By using metaphors of the “family” that were prevalent in Confucian philosophy, [Imperialists] could argue that their Asian neighbors owed them loyalty and obedience and this, in turn, could then justify stiff regulations separating [Imperialists] from their colonized subjects and at times brutal enforcement of [Imperial] rule.

While this discourse on “brotherhood” and “mixed origins” dominated the early years of the empire, advocates of a view of Japanese as “pure blood,” uncontaminated by their inferior Asian neighbors circulated as a minority view.

An ethnically distinguished national consciousness remained, nonetheless, very strong in the domestic consolidation, colonial policies and projections in Asia, and international relations with the West. As the crises in China intensified in the wake of the [Imperial] invasion of Manchuria and as the resistance of Koreans proved to be more durable than the “brotherhood” ideologues had imagined, “pure blood” advocates began to win the day.³²

As total war erupted in China in 1937 and war with the U.S. began in 1941, [Imperial] racial discourse swung hard toward an articulation of Japanese racial superiority based on the idea of Japanese purity.³³ During WWII, [Imperial] racial politics aligned with German racial ideologies and fueled the ideological battles among different races and nation‐states.

[…]

Hitler’s Mein Kampf was also studied by [Imperial] scholars and its first full translation was published in 1932.³⁸ The American business community also became impressed by the propaganda effort, and Edward Bemays, a key CPI member who also published the book Propaganda in 1928, went on to build the first public relations industries in the U.S. Bemays stated that it was possible to “regiment the public mind every bit as much as an army regiments their bodies.”³⁹

The [Imperial] government emulated the U.S. and [Reich] propaganda agencies, and multiple [Imperial] agencies were created and mobilized, including the Cabinet Board of Information, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, military propaganda specialists, Special Higher Police (Tokko Keisatsu) personnel, both public and private media, commercial advertisers, publishers, and writers who all worked to implant and disseminate [Imperial] Japan’s justification of imperial ventures against perceived internal enemies such as communists, socialists, anarchists, and Korean and Chinese nationalist subversives.⁴⁰

[I]mperial ventures in China and other regions were also justified in order to prevent Western Powers’ intrusion in Asia and bring liberty for all Asians from the tyranny of white rule, though [Imperial] Japan’s racial narratives themselves instituted much of the same vision of racial hierarchy of the West that they supposedly disparaged.⁴¹

(Emphasis added.)

Events that happened today (August 19):

1923: Vilfredo Federico Damaso Pareto, one of Benito Mussolini’s educators, perished.
1934: The German referendum of 1934 approved Adolf Schicklgruber’s appointment as head of state with the title of Führer.
1941: The Third Reich and the Kingdom of Romania signed the Tiraspol Agreement, rendering the region of Transnistria under control of the latter.
1942: The Axis successfully repelled Operation Jubilee: the amphibious Allied assault on Dieppe, France.
1944: Paris, France rose against Axis occupation with the help of Allied troops.
1945: The Soviets landed on Maoka to deal with more Axis holdouts. (Coincidentally, the Kuomintang lost against the Communists in the Battle of Yongjiazhen and the Viet Minh, led by Ho Chi Minh, take power in Hanoi, Vietnam.)