But despite the sweeping nature of these provisions, the business
houses managed to keep a fair amount of independence. Their own men
took key positions in many of the agencies that were enforcing the
control measures. In the field of capital investment, they could still
tip the scales. They successfully resisted army pressure for outright
state control and operation of industry. Nationalization of the vital
electric power industry, for instance, over which they fought long
and bitterly, was finally put through only part way, and has been a
subject of continued dispute.
So it was not the military leaders alone, but the military leaders in
an uneasy partnership with the businessmen and the party heads, who
carried out the wartime economic program. The army fascists charted the
program, it is true, but they were not allowed to run it in their own
sweet way. The army ruled in China, as it had in Manchuria. But it was
not the unchallenged dictator at home. There, it shared power with “big
business.” And big business, despite war restrictions, still operated
its own enterprises and still reaped its dividends.