocide. In September 2025, the UN determined that Israeli conduct in Gaza had risen to that level. They will struggle to live down that reputation.