Japanese slave labor system (beginning c. 1942)

Beginning in 1942, Japan rationalized the slave labor system that existed in Korea and Manchukuo and extended it to all its occupied territories. Laborers, often relocated to work camps near mines, factories, construction projects, were forcibly conscripted from across Japanese-occupied Asia to extract the raw materials and manufacture the goods needed for the Japanese war effort. At its height, this slave labor system encompassed tens of millions of Asian civilians as well as hundreds of thousands of Allied POWs. It was the largest slave labor system in history, surpassing chattel slavery in the Americas and the slave labor system established by the Nazis in eastern Europe. Those enslaved by the Japanese were worked under brutal conditions, with casualty rates often exceeding 25% and being accompanied by starvation, beating, and injury.

The introduction of slave labor on a massive scale in 1942 was a direct result of the labor shortages in Japan as a result of the war. Japan was at a disadvantage in the Second World War, as it had a comparatively small population and, as a result, mobilizing a large army created a severe labor shortage. Labor shortages already existed as a result of Japanese commitments in the China Theater, but the expansion of the conflict into the Pacific and Southeast Asia further strained Japan’s manpower resources. To mobilize more men as soldiers, Japan needed to replace their labor in factories, mines, farms, etc. Japan replaced its own labor reservoirs with slave labor drawn from areas it occupied. These slaves worked in the mines, fields, and factories so that Japanese men could fight the war.

The rapid creation of the world’s largest slave system was possible because the Japanese viewed other Asians and foreign POWs as their racial inferiors. Japanese leaders largely subscribed to the race theory of Shumei Okawa, who held that the ‘Yamato race’ of Japan was superior to all other racial groups and, as the most developed of the ‘Asiatic races’, Japan should dominate Asia. This race theory justified the treatment of non-Japanese as subhuman, including their enslavement, by making the domination of others by the Japanese seem like part of the natural order.

The Japanese slave system was crucial to the longevity and size of the Japanese war effort in the Second World War. If Japan was restricted to only its own labor resources, it could not have fielded so large an army and navy. Moreover, Japan would have been unable to produce war materiel at a sufficient rate without using slave labor to extract raw resources and manufacture necessary goods. The Japanese war economy was dependent upon slave labor and could not have been sustained with free labor, as the resultant increase in the demand for consumer goods would have exceeded the capacity of the Japanese economy. By supplying labor while keep demand for consumer goods extremely low, through intentional privation sometimes extending to starvation, slave labor allowed Japan to maintain an economy and a war machine far larger than its population and resources could have otherwise sustained.