Hello, and welcome to the History of Japan podcast, episode 14, The Course of Empire.

I'm back from Japan, in one piece, only moderately jet-lagged, and excited to be doing the show again.

This week, we're going to be discussing the foreign policy of Japan from 1895 to 1940, and will also be discussing the

course of Japanese imperialism, particularly as it relates to China.

Now, since we're getting into events that are potentially within the scope of living memory

for some, and which remain extremely controversial for many, before we go any further, I do just

want to say two things.

First, for the episodes leading up to the Second World War, which include this week's, next

weeks, and the one after that, I'm going to be focusing on explaining the motivations and rationale

behind the actions taken by the Japanese leadership,

at least as best as we understand them.

I'm not going to be discussing anything related to the morality of imperialism or of the Second World War.

If there's interest, I'd be willing to cover those topics at a later date,

but it's outside the scope of what I'm trying to do with the outline episodes.

Second, as a corollary to this, just because I'm relating the rationale of the Japanese leadership

to you does not mean that I in any way endorse or condone that line of thinking.

For the record, I'm against any form of imperialism, including that of Imperial Japan.

Now that I covered my own butt in such a thorough fashion, let's get started.

After the Sino-Japanese War and Russian intervention, which you'll remember from a few weeks

ago, forced the Japanese to return some of the territory they required, the next obvious foe facing Japan was Russia.

Russia had been expanding its sphere of influence in Manchuria, which is the area of China

that's directly north of Korea, and had even began pressing its influence in Korea proper.

...