Last July when Japan declared war on China, Europe could not help feeling quite a keen sense of astonishment. It did not fail to find presumptuous this little country which set about playing the role of the aggressor against a much more vast empire, whose population exceeded its own by several hundreds of millions and whose resources are considered inexhaustible.

In a few months, “frivolous, superficial, grotesquely imitative, little Japan” had become “the predominant factor in the Far East” – “a nation to be reckoned with in all future international combinations affecting Eastern Asia” – “a rising naval power” … Governments that had, in the past, treated Japan with scant courtesy, now seriously considered the question of an alliance with her. Other great Powers paid her the almost equally great compliment of looking upon her as a dangerous rival … Friends and foes alike had begun to grasp the changed situation. The New Far East was born.