This thesis is a study of the operation of economic factors in precipitating the outbreak of hostilities in Asia with particular reference to the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, the China "Incident" and Japan's war with the West, It is endeavoured to study the operation of these factors principally through an analysis of Japan's economic problems, for Japan is the setting against which they can be viewed most clearly. Hence, there is first of all made a thorough study of the problems indigenous to the Japanese economic and political structure. Next, the manner in which these problems were affected by the depression, the world-wide trend toward economic nationalism and the economic rivalry between Japan and the West in Asia is studied as well as the manner in which they contributed to the successive outbreaks of hostilities at Nukden, at Loukouchiao and at Pearl Harbour. Finally, the parallel problems of the economic rehabilitation of war-torn Japan and of the preservation of peace in Asia are studied. / Arts, Faculty of / Vancouver School of Economics / Graduate

No abstract available. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2006.

University of Macau / Faculty of Business Administration / Department of Finance and Business Economics