Japan is extremely poor in natural resources, and the situation was not much different in the pre-World War II era. Consequently, Japan had to depend on trade heavily to function as a modern nation, and it was a serious and vital issue for Japan to keep all crucial strategic resources, particularly oil, coming in to it from the outside world. If the route for Japan to obtain these materials was cut off, and therefore, the strategic resources were stopped from coming to Japan, there would basically be only two choices left for Japan. One is to lower the level of function as a modern nation to where it could meet the level of domestic productivity for natural resources. And two is to go out actively and find a way to gain what it needed to maintain its function as a modern nation. The conflict and negotiation between the US and Japan in the pre-World War II period illustrates a good example of the case and explains why Japan went to war against the US. The US, the biggest oil supplier for Japan at the time, imposed the oil embargo on Japan in July, 1941, and it helped the Japanese to make up their minds to fight against the Americans. Thus, in a way, the attack on Pearl Harbor was not a surprise one at all; it was a necessary result of the conflict and negotiation.
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From 1939 to 1941, the US gradually tightened the level of economic sanction. Ironically, however, such squeeze could not deter Japan’s aggression but rather provoked it to take more aggressive actions instead [11]. The vicious circle of retaliations and eventually resulted in the collapse of the US-Japan relationship.
In 1939, the US notified Japan that it would renounce the Treaty of Commerce and Navigation that was signed by both countries in 1911. President Roosevelt, then, went on to the imposition of partial embargo of gasoline for aircraft and scrap-metal on Japan in July 1940. Japan countered the partial embargo by advancing its troops to the northern Indo-China, and the US matched the Japan’s expansion with the addition of more subjects to the list of partial embargo. This vicious circle of retaliations escalated and reached its peak when Japan moved even into the southern Indo-China in July, 1941 and the US replied to it by freezing the Japanese assets in the US and, furthermore, by the complete oil embargo on Japan [12]. As a result, the Japanese leaders found themselves in an extremely difficult situation in which they had to make their decision out of two options: to bow before the US, or to fight a desperate war against the US.
At the time there were mainly three issues between the US and Japan to be solved in the negotiations [13].
(1) Tripartite Pact of Alliance: The US urged Japan to withdraw from the alliance with Germany and Italy.
(2) Southern Indo-China: The US demanded Japan to withdraw from the southern Indo-China.
(3) China: The US demanded Japan to withdraw from China.
Among these points, there was a room for both countries to come up with compromising plans about the first two issues. However, Cordell Hull, the US Secretary of the State, was very reluctant to make any compromise on the third issue, namely about China. At this point, the Japanese leaders still had a little hope to settle the issues by negotiations so that the war would be avoided. The Japanese side proposed some plans, too. However, the US eventually refused to accept any plans presented by Japan and replied to Japan with the final proposition called the “Hull Note,” which contained only US original demands on issues on November 26th, 1941. As a result, the war became inevitable.
