major political party, was the first commoner and the first professional politician of the new generation to become Premier. Following his assassination by a fanatic in 1921, cabinets came and went with bewildering rapidity, some backed by one economic empire or another, some more influenced than others by army and navy interests and more inclined to a strong foreign policy. But until the sudden collapse of party government in 1932, the general tendency was for the government to reflect the dominance of business interests over the other groups that constituted the ruling elements in Japan.
The Japanese business men of the 1920’s, influenced by the philosophies of the victorious Western democracies, tended to look with disfavor on the high taxes required for large naval and military establishments. They were also inclined to believe that economic expansion—building up a great export trade and acquiring economic concessions abroad through diplomacy—was less costly and more profitable than colonial expansion by war and conquest. This seemed particularly true in China, the chief field for Japanese expansion. The Chinese, with a newly awakened sense of nationalism, were beginning to boycott foreign merchants whose governments were considered to be pursuing an aggressive policy against China. Consequently, military intervention in China cost the double price of lost markets and increased military expenditures.
The business men, acting through the government they now controlled, soon started a reversal of the old policy of colonial expansion through military force.