According to the Dissentient judgment of Justice Pal "Whether or not we accept this definition of self-defense, this at least rep- resents the honest view of a statesman of very high position. This should help us at least in determining the bona fides or otherwise of statesmen and politi- cians of other countries if they professed to have taken similar view of self-de- fense, though that country might have been worsted in the resultant war. We shall come to this later. Here, at this stage, we are only concerned with the question as to how to view the action taken by the United States in helping China against Japan. If it was an act of belligerency, it does not matter whether it was aggressive or defensive, the two countries would no longer, in the eye of law, be at peace. It was not an act of belligerency only if there was no war between China and Japan. We shall proceed on the footing that these were not acts of belligerency so as to disturb the peaceful relation between the United States and Japan at this stage.
After a series of diplomatic moves, the United States began to take mea- sures, just short of war, against Japan. In July 1938, it laid a "moral embar- go" on the export of aircraft to Japan. In July 1939, after the introduction of Senator Vandenberg's resolution, Secretary Hull served notice that the com- mercial treaty of 1911 would expire at the end of six months. In the summer of 1940 the United States began to impose export restrictions which, though they were also designed to support the American armament program, brought a large part of their exports to Japan under control. In June 1941 an Ameri- can political adviser was appointed by General Chiang Kai-shek; Americans were sent to reorganize traffic on the Burma Road; American aviators under General Chennault were allowed to resign from the United States' armed forces and to volunteer with the Chinese Army. In August 1941 an American military mission under Brigadier General John Magruder was sent to China. On July 26, 1941, the United States froze Japanese assets in the United States for the purpose of bringing all transactions with Japan under the con- trol of the government. This was declaration of economic war and certainly was not a neutral be- haviour. Along with the other economic and military measures taken at the same time by Australia, the Netherlands, and Great Britain, it was what the Japanese called it: an 'anti-Japanese encirclement policy.” The U.S.'s violation of Neutrality agaist Japan equals The U.S. declaration of war against Japan. so Japan can conduct self-defensive war against The U.S.