Asia-Pacific : the failure of diplomacy, 1931-1941

In the spirit of ambassadors Grew and Craigie, this chapter searches for diplomatic failings between 1931 and 1941 that contributed to the outbreak of war in Asia and the Pacific. It finds few of consequence. In this sense, this chapter takes its cue from Hull and Churchill. Or, to be more precise, this chapter echoes Hull's and Churchill's above-mentioned responses to charges of diplomatic failings. It not only locates numerous diplomatic success stories; it examines those national policies which set the confines within which the diplomats operated. Those confines were often antithetical to negotiation, and quite often precluded diplomatic agreement. In a nutshell, this chapter proceeds from the assumption that diplomacy does not exist merely to prevent war, and that it would therefore be ahistorical simply to tell the story of a litany of diplomatic failures that led to war in Asia and the Pacific.