Taking Retreat as Progress: A Reexamination of American Appeasement Towards Japan in the 1930s

Haoze Cen

doi:10.54254/2753-7048/2024.24803

Lecture Notes in Education Psychology and Public MediaOpen access

Taking Retreat as Progress: A Reexamination of American Appeasement Towards Japan in the 1930s

Research Article

Open Access

Taking Retreat as Progress: A Reexamination of American Appeasement Towards Japan in the 1930s

Haoze Cen ^1*

¹ Nanjing Agricultural University

^*Corresponding author: joey.phorcys@gmail.com

Published on 11 July 2025

LNEP Vol.105

ISSN (Print): 2753-7056

ISSN (Online): 2753-7048

ISBN (Print): 978-1-80590-251-5

ISBN (Online): 978-1-80590-252-2

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Abstract

In the early 1930s, as Japan's aggressive actions against China increasingly threatened American interests in the Asia-Pacific region, the United States adopted a policy of appeasement towards Japan's invasion, a policy that persisted until the outbreak of war in 1941. This paper reexamines the U.S. policy of appeasement towards Japan prior to the Pacific War, exploring the motivations and impacts behind this approach. Despite the very close economic ties between the U.S. and Japan before the war, the U.S.'s non-interventionist stance towards Japan's aggression in China still attracted significant global attention. The paper argues that U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's implementation of the appeasement policy was aimed at overcoming domestic isolationist tendencies in order to more effectively engage in the war. By appeasing Japan and stimulating its aggressive ambitions, the policy sought to reverse the domestic isolationist trend, thereby creating a more favorable domestic political environment for U.S. war preparations.

Keywords:

Appeasement Policy, Isolationism, US-Japan Relation, Pre-Pacific War.

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