Japan

### Government

Unitary parliamentary semi-constitutional monarchy under a one-party totalitarian military dictatorship

### Head of government

Taketora Ogata

**Japan**, officially the **Empire of Japan**, is a country in eastern Asia possessing colonies across the Pacific Ocean and Asian mainland, sharing its only fully-administered *de jure* land borders with National China and Russia through its colony of Korea, and with Thailand, Insulindia, and the Philippines through its colony of Marai. It is the founder and *de facto* leader of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.

## History

### The Taishō-Shōwa Democracy

#### Era of Popular Violence (1905-1918)

The modern era of the Japanese Empire began with the end of a dark age known as the Thirty-One Years. After the Russo-Japanese War, much of the general populace broke out in discontent despite Japan's unexpected victory, expecting to have gained much more in terms of territorial concessions and monetary compensation. The movement against the war would eventually culminate in the Hibiya Riots, the first incident in a wave of public unrest known as the Era of Popular Violence. With the death of the Emperor Meiji in 1912, and the ascension of his successor, the Emperor Taishō, Japan would enter the peak of its instability as it entered and left the First Weltkrieg, forcing Prime Minister Katsura Tarō to step down and creating what historians call the "Taishō-Shōwa Democracy": a period where political parties held increased power over the oligarchy, leading to the apex of Japan's democratic system as Japan entered the First Weltkrieg.

#### Great War Bubble (1918-1923)

Despite the Japanese finding great success in the East Asian and Pacific fronts, occupying the German ports of China, the war ultimately ended in failure for Japan's allies in 1919. Undeterred, and facing mass riots and economic instability at home, Japan would refuse to sign the Treaty of Versailles after their claims to these territories was rejected, and the war would not officially end until 1921 with the unpopular Tsingtao Accord, forcing it to withdraw from Manchuria and the Shandong peninsula.

Though Japan had experienced a phenomenon called the "Great War Boom", the end of the Weltkrieg, alongside the Russian Civil War and the collapse of the Republic of France, would pop the financial bubble Japanese companies had created and put an end to the short-lived period of economic growth, putting Japan in both political turmoil and economic turmoil. As the economic crisis would worsen throughout the decade, many would point out the inefficiencies within the relationship between the Privy Council and Imperial Diet, and many nationalists would come towards the rising tide of militarism, viewing Japan's newfound democracy as a failure. Emperor Taishō himself would become struck deeply with mental illness, and Crown Prince Hirohito would become sesshō in his place.

#### Great Kantō Earthquake and the Akagari Jidai (1923-1926)

The situation would be only worsened by the Great Kantō Earthquake of 1923, spawning firestorms across much of Honshū and leading to outright violence across the island, as both syndicalists and ethnic Koreans would be purged and blamed for inflaming the damages in the ensuing Kantō Massacre. Communard-inspired syndicalists, provoked by the violence and wave of instability, would attempt an anarchist general uprising — one of them, Namba Daisuke, would attempt to assassinate Prince-Regent Hirohito in the Toranomon incident, leading to the collapse of the second Gonnohyōe Yamamato cabinet.

Giichi Tanaka, leader of the prominent Choshu faction of the Imperial Japanese Army, would be appointed as the new Prime Minister to stabilize Japan, in a controversial vote that would split the former ruling Seiyūkai Party into two factions, with the pro-Tanaka Seiyūhontō Party becoming the new ruling party in the following elections. Prime Minister Tanaka would declare martial law across the country and drastically rolling back political rights against those seen as dissidents, passing the "Peace Preservation Law" to allow the state to pursue the death penalty against syndicalists and socialists, leading to his premiership being consumed by mass kidnappings, executions, and purges, leading to it being known as the "Akagari Jidai", or the "Red-Hunting Period".

#### Shōwa 1 Crisis (1926)

Despite Tanaka's heavy-handed measures against dissidents, Japan's own stability would only further derail after the British Revolution and subsequent outbreak of the Great Depression in America. Japan's economy would once again enter free-fall, further provoked in 1927 where, less than a year after the accession of the Emperor Shōwa, an investment bubble in the Bank of Taiwan would burst, worsened by the concurrent political crises and rising inflation after the earthquake, forcing it to be bailed out by the Bank of Japan and ultimately weakening both banks, causing a chain reaction in the Japanese banking economy. The Mitsui zaibatsu would be implicated in the crisis, as Shigeaki Ikeda, director of Mitsui bank, withdrew all funds from the Bank of Taiwan and contributed to the collapse. The director-general of Mitsui, Takuma Dan, would be assassinated by the far-right Ketsumeidan, after triggering even more backlash following a business summit with German Empire officials, as a part of a new wave of extremism against both Japan's corporate elite and the German foreign establishment.

This, alongside Tanaka's failures to secure Chinese interests in the wake of a German military intervention, saw him and his Seiyūhontō supporters being increasingly seen as weak and vulnerable, as the Seiyūkai Party allied itself with its historical enemies in the Kenseikai Party to depose Tanaka and restore constitutional government. Forming the Second Movement to Protect the Constitution with the indirect support of the Emperor Shōwa, Tanaka would be forced to resign, lest he face his outright overthrow.

### The New System

#### May 15th Incident and the Longest Winter (1936-1937)

upon the assassination of Seiyūkai prime minister Tsuyoshi Inukai.