Comments by "Winston Smith" (@kryts27) on "Emperor Hirohito: Bold Leader or War Criminal?" video.

When Hirohito broadcast to the Japanese nation, over the radio, he did not declare, "Japan will surrender to the Allies" (as you claimed), but "the war has not necessarily progressed to the advantage of Japan". Obviously a masterly understatement, but also cleverly deflecting his part in orchestrating it.
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@augusthayek4957 Mr Hayek, you are full of diatribe and solipsism. Whether Qing or Republican China did or did not rule Manchuria (at any time) is a moot point, Japan had never ruled it, legally or under occupation, in history before 1931. Furthermore, the last Qing emperor, Pu Yi, was set up as puppet king by the Kwantung army (Imperial army of Japan branch) in the puppet state of Manchukuo (Manchuria) until Japan's defeat in 1945. The US president, FDR, did not force the Japanese to go to war prima-facie, as a result of the oil embargo on Japan in 1940-41, that was in response of Japan's long ongoing invasion of China in 1937 (and atrocities there such as the Rape of Nanking, surprisingly well documented by Westerners there, including a Nazi, John Rabe), and the invasion of Indo-China in 1940 after the defeat of France. It was Japan going on the warpath in this period, not the Americans. I am not going to exonerate Westerners either, seeing that we're discussing twentieth century history. Equally bad as Japan in this era was Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union (until Khrushchev, even though he did not close all the gulags).
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Hirohito narrowly avoided being indicted as a war criminal at the Tokyo War Crimes Trial in 1946, as he probably was. As actual emperor at least he should have abdicated in favour of his young son Akihito, at least for the reason, that it looks bad to continue be the reigning monarch after his country surrendered unconditionally. However, that huge egotist general McArthur intervened, and began to fulminate the fiction that the emperor was an innocent victim of a cabal of military officers (who were serving him during Japan's war in China and the Pacific War).
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@GabeNsApostle Not directly, but you don't have any evidence that Hirohito was not involved either. Hirohito's grandfather, Emperor Meiji, was highly involved in the government he was forming at the time; the Meiji Restoration (wresting rule of Japan from the Shogunate). Again, the Meiji Emperor tended to act from behind the scenes, not more in the open like Western democracies and post-war democratized Japan. Also in Japan, before the defeat, Emperor Hirohito was worshiped like a deity (direct descendent from the sun goddess Amaterasu, mythology). Japanese at the time were willing to die for him unconditionally. Hence the cult of "honourable" warrior death (bushido) and the Kamikaze pilots for example. How can Hirohito's military officers disobey him in such a system? While royalty in other countries may have had the red carpet treatment, it has been a long time since Western culture has been similarly affected, where the king is worshipped as a god. The last were the New Kingdom Egyptian Pharaohs I think.
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Incorrect that the invasion of Manchuria (to the Showa cabal government, the puppet state of Manchukuo), was not known by Hirohito. Almost certainly, by this time (and later), Hirohito was steering military matters (mainly in China), secretly behind the "Chrysanthemum curtain".
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Here is more evidence that Hirohito secretly orchestrated a devastating war against a weak China, leading to the ghastly Rape of Nanking massacre, something you never mentioned in your podcast Simon (for shame). The Imperial Japanese army leadership badly wanted to settle accounts with the Soviet Union in the 1930s, and was less keen on war with China (the one thing Hirohito preferred was war with China). The secret power struggle with the emperor vs. The army was favoured in continuing war with China (and eventually the United States), was resolved in the historically important Battle of Khalkhin Gol in 1939 (where Japan invaded the Soviet Union and had their asses kicked by the Russians).
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