Could Japan buy natural resources from European colonies before WW2?
score:6
It could, and they pressured for instance the Netherlands (cabinet in exile) to sell them more (via the Royal-Dutch Shell), threatening to invade the Dutch East Indies in case their request was not satisfied.
But the Netherlands largely refused fearing that they'd be diverting supplies from allies to a potential enemy. On Nov 12, 1940, two Dutch companies (Shell and Stanvac) agreed to provide Japan (only) with a third of the supply Japan was demanding from them. Moreover, the contract specified that Japan was to arrange for tankers to pick up the oil.
The British then applied behind the scenes pressure convincing a lot of third party tanker owners not to ship to Japan, so ultimately Japan was not even able to pick up the oil that was contracted with the Dutch. (This does somewhat reminds me of how Maersk [openly, though] embargoed Russia, recently, even though technically they aren't required to.)
Additionally, the contract was in US dollars, and in late July 1941, the US froze the relevant Japanese accounts (in response to them taking over Vichy Vietnam territory). So further payments for the Dutch oil could not go through either, from then on. (Think how Bank of Russia is presently sanctioned.) The last Japanese tanker with Dutch oil sailed in early August.
Reference: Irvine H. Anderson, Jr., "The 1941 De Facto Embargo on Oil to Japan: A Bureaucratic Reflex", Pacific Historical Review, https://www.jstor.org/stable/3638003
Upvote:-2
You're mixing two elements that are concurrent in the war, but not complementary. This false premise leads to your question.
On one hand, the fact that Japan needed resources for war and even during time of peace. On the other hand, the fact that Japan wanted to control European colonies. But the first hand is not the only cause of the other hand.
The main cause for the war is the idea of a powerful Japan able to control China and parts of Asia and Pacific. For that, two things are necessary:
- Secured access to raw material
- Geographical security
The problem is that USA pressured British and the Netherlands to enforce the oil embargo against Japan and to keep opened the road to supply China through Burma. So Japan was forced to attack all the European coloniesto secure raw material access.
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