ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the position of Japan and the US in South America and discusses Japan’s interest at the meeting in Rio de Janeiro and the strategy taken by its diplomatic corps. Japan’s diplomatic corps in Latin America experienced the most intense weeks of the war before and after the Third Meeting of Consultation of Ministers of Foreign Affairs in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, several American republics, one after the another, broke diplomatic relations with Japan, expelling Japan’s diplomats and officials and taking abusive measures against the local Japanese population such as confiscation of their assets, freezing their bank accounts, internment and deportation. The Southern Cone’s attitude was highly praised in Japan and read as evidence of their affinity with the Axis’ cause. The extant literature on the neutrality of the Southern Cone has emphasized that it was tilted towards the Allied Powers.
