"Nevertheless, China was unfortunately unable to understand Japan's real position, and it is greatly to be regretted that the Sino-Japanese War became one of long duration"
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“Nevertheless” does a lot of laundering here. Tojo opens with the posture of a reasonable man forced into regret, then quietly erases the agency of the party that chose war. The sentence is engineered to relocate responsibility: China “was unfortunately unable to understand,” Japan merely had a “real position” that, if properly grasped, would have prevented the mess. It’s the rhetoric of inevitability dressed up as diplomacy, a familiar move in imperial apologetics: if the victim had only been more perceptive, the aggressor wouldn’t have had to escalate.
The real tell is “greatly to be regretted” paired with the complaint that the war became “one of long duration.” The regret isn’t moral; it’s managerial. Long wars are expensive, destabilizing, and politically messy. Tojo’s phrasing frames suffering as an operational inconvenience rather than an ethical catastrophe, sidestepping the war’s brutality by narrowing the problem to timeline and misunderstanding.
Context sharpens the intent. Tojo, a career soldier who would become Japan’s prime minister during the Pacific War and later be executed as a war criminal, spoke from within a military culture that justified expansion as security and “order” in Asia. “Japan’s real position” is code for strategic entitlement: access, influence, resources, and the right to dictate terms. The line reads like a memo turned into a public alibi, trying to make conquest sound like miscommunication - and to make endurance, not invasion, the true tragedy.
The real tell is “greatly to be regretted” paired with the complaint that the war became “one of long duration.” The regret isn’t moral; it’s managerial. Long wars are expensive, destabilizing, and politically messy. Tojo’s phrasing frames suffering as an operational inconvenience rather than an ethical catastrophe, sidestepping the war’s brutality by narrowing the problem to timeline and misunderstanding.
Context sharpens the intent. Tojo, a career soldier who would become Japan’s prime minister during the Pacific War and later be executed as a war criminal, spoke from within a military culture that justified expansion as security and “order” in Asia. “Japan’s real position” is code for strategic entitlement: access, influence, resources, and the right to dictate terms. The line reads like a memo turned into a public alibi, trying to make conquest sound like miscommunication - and to make endurance, not invasion, the true tragedy.
Quote Details
| Topic | War |
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