Introduction

Animosity between China and Japan often displayed in strategic and economic competition today has part of its origins in the historical memory associated with the Second Sino-Japanese War. Current Chinese leadership has encouraged a new nationalism based on the exploitation of Japan’s imperialist past. Four organizations active during the 1930s—the South Manchuria Railway Company, the America–Japan Society, the Foreign Affairs Association of Japan, and the Japan Pacific Association—worked to convince American policymakers to favor Japan over China in Tokyo’s quest for empire on the Asian mainland. The propaganda by those organizations and others influenced diplomacy then, and now their legacy has helped fuel conflict between the two nations.