The Empire of Japan, also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was the Japanese nation state[d] that existed from the Meiji Restoration on January 3, 1868, until the Constitution of Japan took effect on May 3, 1947.[8] From August 1910 to September 1945, it included the Japanese archipelago, the Kurils, Karafuto, Korea, and Taiwan. The South Seas Mandate and concessions such as the Kwantung Leased Territory were de jure not internal parts of the empire but dependent territories. In the closing stages of World War II, with Japan defeated alongside the rest of the Axis powers, the formalized surrender was issued on September 2, 1945, in compliance with the Potsdam Declaration of the Allies, and the empire's territory subsequently shrunk to cover only the Japanese archipelago resembling modern Japan.
Under the slogans of "Enrich the Country, Strengthen the Armed Forces"[e] and "Promote Industry"[f] which followed the Boshin War and the restoration of power to the emperor from the shogun, Japan underwent a period of large-scale industrialization and militarization, often regarded as the fastest modernization of any country to date. All of these aspects contributed to Japan's emergence as a great power following the First Sino-Japanese War, the Boxer Rebellion, the Russo-Japanese War, and World War I. Economic and political turmoil in the 1920s, including the Great Depression, led to the rise of militarism, nationalism, statism and authoritarianism, during which Japan joined the Axis alliance with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, conquering a large part of the Asia–Pacific;[15] during this period, the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) and the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) committed numerous atrocities and war crimes, including the Nanjing Massacre.[16][17][18][19][20] There has been a debate over defining the political system of Japan as a dictatorship, which has been disputed due by the absence of a dictator,[21] and over calling it fascist. The other suggested terms were para-fascism,[22] militarism, corporatism, totalitarianism,[23] and police state.[24]
The Imperial Japanese Armed Forces initially achieved large-scale military successes during the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Pacific War. However, from 1942 onwards, and particularly after decisive Allied advances at Midway Atoll and Guadalcanal, Japan was forced to adopt a defensive stance against the United States. The American-led island-hopping campaign led to the eventual loss of many of Japan's