四. 反共和党運動
Chapter 4: The Anti-Republican Movement
January 1915—September 1915
In 1908, the Dowager Empress Cixi of China died, leaving the throne to the nearly 3-year-old Aisin-Gioro Pu-yi. The new Emperor was placed under a regency lead by his father, Prince Chun. After a brief four years as Emperor, in 1912, the Xinhai Revolution brought down the Qing Empire, and dissolved it. The absolute power of the Forbidden City began to poison the young prince’s mind, and he soon became a tyrant, ordering the beating of eunuchs for minor transgressions—however, the young Prince was also not without influence, namely in the form of tutors from foreign countries, and a few sensible minds in the court.
Prime Minister Inoue recognized that a divided China, even if not entirely under Japanese authority, was still a better solution than a single, unified, indivisible China. He acquiesced to some of the radicals’ demands, and issued what were then termed as the 対華15ヶ条要求 (en: Fifteen Demands). These demands were nothing Japan had not already demanded of China, but it was a general reaffirmation of Japan’s position as the dominant regional power in China. Yuan Shikai’s government attempted to force Japan to withdraw the demands by publicizing them, sparking a wave of anti-Japanese sentiment in China.
However, in the Fifteen Demands, while Japan demanded a laundry list of things—including preferential treatment, and the ceasing of handing out concession ports to foreign powers, it also demanded a significant number of extensions of Open Door policies that had been in place prior, despite extension of Japanese economic dominance in Manchuria and Shandong. The Fifteen Demands, therefore, received zero complaint from amongst the foreign courts, particularly Britain and America, whom stood to gain from the extension of the Open-Door policy. Russia’s complaints were heard but not listened to—as they were in the middle of fighting a war of horrendous attrition against Germany.
Yuan’s plan backfired, and the President accepted Japan’s demands. Japan’s exports to China took a minor hit, but did not sharply drop, as the attempts by revolutionaries to organize a boycott of Japanese goods failed, as the terms of the treaty were not more than what the Chinese had already been expecting.
With that done, Prime Minister Inoue began to plot to damage the integrity of the Chinese Republic through diplomatic intrigue. With Yuan’s power teetering, Inoue made overtures to the Forbidden City’s rump court, implying Japan’s interest in the restoration of the Qing monarchy under certain… constitutional reforms on the Qing’s part. This drew the attention of some royalists within both Yuan’s government, and the Beiyang Army, whom were interested at the idea of restoring the defunct monarchy.
In secrecy, the Anti-Republican Movement was put together, mostly lead by a cabal of Chinese officers, the Qing monarchy’s rump leadership, and several Japanese advisers whom had an express interest in utilizing a dependency in China to rapidly pump money into the economy. This movement began to consider operations to weaken the power of the Republic, and to set the stage for a restoration, at least in parts of China—they were in it for the long-haul, as the Japanese advisers put it.
The treatise that put the Fifteen Demands into place was finally signed in May 1915, and Yuan could turn internally to start putting into place his plan to end the strife in China—whatever that was.
Inoue’s government then turned their attentions to the interior of Japan, particularly Korea. Korea had been annexed by Japan five years prior with the Japan-Korea Annexation Treaty of 1910. Since then, Terauchi Masatake had been running the peninsula as Governor-General. His policy methods of controlling Korea centered entirely on one goal—assimilation of Korea into Japan, and the eventual demise of Korean culture.
While Inoue and his Cabinet were not die-hard fans of Korea, or of Korean culture, they still understood that the continued militant oppression of Korea would end with something just like the Satsuma Rebellion that he had helped start, in which, unless Japan used military force to quell and kill dissenters, would spiral out of control until Korea was all but independent.
Inoue had to admit, however, that sometimes, Terauchi’s policies had unintended negative effects, but good intentions. Land reform was one of them—the policy had created bitterness and a spike of land efficiency. To make matters worse, Inoue had come to see that the position of Governor-General of Korea was little more than an extension of the Imperial Japanese Army’s attempts to weasel significant power away from the civilian government.
To this end, Inoue looked to figure out what steps could be taken to establish civilian control of the Governor-General’s office, and to prevent the overwhelming militarization of Korea from becoming a reality, more so than just a thought.
In June 1915, the Diet saw the proposal of the Power Reform Act of 1915, an act which would significantly weaken the powers of the Governors-General of Taiwan and Korea—a start which would ‘carry policy’ to other Japanese acquisitions across Asia. The Prime Minister utilized most of his political capital to carry this bill to its completion, claiming that unless the Japanese nation reformed their control of their possessions, they would never be able to instill harmony and peace there—as well, the political power of the Navy and Army was troubling, and this would be a ‘great step towards entrenching constitutional governance of our exterior territories’.
The bill managed to pass through the efforts of the Sakurakai and other ‘pro-Constitution’ politicians and bureaucrats. The armed forces were incredibly displeased, and many nationalists within the system were beginning to set into effect their own methods of dealing with this annoyance that was an anti-military Prime Minister.
With the bill passed, the Prime Minister set into action with appointing new Governors-General. For Taiwan, he was convinced by his Cabinet to appoint Den Kenjirou, a baron of the House of Peers, to the office. Den was a known member of the more conservative levels of society, but still voiced his support for reforms to assimilate Taiwan peacefully, and without the extensive measures of coercion.
In Korea, the process was a little less cut and dry. The Prime Minister, with Imperial assent, relieved Count Terauchi from his post. Terauchi returned to Japan and began to stir up sentiments against the government, claiming that the Prime Minister was playing favorites with Japan’s subjects than with Japan’s citizens, and began to coordinate nationalist sentiments and fervor against the Prime Minister.
In August, the office of Governor-General of Korea was filled, this time by Takahashi Korekiyo, the man whom had introduced a patent system in Japan, and had secured foreign loans during the Russo-Japanese War. The Prime Minister felt that if any man could strengthen Korea’s economic value to the Empire, it would be Takahashi.
Takahashi pledged to reform Korea and bring it up to par with the Empire proper, and proclaimed that by 1920, Korea would have more schools, more trains, and more industry. A side effect of this, was also the quiet ‘moderation’ of education in Korea, as his administration focused less on the forced assimilation of Korea, and more on the ‘assimilation by prosperity’ method that was being used in Taiwan. Korean language and cultural assets were no longer suppressed, and were taught alongside Japanese, with emphasis being placed on the cultural similarity, and fraternity of the Japanese and Korean peoples.
While Korean nationalism had not been stopped by this, Takahashi marked the first steps by a Japanese civilian government to attempt a reconciliation between subject and master, something that some Koreans of academic standing hoped would continue in the future.
With these efforts secured, the nation was struck with shock as Prime Minister Inoue died in September 1915. His appointed replacement was a member of the Sakurakai, this man was Minobe Tatsukichi, a 42-year-old constitutional scholar, whom was immensely unpopular in nationalist and military circles for his assertions that the state needed to take steps to prevent a ‘dual-government’ situation from emerging and the armed forces from dominating the government of Japan.
With Minobe’s empowerment as Prime Minister, the nationalists now felt it was time to act, before it was too late…