Yasue Norihiro, Inuzuka Koreshige, and Japan's Policy toward the Shanghai Jewish Refugees, December 1937–December 1939

Abstract

Chapter Three elucidates how after Japan and Germany signed the Anti-Comintern Pact, and after Japan drove the Chinese Nationalists from Shanghai, the Japanese treated the Jewish refugees in China less harshly than the Nazis wished. Instead of exterminating the Jews, the Japanese tried to take advantage of purported Jewish financial and political power to support Japan's conquest of China and East Asia. From the late 1920s to the early 1930s the Japanese military assumed control over Japan's foreign policy. The military's leading role in determining Japan's foreign policy made it possible for Army and Navy “Jewish problem experts” to convert their ideas into national policy. Colonel Yasue and Captain Inuzuka were either individually or jointly responsible for making Japan's Jewish policy in 1938 and 1939. Japan and Germany had not yet reached an agreement establishing a formal military alliance. This delayed radical and pro-German groups in the military from coming to power.