This continuation examines how the Second Konoe Declaration, together with a speech by Hideki Tojo, triggered international alarm and decisively severed the path to peace between Japan and the Western powers.
It further reveals that the declaration itself was drafted by Soviet agent Hotsumi Ozaki, exposing a profound act of political manipulation at a critical historical crossroads.

This was a historical crossroads far more critical than the so-called “treat them as non-entities” statement.
Ozaki was drafting the Konoe Declaration.
2016-11-09.
What follows is a continuation of the previous chapter.

In particular, this declaration took on grave significance because, together with the speech delivered on November 28 by then Army Vice Minister Hideki Tojo at the Tokyo Army Hall, it aroused deep suspicion toward Japan within the international community.
In his address, Tojo criticized Chiang Kai-shek for continuing resistance against Japan, arguing that such resistance was sustained by Britain and France, which held interests in Southeast Asia and India, and by the Soviet Union, which sought to exhaust China through war with Japan and ultimately turn it communist.
He further warned the United States, which had remained relatively neutral toward the Sino-Japanese War, and asserted that in order to build a New Order in East Asia, Japan must prepare for a two-front war against the Soviet Union and China.
Because the speech was delivered in a public forum, it was reported sensationally in the press, causing Japan’s domestic stock market to collapse.
Western powers interpreted this as meaning that the East Asian New Order advocated in the Second Konoe Declaration aimed at Japan’s control of all of China, the construction of a Japan-Manchuria-China economic bloc, and the incorporation of all East Asia into Japan’s sphere of influence, along with an intended southward advance into Southeast Asia.
They perceived this as a declaration of a Japanese version of Asian Monroeism, intended to expel Western influence from East Asia, and as the now-revealed true intentions of Japan.
From a broader perspective, it is fair to say that at this moment the path to peace between Japan and the Western powers was decisively cut off.
This was indeed a far more critical historical turning point than the “treat them as non-entities” statement.
Ozaki was drafting the Konoe Declaration.
To be continued.