Japanese Invasion of China Was Merely Accidental

Or so according to Kentaro Hayashi in an article titled "Japan and Germany in the Interwar Period".

He noted that the Japanese invasion of China was not the planned action of the central organ of the army. Rather, it developed as an independent undertaking of troops dispatched to Manchuria or China proper, and that the army "only followed in their footsteps."

Therefore, the decision of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East that there existed a conspiracy within Japanese government circles, he argued, was incorrect.

What the army did was merely to "improvise" as they went along.

Hmm.