Following the occupation of Nanking (December, 1937), the question of how to deal with the currency system in central China so as to weaken the Chiang Kai-shek regime became an important issue for Japan. Most papers concerning this issue have discussed only economic assaults on the Chinese currency, like the Hua Hsing Commercial Bank and similar economic maneuverings.
However, the situation was more complex. Firstly, the Chinese currency system, introduced with the help of the Britain government adviser Leith-Ross in 1935, was strong, and it looked difficult to destroy. Secondly, even if Japan could succeed in destroying the system, it seemed unlikely that Japan could make an alternative currency system by herself, and the destruction would bring about serious economic confusion in the occupied areas, too. Thirdly, in spite of the existence of anti-British forces in Japan, from an economic viewpoint, the Japanese government strongly needed good relations with Britain and the U. S. A. for the purpose of strengthening her wartime economy, and Britain was anxious about her interests in central China, especially the maintenance of the Chinese currency system. On this occasion the Japanese government placed high hopes on Munakata Hisanori's currency plan for occupied central China.
The aim of this article is to introduce the hitherto almost unknown Munakata Plan and to examine its political meaning and role. Munakata was a banker of the Bank of Japan, and he had assisted the Chinese currency system reform plan of Leith-Ross, which originally envisioned Anglo-Japanese cooperation on China issues, but which Japan had declined. Now, as the Japanese Army, Navy, and Foreign Ministry's adviser, he made what was essentially a revival of the Leith-Ross's plan, but this time with Japanese participation. His planwas roughly as follows. Under Japan's military and economic mastery over China, Japan reforms the currency system in central China with the cooperation of Britain and other powers, through which she would put an end to the war. Upon the end of hostilities she is able to exploit postwar China.
The Munakata Plan was promoted with the support of Ikeda Shigeaki (Cabinet Councillor, and later Minister of Finance and Commerce and Industry) and Prime Minister Konoe, the Army General Staff, the Navy and the forces in central China. The plan was also approved by the Cabinet, and it became evidence which the Chamberlain Cabinet used in its decision not to give financial aid to China.
The defeat of the Munakata Plan was caused mainly by the international factor of Britain's disagreement. However, the opposition of the Ministry of the Army, combined with the difference of stances on China policy between the idealistic Foreign Minister Ugaki and other imperialistic pro-British leaders, like Ikeda, and Ugaki's later resignation also affected the Munakata Plan's failure.
Now, from today's viewpoint, the Munakata Plan may not seem feasible, but the hope placed by the Japanese government on the plan in the harsh diplomatic environment indicates the high level of importance Japan's moderate leaders attatched to her economic needs.

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Konoe Fumimaro served three times as prime minister for over almost three years in prewar Japan. He played an important role in the Sino-Japanese War, the Axis Alliance and the advance to southern French Indochina to guide Japan closer to war. In ideology he was very complicated making efforts for peace with the Allied Nations at the sacrifice of a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, while he claimed to break the status quo from his youth (For example his article ‘Ei-Bei Hon'i no Heiwa Shugi o Haisu’)
In the postwar period the estimates of him were divided broadly into two categories, namely, those who felt he was a tragic premier and those who saw him as a warmonger. Konoe himself regarded his cabinet as having only a weak existence manipulated by the army. But was he usually passive or not.?
The aim of this paper, therefore, is to examine how Konoe saw international relations and how Japan's diplomatic policy was influenced by them in the first cabinet from the Marco Polo Bridge-Incident to the New Order in East Asia Proclamation.
A true peace based on international justice which Konoe stated immediately after the inauguration of the new cabinet put emphasis on the justificaiton of Japan's policy towards East Asia from the Manchurian Incident. But international justice converted from negative to positive meanings would lead to the New Order in East Asia through Sino-Japanese War. It was not the result of no clear prospect on the future of the war, but the embodiment of Konoe's world view.
On the other hand though Konoe tried to strengthen the Anti-Comintern Pact, the issue split the Konoe cabinet to lead to a general resignation by the rejection of key ministers of the Cabinet. After all the Axis Alliance was concluded in the second cabinet.
In spite of such hard-line policy of the Konoe cabinet toward Britain and America, Konoe himself did not intended to appeal to arms. He flattered himself that Britain and America would recognize Japan's situation sooner or later if Japan checked them more strongly.
In any case the New Order in East Asia based on international justice was an attempt to escape from the Washington Treaty System in Japan's Diplomacy.

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This essay examines the relations between the Western Powers and Japan in the summer of 1939. Japanese diplomacy in this period was strongly characterized by the intervention of the military. To review the situation of those days, it is necessary to look back into the situation of 1938.
It is often insisted that one of the first motives on the Japanese side that spurred Japan into negotiations with Germany for the purpose of “strengthening the Anti-Comintern Pact (November 25, 1936)” lay in the Japanese army's desire to check the Soviet Union and Britain from aiding Chiang Kai-shek's China in the Sino-Japanese Conflict. For example, the document “The Army's Hopes Regarding Current Foreign Policies” (Deterrent Diplomacy. Japan, Germany, and the USSR, 1935-1940, edited by James William Morley, New York, 1976, pp. 268-272), which was proposed by the War Minister Itagaki to the Konoe Cabinet on July 3, 1938, shows the army's fear for both the Soviet Union and Britain. On July 19, the Five Ministers Conference adopted a “Draft Policy for Strengthening Political Ties with Germany and Italy” (Ibid., p. 55). It is an interesting fact that both the “Hopes” and “Draft” aimed at concluding a pact with Germany to check the Soviet Union and making a secret agreement with Italy to check Britain respectively. Since the acceptance of Ribbentrop's proposal on August 5, 1938, which was brought to Tokyo by General Yukio Kasahara, the Japanese army changed its view immediately and eagerly followed Ribbentrop's idea to combine these two agreements. The move to the Tripartite Pact thus began in the summer of 1938.
It was very much embarassing for the Japanese army that Germany started in the spring of 1939 to make contact with the Soviet Union which had been thought by the Japanese army to be the common enemy of both Germany and Japan. The Japanese Ambassador to Berlin, General Hiroshi Oshima, cabled the Foreign Minister Arita on April 21, 1939, indicating Ribbentrop's intention to bring about better relations between Moscow and Berlin. On July 19, Uzuhiko Usami, councilor of the Japanese Embassy in Berlin, raised objection against the German access to the Soviet Union which was becoming more and more evident at that time (Akten zur Deutschen Auswärtigen Politik 1918-1945, Serie D, Band VI, Nr. 688).
The Japanese army started a local war with the Soviet Union in Nomonhan in May, 1939. This war turned out to be a total defeat of Japan at the end of August. It is a noteworthy fact that the staff of the Kwantung Army which waged this war were fully conscious of the interrelationship between the outcome of this war and the so-called Arita-Craigie talks which were to begin in Tokyo on July 15. Colonel Masao Terada, Chief of the Operation Section of the Kwantung Army, was hesitant to widen the war because he feared that this war would deter the talks. Major Masanobu Tsuji argued that Japan's coup in the battlefield of Nomonhan would strengthen Japan's position toward Britain in the talks and Tsuji persuaded the whole section in this regard. This operation conference on June 19, 1939, was recorded in the secret diary of the Nomonhan Incident (Gendaishi shiryo or the Source Materials of Contemporary History of Japan, vol. 10, Tokyo: Misuzu-shobo, 1963, pp. 74-75).
Recent studies by Klaus Hildebrand and Wolfgang Michalka show that the foreign policy of the Third Reich possessed a stratified structure consisting of the core, i. e. Hitler's pro-British and anti-Russian policy, and the overstructure represented by Ribbentrop's anti-British and pro-Russian policy which was supported by the German Foreign Ministry, Navy and Big Business. The Japanese army and Japan as a whole was perplexed by this structure of German foreign policy which was regarded as enigmatic.

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Duning the period of the Inukai Cabinet and the Saito Cabinet three control comittees on Manchurian matters were formed by the Government. In March 1933 Manchukuo decided “The Economic Construction Plan” by bolstering the power of the Kwantung Army. Although this decision was informed in advace to the Japanese Government, the Kwantung Army completely took the leadership and political friction arose between the two.
In Japan the irritated Government and Army Ministry held heated discussions and fixed economic policy toward Manchuria in the above ministry's economic policy committee on Manchurian matters. They decided also “The Fundamental Principles of Guidance toward Manchukuo”. At this stage the Army Ministry intended to take an initiative in the Government under the slogan of “the Government in full force” system, preventing the Kwantung Army from arbitrarily acting on economic matters. While the Kwantung Army complained about policy, they were obliged to compromise on “the Government in full force” system.
In these circumstances of 1934 Prince Chichibu visited Manchukuoto celebrate its imperial system and also Emperor Pu Yi was scheduled to visit Japan. Imperial friendship between Japan and Manchukuo played an important role as political ceremony. Pu Yi, who was inspired by the Kwantung Army declared the unification of Japan and Manchukuo; thus the scheme of the Army was achieved.
At the end of 1934 policy toward Manchuria was renewed through Jiro Minami's assumption of the post of Commander-in-Chief, the Kwantung Army and the establishment of the Bureau for Manchuria. One of the important articles of this policy was the Economic Joint Policy Committee on Japan-Manchuria matters indicated in “the Government in full force” system. This Committee was organized under the subjection of Manchukuo to Japan, completing the basic policy toward manchuria.

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Until September 1939 the Imperial Japanese Army expected that a next World War would break out in 1942. It regarded preparing for the War as well as settling the China Incident as the most important tasks of the country. Why did the army deem it necessary to prepare for the War while it was bogged down in China? And why did it anticipate the War in 1942?
For years the army aimed at eradicating or neutralizing the menace from the north. Soviet Russia was supposed to interfere most vigorously with Japan's implementation of her national policy to build an autarchical block in East Asia. Japan, however, was militarily inferior to Russia. In June 1934 Japanese forces in Korea and Manchuria were estimated as less than third of Russian armies in the Far East. So the Japanese army had to increase its strength against Russia. Its build-up program which started in 1937 was intended to be completed by 1942. After the outbreak of the China Incident in July 1937, the army considered it more urgent to strengthen its troops against the Soviet Far Eastern forces, in order to keep Russia from intervening in the Incident and to prevent her from encouraging anti-Japanese groups in China.
But Japan would remain in an inferior position vis-à-vis Russia in military terms even when she completed her build-up program in 1942. Therefore the Japanese army hoped that Soviet Russia would get embroiled in an European conflict, a next World War. Russia, then, would have to transfer a portion of its troops from the Far East to the European theater, or at least could not send reinforcements to the Far East. The military situation there would then turn favorable to Japan.
It is well known that the army continued to insist on the conclusion of a military alliance with Germany and Italy until August 1939. According to the army's reasoning, the main objectives of this alliance were preventing the outbreak of a World War until 1942, and containing Soviet forces in European theater if the War came about. The army did not think that the China Incident would develop into a World War. It expected that the Incident would have been settled and its build-up plan have been completed when the War broke out in Europe.
The army hoped that the War would offer it an excellent opportunity to fight the Soviet forces in militarily favorable terms. The World War was supposed to come about between Germany and Italy on the one hand, and Britain, France and Russia on the other. Japan should enter the war against Russia, but fight neither Britain nor France. So the war against Russia in the Far East would be a part of a next World War in Europe, but at the same time would be virtually separated from it.
The Japanese Army regarded it as necessary to prepare for a next World War because the War was expected to provide a good opportunity to eliminate the Soviet's threat. The army anticipated the War in 1942 because its build-up program would have been completed and its military position have become better by then. But the actual Second World War did not offer the opportunity to fight Russia, owing to the conclusion of Russo-German Non-Aggression Pact. And the War broke out too early for Japan.

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