Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan (103 page)

T
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's answer was astonishingly evasive and illogical. Throughout the Japan–U.S. negotiations, the Manchurian problem had been a low priority for Hull; never once had he raised the issue of troop withdrawal from Manchuria. Nor had Nomura included Manchuria in his talks with Hull when discussing “China.” Both men always separated Manchuria from the rest of China. Moreover, as historian Sud
Shinji recently pointed out, if Hull had wanted to change the status quo in Manchuria, “he would have brought the Manchurian problem forward on its own in the course of negotiations.”
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T
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knew this but chose to emphasize that the secretary of state was demanding withdrawal from Manchuria because the United States had refused to recognize the Nanking government—a position that Roosevelt and Hull had never altered. After T
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's irrelevant reply, no one at the conference pursued the issue of Manchukuo because they all shared the same misperception that the United States was attempting to change the status quo in that area as well as China proper.

Hara concluded his brief questions to the high commanders by setting the war decision in a broad historical context leading from the war of 1894–95 to the Manchurian Incident of 1931. In Hara's opinion war was preferable to accepting Hull's proposal because:

Hara finished speaking, the emperor remained silent, whereupon T
j
spoke: “Once His Majesty decides to commence hostilities, we will all strive to meet our obligations to him, bring the gov
ernment and the military ever closer together, resolve that the nation united will go on to victory, make an all-out effort to achieve our war aims, and set his majesty's mind at ease. I now adjourn the meeting.”
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At the end of these “minutes” Sugiyama noted that “[t]he emperor nodded in agreement to each explanation that was made and displayed not the slightest anxiety. He seemed to be in a good mood. We were filled with awe.”
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Meanwhile, in another part of the palace, General Sugiyama met with the emperor and briefed him on the plans for the December 8 attacks.
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Between December 2 and December 8, or “X Day,” while the Japanese people remained completely unaware, Emperor Hirohito met repeatedly with his chiefs of staff, questioned his aides about the country's air defenses, reviewed the organization of the fleet, examined war plans and maps, and received reports on the status of all the units moving into position on the various invasion fronts.

VI

In virtually everything he had done since becoming emperor, Hirohito had departed from the precedent set by his grandfather, the Meiji emperor. The drafting of his war rescript, starting in late October, was no exception.

Previous war rescripts had contained cautionary phrases such as “insofar as it is not contrary to international law” and “within the sphere of international law.” Hirohito's contained no such limitations since it had to mesh with the operations plans for two simultaneous surprise attacks: an air assault on the American fleet and naval facilities at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, and a ground landing at Kota Bharu in British Malaya.

From Kota Bharu, Japanese troops were to strike southward down the Malayan west coast, largely avoiding the rain forests and
mountains, to seize Singapore—at the tip of the Malayan Peninsula—linchpin of the British Empire in Southeast Asia and gateway to the resources of the Netherlands East Indies. Japanese forces headed for Singapore needed to violate Thailand's neutrality at Singora (Songkhla), a strategic port north of Kota Bharu on the Gulf of Siam, in the Kra Isthmus area of southern Thailand. The entire southern operation was thus premised on the violation of international law with respect to two major powers—the United States and Britain—and a minor but diplomatically active third power, Thailand. Fully aware of these operational imperatives, and uncertain if Thailand would enter the war on Japan's side rather than Britain's, the emperor and Foreign Minister T
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removed from the draft rescript the clause on respect for international law.
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