Editing Anti-Comintern Pact (section)

===== Japan =====
[[File:Naka yoshi sangoku.jpg|thumb|Japanese propaganda postcard published in 1938, with saying "Friendly Three Countries" and photos of [[Adolf Hitler]], [[Fumimaro Konoe]] and [[Benito Mussolini]]]]
In the Japanese view, the [[Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact]] was a violation of the Anti-Comintern Pact, as Germany had not revealed its negotiations with the USSR to Japan. Subsequently, the Japanese sought to settle the [[Soviet–Japanese Border War (1939)|Soviet–Japanese Border War]] and abandoned any territorial aspirations against the Soviet Union.<ref name="Bosworth-2015" />{{Rp|24}} Japan had mainly intended the Anti-Comintern Pact to be directed against the Soviet Union rather than the United Kingdom, whereas the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact made it clear that the Germans, at least in 1939, were willing to aid the Soviets to the detriment of the western democracies.<ref name="Boog-1998" />{{Rp|40}} In response to this drastic German change in foreign policy and the Japanese defeat at Soviet hands in the border conflicts, the [[Hiranuma Kiichirō|Hiranuma]] administration resigned.<ref name="Bix-2007" />{{Rp|354}}<ref name="Hall-1988" />{{Rp|135}}

Japanese Emperor [[Hirohito]] instructed the subsequent government, led by the Prime Minister [[Nobuyuki Abe]], to be more cooperative towards the [[United Kingdom]] and the [[United States]].<ref name="Bix-2007" />{{Rp|354}}

Ribbentrop attempted to win Japanese support for his ''bloc of four'' with Germany, Italy, Japan and the Soviet Union. The German foreign minister argued that if Tokyo and Moscow were to form a military coalition together with Berlin and Rome, Japan would be free to turn its attention to the potential acquisition of European colonies in South East Asia. However, the ideological barriers were too great for comfort for the Japanese leadership, and Ribbentrop failed to compel them into an alliance with the Soviet Union. He had also put himself forward as a negotiator between Japan and the USSR, but was once again cold-shouldered by both as they began to pragmatically wrap up their differences bilaterally and without German oversight. As a result of the diplomatic shakeup, Japan retreated out of Ribbentrop's anti-British designs. Ribbentrop's pro-Japanese diplomacy, which he had pursued in spite of the German foreign ministry's initial favorability towards China since 1934, was now met with the largest diplomatic distance between Germany and Japan since the Nazis' rise to power.<ref name="Macmillan-1985" />{{Rp|279}}

In the aftermath of the Japanese change of attitude towards a war against the Soviet Union, Soviet-Japanese economic relations improved. [[Shikao Matsumisha]] of the Commercial Affairs Bureau of the Foreign Office and Soviet foreign minister Molotov signaled mutual interest in an improvement of Japanese–Soviet trade relations in October 1939. The two countries agreed to more permanently settle the ongoing question of Japanese fishing in Soviet waters and the payments for the [[Chinese Eastern Railway]] in Manchukuo. The Soviet Union promised that significant amounts of the money received as part of these deals would be invested back into the purchase of Japanese goods.<ref name="Rosinger-1940" />

The Japanese intelligence agencies and foreign service, which had previously supported separatism among the Soviet Union's ethnic minorities, also restricted their activities in this field as a result of the Soviet-Japanese rapprochement.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=von zur Mühlen |first=Patrik |date=1973 |title=Japan und die sowjetische Nationalitätenfrage am Vorabend und während des Zweiten Weltkrieges |url=https://www.ifz-muenchen.de/heftarchiv/1973_3_3_muehlen.pdf |journal=Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte |language=de |volume=21/3 |pages=325–333}}</ref>

Starting with the [[German-Soviet War]], the Japanese loss of interest in war with the USSR had the consequence that Japan was unwilling to open up a second front against the Soviet Union to relieve German efforts,<ref name="Bosworth-2015" />{{Rp|24}} as Japan interpreted Germany's aggression as an insufficient reason to trigger the treaty.<ref name="Mitter-2013" />{{Rp|245}} As a result of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, there was a significant cooling of German-Japanese relations between late 1939 and the summer of 1940, but after Germany's victories in 1940, the elimination of the French and Dutch colonial powers caused Japan, interested in the acquisition of the colonies in question, to approach Germany again.<ref name="Boog-1998" />{{Rp|41}}