Japanese Private Sector Banks, 1931-1945: A Business Perspective

摘要

This essay reconsiders the part played by the largest private sector banks in the Japanese economy during the years between the Manchurian Incident (1931) and the end of the Pacific War (1945). In contrast to much of the previous writing on prewar and wartime finance, which places the emphasis on the importance of the state and public policy in directing the actions of the financial industry, this research note gives primacy to the actions the banks themselves took to obtain funds and to use those funds productively and profitably. Drawing on the accounts presented by the six biggest banks in the corporate histories they have published from time to time, I argue that private sector bankers concentrated on trying to build and maintain safe and sound business, and wanted an environment in which business could prosper. While they complied with changes in political conditions and regulations and even at times aggressively pursued new business related to military expansion and war, and while some bank- ers expressed strongly patriotic sentiments, a number of senior executives also voiced concerns that the economic controls introduced by the govern- ment after the outbreak of war in China in 1937 were against the interests of a healthy financial industry, and they lamented the progressive erosion of the discretionary credit decision-making powers of bank managers. By adapting to circumstance and acting opportunistically to make the best of a bad situation, private sector bankers abetted the war-making of the Japanese state.