Military Intervention in Pre-War Japanese Politics: Admiral Kato Kanji and the "Washington System".

MILITARY INTERVENTION IN PRE-WAR JAPANESE POLITICS: Admiral Kato Kanji and the 'Washington System.' By Ian Gow. New York, London (UK): RoutledgeCurzon. 2004. x, 358 pp. US$60.00, cloth. ISBN 0-7007-1315-8.

This is the first full-length English-language study of Admiral Hiroharu (Kanji) Kato (1871-1939). It traces Kato's career in chronological order from his origins in Fukui Prefecture to his retirement. Kato participated in the Russo-Japanese war, served as a naval attache in London, saw some action in his service during the First World War and the Siberian Expedition and was a junior delegate at the Washington Conference. The bulk of the book, however, is devoted to the 1930 London Naval Limitations Conference debacle. And that is how it should be, since Kato, in his capacity as chief of the Naval General Staff, played a pivotal role in this episode.

Within Japan there was much agitation against the concessions Japan made at the conference. The treaty that was being negotiated, Kato and other opponents contended, would compromise Japan's security. Diverse figures such as Seiyukai (opposition party) politicians, privy councilors, rightwing activists including Ikki Kita and Shumei Okawa, members of the Kokuhonsha, and the great war hero, Admiral Heihachiro Togo, rallied round Kato in an attempt to torpedo the treaty. At first it seemed as though they had laboured in vain. Premier Hamaguchi saw the treaty through to its ratification and Kato resigned as chief of staff. But Hamaguchi's was a pyrrhic victory. In November 1930, he was badly wounded by a rightist, who claimed the treaty as a motive for his attack. Without Hamaguchi's forceful leadership, the era of party cabinets was practically over. The last prewar party cabinet resigned in May 1932 after its leader, Inukai Tsuyoshi, was assassinated. Historians generally believe Kato bears at least some responsibility for these developments because of his stubborn and vociferous refusal to accept the treaty. They condemn him accordingly as a narrow-minded, highly emotional officer with little political sense.

Professor Gow attempts to give a more nuanced picture of Kato, noting that he was "one of the most brilliant officers of his generation" (p. 322), but he does not quite succeed. Kato may have been brilliant but he was also obdurate and had no sense of proportion. How else could he have described the ratification of the London Naval Treaty as "[t]he greatest act of treason of the ruling class" (p. 306)? Kato, moreover, hated liberalism and party politics--this is an aspect Professor Gow fails to address satisfactorily. Long before the London Conference, Kato wrote essays in which he railed against corrupt politicians, Jews and speculators (see, for example, Kokuhon, 6:1, January 1926, p. 11).

His opposition to the treaty had much more to do with this hatred than with any military considerations. Given the huge disparity of industrial potential between Japan and the United States, any naval limitation agreement was better for Japan than no agreement at all, for the latter entailed an unrestrained naval race which Japan would inevitably lose. This is obvious now. It was perhaps less obvious in 1930 but most senior officers in the Navy Ministry were aware of this predicament. Kato, the brilliant officer that he was, chose to disregard it. That was clearly not because of narrow-mindedness but because Kato regarded civilian control--party politicians in charge of the navy--as a greater peril than any foreign threat. From this perspective, the vaunted naval ratio issue was little more than a red herring.

This book is based upon the author's 1984 Ph.D. dissertation, and little effort appears to have been made to bring it up to date. Omissions in the bibliography are glaring, particularly inexcusable being the failure to list (or refer in the text to) the Hiroharu Kato diaries, available in print for a decade (Ito Takashi et al, Zoku kingendaishi shiryo 5, Kaigun: Kato Kanji nikki, 1994).

In addition, the book is shoddily edited. Throughout, italics and macrons are used seemingly at random (for example, p. 346 contains at least ten such typos; p. 347 even more). This is a pity because such trivial mistakes distract from the valuable information the book contains.

CHRISTOPHER W.A. SZPILMAN

Kyushu Sangyo University, Fukuoka City, Japan