3 CONFERENCES AT PRAGUE AND BERGEN AND THE LOOMING WAR 327present circumstances it was essential that Britain concentrate all her atten-
tion upon home defence and remove all possible causes of friction with
powers other than Germany.^309The successful closure of supply routes along with other concessions
gained from France and Britain by Japan did little to appease the army
and the extreme nationalists in Japan who were demanding alongside a
policy of aggression in Southeast Asia, ‘a close alignment with the Axis
Powers, and an end to all efforts to “conciliate” Britain and the United
States,’ this last, in the form of Secretary Hull, having protested against
the closing of the Burma route.^310
On June 29, Arita addressed the nation via radio, explaining in his
address the Japanese cabinet’s position in regard to foreign policy. The
army and the extreme nationalists wanted Arita to make a blunt decla-
ration in favour of an ‘“Asiatic Monroe Doctrine” which would demand
the elimination of all Western influence from Eastern Asia and the South
Seas and the bringing of all countries in this area under the political and
military domination of Japan.’^311 Arita’s failure to do so was taken as
proof by the army of the Yonai cabinet’s reluctance to antagonise Britain
and the United States. The Yonai cabinet, having lost the confidence of
the army as declared by General Shunroku Hata, the Japanese war min-
ister, on July 16 upon his resignation, promptly resigned. A new cabinet
was then formed under Prince Konoe who had quit his position as presi-
dent of the Privy Council on June 24 in order to organise a single politi-
cal party of the fascist type.^312
Mitchell and Holland noted that Konoe’s selection of Matsuoka
Yōsuke as foreign minister and the appointment of General Tojo and
Admiral Yoshida as ministers of war and navy respectively, signalled that
the new Japanese government would ‘pursue an aggressive foreign policy
in line with the wishes of the Armed Services’ and that most observers
were ‘confident’ that this policy would be focussed on the extension of
Japanese control to Southeast Asia.’ It was also widely expected that the
(^309) Ibid.
(^310) Ibid., 4–5.
(^311) Ibid., 4.
(^312) Ibid. See also ‘Resignation of Japanese Cabinet: New Government Expected to Have
Pro-Axis Tinge,’ Singleton Argus, July 17, 1940; and H. O. Thompson, ‘Japan Swings to
Axis Tie,’ Madera Tribune, July 16, 1940.