he United States more tightly to his regime. The Japanese government would not negotiate a settlement with Chiang Kai-Shek, though that would have ended the war, and instead the Japanese believed that if the United States would discontinue its aid to the nationalist government, the latter would be forced to reach a settlement, one that would recognize some type of Japanese territorial gains in China:
All three parties understood the Japanese rationale clearly; the United States refused to cooperate with the Japanese plan. Each month that the Sino-Japanese War continued the Japanese military became more desperate. In the meantime, the Americans interpreted the Japanese signing of the Tripartite Pact of 1940 with Germany and Italy as directed toward the United States. The three nations appeared to have reached a decision to carve up the world among them. Japan's occupation of all of French Indochina seemed to confirm that suspicion.
The Japanese were on a quest for self-sufficiency and empire, and this was being met by increased economic sanctions by the United States. The Japanese military developed a siege mentality and argued that the only solution was war:
When Nazi Germany attacked their traditional foe, the Soviet Union, and seemed the inevitable victor in the late fall of 1941, Japan took the opportunity to eliminate U.S. interference in the Pacific.
The attack on Pearl Harbor was described as an infamous act by President Roosevelt, and there is little doubt that the long-standing desire on the part of America for an apology from Japan derives in part from the nature of the attack that started the war in the first place. Eve since, Japan has been seen as a nation that is living in denial of its own guilt, and much of the world has seen this as arrogance or as a refusal to take moral responsibility for the decisions leading to the war. The issue was revived once more with the approach of the 50th anniversary...