Between Two Wars: America in the Pacific: The Clash of Two Cultures

Eric Sevareid was one of the most trusted and intelligent of all news casters ever. He narrates this film, starting out by saying that Americans (before World War II) were not interested in Japanese culture, nor did they try to understand why Japan was doing the things it was doing.

Americans ridiculed the Japanese for believing their Emperor was divine and for wanting colonial powers out of Asia, and Asia brought under Japanese guidance. He says the Japanese made more of an effort to understand American needs than Americans did to understand Japanese needs.

'To the Japanese, man and nature are one.'

'The essence of life is pride in self, land and nation.'

The Japanese are shown bombing Shanghai in 1932.

(Just how long World War II lasted is usually considered a given; from 1939 with Hitler's attack on Poland until 1945 with the Japanese surrender. In a way, though, it can be considered as being much longer, starting with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931 through its attacks on China of which the attack on Pearl Harbor was really just one segment of Japan's intentions to bring all of Asia under their control and keep the United States out. Then he goes into much older Japanese history.

The Spanish-American war ended up giving American control of the Philippines, Guam and Hawaii.

'American presence in the Far East had always seemed a threat to the Japanese.' This led Japan to see the United States as 'a roadblock to Japanese expansion.'

Then the film covers Japan's war with Russia in 1905. President Teddy Roosevelt handled the negotiations to end that war and basically he did it in a manner than was very unsatisfactory to the Japanese leading to further ill feelings against the U.S.

Then he talks about Japanese immigration into the United States and how that resulted in further bad feelings against America. American attitude was considered racist by Japan and, bluntly, it was very racist.

Then the United States banned all Japanese immigration and that made matters even worse. This resulted in the traditionalists in Japan gaining power over the progressives in the government. Traditionalism led to militarism and glorification of the Samurai heritage the film notes. The military basically took over control of the government and fear of American Imperialism was everywhere in Japan.

The film also talks about the naval conferences between the two countries and how the results of those led to even more bad Japanese feelings against the United States. Then Japan invaded Manchuria, fighting against the Chinese Nationalists and trying to keep Russia from expanding. Japan was also encouraged in her aggression by the isolationist views of America.



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