Opinion was spreading within the army in the early months of 1940 that they could not win the war and had to give up and pull out. Just then Hitler took offensives on the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Great Britain and France in the last days of April and May. France capitulated and the British army was kicked out of the Continent at Dunkirk. A change of mood took place in the army.
"Most fundamental was the sense of frustration with the long, drawn-out war with China. The war was draining national resources and it was not resulting in any tangible benefits...The Japanese fascination and even obsession with the idea of distancing themselves from the Anglo-Saxon nations and identifying with Germany or the Soviet Union was an emotional response to the frustration of a long war, and had little to do with a specific programme for solidarity with revisionist forces in the world (Akira Irie, The Origins of the Second World War in Asia and the Pacific, Longman, 1989, pp. 84-5.)"

Irie's book is an excellent treatise of Japan, dealing with it in broad, multinational context. But it has a flaw, and what the flaw is is well suggested by the title, Origins. It does not deal with the dis-origins and non-origins; that is, it was not a straight line from the Marco Polo Bridge to Pearl Harbor. There had always been in Japan strong forces and opinions opposing the hawks.

In passing Irie is astute and keen enough to observe that "Thus from the very beginning China identified itself with international law and order and sought its salvation through the support of other nations and world public opinion. A country which, throughout most of the 1920s, had been divided, unstable, and revolutionary, challenging the existing order of international affairs, was almost overnight transforming itself into a champion of peace and order, pitting itself against another which hitherto had been solidly incorporated into the established system but which could now be accused of having defied it (p. 11.)"

To be continued

Michi,

Of course, I now see it: Japan was pushed into the war.

And if Japan hadn't bombed Pearl Harbour then the Americans would have bombed it anyway.

History The Michi Way. It should be taught in every school.

Continued.

"Japan would never have entered it (the Pacific War) had the armed forces kept out of politics, or, failing this, if the army had been content to allow the Foreign Ministry - its quality was impressive - unimpeded control of the handling of Japan's relations with China and the West during the 1930s...(Richard Storry, A History of Modern Japan, Penguin Books, 1968, p. 237,)"
Masamichi Inoki, professor of Kyoto University, said, "Japanese field-grade officers and those higher in rank (generals) of prewar Showa were generally much inferior to their American counterparts."
Ambassador Grew and British Ambassador Robert Cragie were of the same opinion that the Pacific War could have been avoided.
Read my two comments, one on Charles Beard, President Roosevelt and the Coming of War, 1941: Appearances and Realities and one on Hamilton Fish, FDR, the Other Side of the Coin: How We Were Tricked into World War II, amazon usa.

Japan proposed and entered into talks with the US. One of the things that Japan wanted was that the US exercise its influence on China to sit and seriously engage in talking with Japan for peace. Ikuhiko Hata is one of the authorities on the second Sino-Japanese War. He says 60 percent of the blame for the drawn-out war was on Japan, and 40 on China. So Chiang Kaishek too had to pay the price. The communists expanded their areas of influence and ultimately took all over China. But Chiang Kaishek and Mao Zedong were brothers. Chiang did genocide in Taiwan and Mao in Tibet and Inner Mongolia.

To be continued.

Continued.

My mother knew a Kusunoki Masashige. I heard about him. He was different from the wikipedia's one.
A cousin of mine lost his mother, at the age of six months, in July, 1942. Five months later, in December, his father was conscripted. I heard from my mother how he went out to go to a camp. Suddenly at the door he burst into wild, violent, and hysterical wailing and crying. My mother said she had never seen a man cry so violently before or since. He cried through wailing and tears, "Please look after Aki, will you, please?" He walked to the station to get registered with Matsue Infantry Regiment.
He did not come back. He died about six miles off Kolombangare, a Solomon Island, at 9:30 p.m. on August 6, 1943, when the US Navy officer John F, Kennedy and his men were drowning in a sea near-by as their torpedo boat had been sunk a few days before.

I heard about the mother of another Kusunoki Masahige. An ucle-in-law of my wife's was a junior high school student. He was talking with his neighbors, a couple. The couple was doing some rice paddy work. A man came from the town office and told them that he was there officially to inform of their son's death. The mother sank down to the muddy water, speechless and unable to hold herself.

To be cotinued.

The statue and the story of Kusunoki Masashige is interesting. The impressive statue is based across from the Emperors Palace in Tokyo.

As I understand Masa means truth in Japanese.