Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor brought relief and joy to Britain’s Churchill and reassurance to Stalin’s Soviet Union, while benefiting Chiang Kai-shek’s regime.
The Hull Note may have been a calculated provocation designed to prevent Japan from shifting toward compromise with the United States after Germany’s failure at Moscow, forcing Japan southward instead.
This article examines the deeper geopolitical logic behind the outbreak of war.

Upon hearing of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, Britain’s prime minister rejoiced, believing that the long-desired entry of the United States into the war had finally been achieved and that Britain had been saved.
2016-12-17
What follows is a continuation of an essay by Hasegawa Hiroshi.
This is a genuine scholarly work that every Japanese citizen and people throughout the world should read.
Emphasis in the text is mine.

Even so, regarding the process by which the extraordinarily abnormal Hull Note was suddenly thrust upon Japan, there is still no established theory as of late 2016—seventy-five years later—as to what truly constituted the truth.
The U.S. State Department prepared a provisional agreement proposal intended to buy time and sounded out the intentions of Britain, Australia, the Netherlands, and Chiang Kai-shek’s Republic of China National Government in Chongqing.
Britain, Australia, and the Netherlands agreed, but Chiang Kai-shek’s vehement opposition was conveyed by the American adviser Owen Lattimore to Lauchlin Currie, one of Roosevelt’s aides and a fellow Marxist, resulting in the sudden replacement of the proposal with the Hull Note.
This explanation has so far been relatively concrete, but recently Shigematsu Shiramatsu, author of At That Time, the Aircraft Carriers Were Not There, has offered an intriguing speculation in that book.

According to this view, by late November it had become clear that Nazi Germany was failing in its attempt to capture Moscow, the Soviet capital.
Japan, startled by this setback of its ally Germany, might have shifted toward a major compromise with the United States.
To prevent this and to further provoke Japan into advancing southward, the Hull Note was produced.

In any event, eleven days after receiving the Hull Note, Japan went to war against the United States and Britain, and the Netherlands soon declared war on Japan.
Japan’s operations began with attacks on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, the British-controlled Malay Peninsula, British Hong Kong, and the seizure of the International Settlement in Shanghai under the Republic of China.
The issue of the final notice to the United States being delayed by about an hour due to negligence at the Japanese embassy in Washington—thereby turning what should have been a surprise attack into what was labeled a treacherous assault—is omitted in this introduction.

It is well known that upon hearing of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, Britain’s prime minister rejoiced and felt relieved that the long-awaited entry of the United States into the war had been achieved.
The Soviet dictator Stalin must likewise have been ecstatic that Japan chose a southern advance rather than a northern one.
While the pro-Japanese Wang Jingwei National Government was plunged into grief, documents record that the anti-Japanese National Government of Chiang Kai-shek was filled with jubilation.

To be continued.