I was hesitating where to put this thread, as it could also have been placed in the "civilisation and community"...
I had a vague remembering of this liberal period from former reading, but it was confirmed again when I looked to the story of General Ishiwara on the ARTE +7 channel...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji_IshiwaraAnd this interesting film:
http://vimeo.com/52408583In fact the film showed this liberal period from the Twenties till the Thirties and it ended nearly as in Germany with the American economic crisis. It was my thesis and I found it confirmed by historical reading that the real breaktrough of the Nazi party came for a great deal during the difficulties in Germany in 1931, while the German economy was so connected with the American investments (due to the Dawes plan?)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawes_PlanAs in Japan, which was also recognized in the club of the big powers, with the Locarno pact Germany was also rehabilitated in the circle of the nations.
The recent history of Japan:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/japan_quest_empire_01.shtml"As in Japan, which was also recognized in the club of the big powers"
From the BBC article:
"Thus, after joining the victorious Allies in World War One, Japan was granted Germany's Asian colonial territories under a League of Nations' mandate. The territories consisted of Tsingtao, on the Chinese Shantung Peninsula, and the formerly German-held islands in Micronesia.
At long last it seemed that the unequal treaties and the triple intervention had been avenged - Japan had been allowed into the 'big power club', and for now she felt secure. Talk of further expansion died away."
From the BBC article:
about the liberal Japan:
"Deadlock
Until the late 1920s Japanese leaders generally supported the ideal, if not the practice, of economic liberalism. Their attempts to integrate the Japanese economy into a liberal world order, however, became frustrated in the early 1930s when the depressed western economies placed barriers on Japanese trade to protect their own colonial markets."
And thus as in Germany sparked by the economic crisis in the US the same happened in Japan?
In the ARTE film there were examples from the "liberal way" of life during the Twenties copied on the American way of life and not appreciated by the old "clique" of traditionalists. There came a counter reaction in the Thirties with the Nationalists and militarist tradionalists even with propaganda films debunking the "entartete" way of "modern" western life...
Kind regards, Paul.