British Intelligence and the Japanese Challenge in Asia, 1914–1941

A. Best

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2002
• Print ISBN:
  9781349425983
  9780333945513
• eBook ISBN:
  9780230287280
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Asian History
• Index: History

This is the first full-length study of the role played by British Intelligence in influencing policy towards Japan from the decline of the Alliance to the outbreak of the Pacific War. Using many previously classified records it describes how the image of Japan generated by Intelligence during this period led Britain to underestimate Japanese military capabilities in 1941. The book shows how this image was derived from a lack of adequate intelligence resources and racially driven assumptions about Japanese national characteristics.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• List of Maps
• List of Figures and Tables
• Usages and Abbreviations
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• 2 The British Empire in East Asia in 1914
• 3 The Erosion of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 1914–21
• 4 ‘A Cubist Picture’: The Soviet Menace in China, 1918–27
• 5 Dealing with the Comintern Threat, 1927–31
• 6 From ‘Weak Power’ to Potential Enemy: Japan, 1921–33
• 7 ‘The Situation in the Far East Has Changed Completely’, 1933–37
• 8 The Sino-Japanese War, 1937–40
• 9 The Immediate Origins of the Pacific War
• 10 ‘The Jap is Good’: Epilogue and Conclusions
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index