Questions and opinions on US/Japan relations preceeding WWII

Just finished this book:

http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=22899

...and I have some questions.

1.) If one nation freezes another nations assets is there any sort of appeals process to have the assets unfrozen?
2.) In Japan's case they could have viewed the seizing of their assets as tantamount to theft. Instead of the course they took; trying to negotiate a resolution (which Roosevelt just ignored and stalled) and preparing for war, what would the effect have been both politically and within American public opinion if they'd demanded the return of their assets and given the US, say 15 days to comply or they would sever diplomatic relations? (Recalled their Ambassadors and expelled those of the US) I would think that this would have made the US public understand the seriousness of the dispute and the fact that it would most likely lead to war.
3.) In retaliation, could Japan have frozen US and British assets in Japan and had its puppet government in China freeze US/British assets there? I am sure there were quite a few US/British businesses that had significant assets particularly shipping in the region.
4.) With the assets unfrozen they could have partially made up for the loss of oil and raw materials from the US. This added to their stockpiles would have allowed them to delay the initiation of hostilities.
5.) Britain was particularly vulnerable due to the large amount of rubber, tin, zinc, gold, silver, etc. produced in the region. If Japan enforced a blockade similar to the blockade the British enforced in the Atlantic and Med. they could have quickly seize enough assets to offset those Japanese assets held by British banks and businesses.
6.) Could have the altered political/strategic situation, an ineffectual response by Britain and a US with no diplomatic relations with Japan, altered the Netherlands decision to implement the oil embargo the US desired? Or is it more likely that seeing the political reality that neither the US nor the British could protect the DEI, that the Netherlands would have relented and resumed oil exports to Japan?

Just some food for thought.

 

Thank you for the reply, but I'd really like to flesh out my understanding, (or lack thereof) of what options were available.

Yes, that's obvious. What I would like to know is; were there any accepted protocols at the time for contesting the action. Today, I would think you could go to the UN or World Court and if your case were strong enough, have the asset seizure declared void or illegal. That would not require the seizing party to abide by the decision, but the country that avoided abiding by the decision would have its reputation suffer. Were there any such international bodies, or treaties in place contemporaneously. I know about the League of Nations, but Japan had withdrawn on 27 March, 1933 and the US never joined, but there must have been some mechanism for adjudicating international disputes.

We know where the path historically pursued led. I do think Roosevelt thought he could string Japan long enough for the US to better prepare, and that Prime Minister Konoe thought he could reach a peace agreement with the US before the militarist faction launched a preemptive strike against the west. Roosevelt and Hull strung him along and time ran out. My question is, what if instead of Konoe trying to negotiate a proposal (that basically gave the US most of what it wanted) with the Roosevelt administration, he had instead demanded the release of Japan's frozen assets in the US and threatened a total break in diplomatic relations? Roosevelt knew the US wasn't ready for war, his military commanders warned him of as much. If he didn't have the option of stringing them along to buy time, what would his likely response have been? The papers would have printed the dispute, and Japan breaking relations over their own money being sequestered by the US, I would think would have been viewed quite differently that their attack while negotiations were supposedly ongoing.

No more a point I was wanting to see further discussed. "3.) In retaliation, could Japan have frozen US and British assets in Japan and had its puppet government in China freeze US/British assets there? I am sure there were quite a few US/British businesses that had significant assets particularly shipping in the region."

If Britain and the Netherlands did as historically and followed the United States lead in seizing Japanese assets, could Japan not have seized Dutch oil tankers or British freighters carrying rubber and tin in retaliation and in compensation for the monetary, shipping and material assets those countries held? The loss of money, trade and resources to those two nations would have been serious. Britain was already thinly stretched militarily so they couldn't have done much to stop the Japanese and couldn't have protested the action too stridently since they had seized Japanese assets first.
As for the US, I don't know how extensive US business investments were in China and Japan, but they must have been substantial in China or the Roosevelt administration wouldn't have taken as hard a line with the Japanese. So if the Japanese and their puppet regime in China had responded in kind by seizing US assets, US businesses would have likely placed political pressure on Roosevelt to reverse the asset seizure so their assets would likewise be released. Boarding and seizing US cargo would have been easy since Japan controlled virtually all Chinese ports.

I wasn't suggesting they would get more or any oil from the US in the scenario I suggested. One reason for the seizure of assets was to prevent Japan from shopping elsewhere for oil. No country alone had the capacity to compete with the US, but with the assets that were seized Japan could have acquired additional oil from Mexico (6160) (one option mentioned by US officials), Argentina (3150), Columbia (1465), Peru (1609) or Venezuela (33184)*. The latter's oil production alone was 500% greater than the total production of the DEI and Borneo combined.

*in thousands of metric tons

Japan could trade silk, rubber and tin, all high demand products. I also think when the Dutch saw that Britain and the US were unable to effectively intervene, they would be more likely to acquiesce to Japanese pressure and threats to their overseas holdings, remove sanctions and resume trade. Japan had a two year stockpile of oil, if the shortfall could be partially made up by acquisitions elsewhere they could by time to explore other options.

Again you are correct, but a topic I'd like to explore further. "5.) Britain was particularly vulnerable due to the large amount of rubber, tin, zinc, gold, silver, etc. produced in the region. If Japan enforced a blockade similar to the blockade the British enforced in the Atlantic and Med. they could have quickly seize enough assets to offset those Japanese assets held by British banks and businesses."
Based upon my understanding that many of the US's actions were in an effort to restrain Japanese expansion that would threatened the overseas colonies and access to resources of Britain and the Netherlands in the Far East. The US understood that continued access to the resources in that region and the economic benefit derived thereof by those nations could possibly be crucial to their ability to stay in the war against Germany that all three agreed was the most serious threat.

I agree, they were realists. They also thought that the US and Britain were sufficiently strong and based many of their pre-Pearl Harbor decisions upon US and British guarantees of protection against military actions by Japan. No, one thought Japan was as capable as it was. The rapid fall of Singapore and the Philippines came as a serious wake-up call to the western nations. It should also be noted that the Dutch and the British did not begin destruction of oil facilities preemptively, but only at the point that capture by the Japanese was imminent. It was obvious they were at war on December 7th, yet at Palembang where the majority of Sumatra's oil refineries were located and where about half its crude production came from, no demolition was attempted until 14-15 February 1942 when the Japanese actually attacked. Singapore capitulated on 15 February. On 23-24 January, 1942 Japan landed and seized (largely intact) the largest Dutch oil fields and refineries in Borneo when they attacked Balikpapan. The garrison commander didn't order preparations to begin for destruction of the oil production facilities until 18 January as he prepared to withdraw his forces. What would have occurred had Japan broken off diplomatic relations with the US, had seen the Japanese seize vessels carrying oil and other materials, and realized that despite US and British guarantees to the contrary, they could not protect Dutch possessions? Would they have taken a different tack? What if Japan had offered to stop the seizure of Dutch assets and shipping as soon as the Netherlands released Japanese held assets? What if Japan guaranteed Dutch neutrality and security if they resumed the trade in oil?

 

Unfortunately, that is not how it works - a nation seizing a ship of another nation is an act of war, nor was cash or property seized.

What happens is foreign money is "frozen", it cannot be spent or transferred, but it will still be there when it is unfrozen. Now if a shipping company, say Nippon Yusen Kaisya(NYK) has is monetary assets frozen, it can no longer pay it's bills to provide supplies, like fuel and provisions, for it's ships. Nor can it pay it's docking fees, repair bills, etc. Nor can it pay any outstanding American bank loans. As such, American businesses, to settle their claims, are well within their rights to lay claim to said NYK ships within American jurisdiction.

The work around is to transfer said ships to Japanese governmental control by requisitioning. Thus, seizure of said ships is prevented because the ships are no longer the property of NYK.

And this is exactly what NYK did historically.

Thus, the idea of seizing ships is a non-starter, unless open warfare is the expected outcome of such an effort.

 

The freeze happened because of the seizure of south Indochina, which was a direct threat to Britain.

 

Thank you, this is the type of information I was interested in.

But wasn't Britain stopping and seizing ships and cargoes even if to neutral locations if they only thought said cargo might make its way to Germany? I seem to recall that at one point these actions even strained British/US relations. Did not the Contraband Control Service seize cash, valuables and cargoes?

Thank you, good explanation. I knew the money was still there, but isn't that just semantics? The book that I just read that provoked these questions laid out a pretty convincing argument that since the sanctions weren't having the desired effect, seizing the assets, freezing them, deprived Japan of that capital thereby prevented them from shopping elsewhere. So it wasn't just a matter of the US refusing to export oil, scrap metal, etc. to Japan, the asset seizure prevented them from doing business with other nations.

The Tatsuta Maru is a good example. The passenger liner was on the way to the US and scheduled to port in San Francisco when the US froze Japanese assets on 26 July. The liner turned off to avoid seizure, she fed her passengers, mostly US nationals at the lines expense for the extra days she remained at sea. The US Government advised her that she would not be seized and would be allowed to depart unhindered, so she ported on the 30th, debarked her passengers and prepared to depart, when US Marshals posted a writ of attachment on her. She would be required to post a 5,000,000 dollar bond in order to sail, something she could not do because all Japanese assets in the US were frozen. She was searched on several occasions, because there was a rumor she carried a million dollars in US currency. Nothing was found, but really, if the money was there it was there when she was assured she wouldn't be molested. She was finally allowed to depart on 03 August after surrendering her cargo of 2.5 million dollars in silk.
I do not understand why Japan couldn't reciprocate, and sequester all US, British and Dutch shipping in Japan and China. Instead they just allowed the US to bully them.

 

Vichy French Indochina, a government (Vichy France) Britain didn't even recognize and had attacked on several occasions. If they chose to allow the Japanese to establish bases there is it any of Britain's business? Yes, the US was concerned with Japanese expansion, but I think a good case has been made in the book I referenced, that the US asset seizure was because trade restrictions weren't having the desired effect.

 

Thank you, I will look through them, read those that I have not read before and revisit the thread when finished.

 

It's not single sourced, there are bits and pieces I've picked up from various sources, and dozens of books that contain an indepth lead up to the war. Through the years I've retained these bits that never seemed to fully make sense and have wondered about them, its just the last book put the pieces together, with additional information, and produced a coherent, convincing argument. For instance the Tatsuta Maru bit I mentioned in my reply to Takao comes from "Years of Deadly Peril; The Coming of War 1939-1941" by Henry H. Adams, 1969. Read it first as a thirteen year old (December 1970) and even then; when I believed we were always the good guys in white hats and the bad guys were nothing more than spawns of the devil, the only good Japanese were in hell, etc. I thought what was done to that ship was very shady. I still have the book, a birthday present from our next door neighbor a Navy Commander that had served on destroyers around Guadalcanal and up through the Solomons. We were living on the Naval Support Facility in New Orleans at the time, he used to regale me with stories of naval battles and would take me down to the docks when destroyers ported there and show me around. He and his wife had never been able to have children and my parents had four of us, so they were glad when people borrowed us periodically. We'd sit on the porch most evenings, him smoking his cigar and me sitting on the steps listening to the stories. He'd often come over on the weekends and borrow me for a whole day. We lived next to the Officers Club and we'd come back in the afternoon, he'd drop me off, my mom would feed the kids dinner and then my mom and dad, and he (Gene) and his wife (Iris) would go to the "O" club for dinner and drinks. He retired sometime in 1971 and they moved off base, hated to see him go.
I do thank you for the primary source material however, I love to read, am easily bored and hunger to know everything I can about a subject. I will read every word of what you provided.

 

I stand corrected.

 

the freeze happened after the seizure of the south half. It was then expanded to include oil and other
materials