4. Showa Japan was poor in natural resources needed for modernization and industrialization
The modernization of Japan, which was still largely a feudal country less than a century before the Showa period, was a period of imitation more than innovation. Western methods of manufacturing Japanese products were well underway before the beginning of Hirohito’s reign. In order to support them, Japan needed to import the sinews of industrial muscle, steel, coal, oil, and rubber, none of which it could produce in quantity within the home islands. The Japanese empire was born out of the lack of these basic materials. To protect it the Japanese nationalists supported the expansion of the military, with the support of the Big Four.
Throughout the 1920s and well into the 1930s, the Japanese industrial base grew steadily, though the majority of its output was targeted to support military expansion. Industrialists profited from modernizing the Japanese armed forces, and the public were reminded of the essential nature of the military to the defense of the empire and by extension, the emperor. The leaders of the government and industry were in lockstep regarding the necessity of defending Japan’s imperial possessions. Without them, the western nations could easily prevent Japan from obtaining the raw materials it needed to dominate the regions within its sphere of influence.