Markets and Diplomacy: the Anglo-Japanese Rivalries over Cotton Goods Markets, 1930–36

Abstract

In the Great Depression years Japan’s rapid trade expansion created serious trade frictions with many countries and territories. Great Britain, along with the British Commonwealth countries, the British colonies, as well as the United States, the Philippines and France, among others were faced with the problem of the influx of cheap Japanese goods. In the history of Anglo-Japanese relations of the 1930s, commercial rivalries and the resultant worsening of mutual images between the two countries played no small part. The Great Depression, the Ottawa Imperial Conference (1932), the failed World Economic Conference in London (1933), the Manchurian Incident (1931) together with Japan’s subsequent withdrawal from the League of Nations (1933), Japan’s renunciation of the Washington Naval Treaty (1934) and its decision to walk out of the London Naval Conference (1936) were the events that provided the backdrop against which the trade wars – in the form of currency devaluation, quota systems, reciprocity, abrogation of commercial treaties, trade limitation and upward adjustment of import duties – took place.