Tojo, Hideki

Japanese general and premier 1941–44 during World War II. Promoted to chief of staff of Japan's Guangdong army in Manchuria in 1937, he served as minister for war 1940–41 where he was responsible for negotiating the tripartite Axis alliance with Germany and Italy in 1940. He was held responsible for defeats in the Pacific in 1944 and forced to resign. After Japan's defeat, he was hanged as a war criminal.

His main concern was winning the war in China, but both he and the Japanese army felt this was being hampered by the Western powers denying Japan vital resources. He brought Japan into the war to take Allied colonial possessions in the Pacific and Southeast Asia and put Japan in a position of strength in subsequent negotiations. As part of this strategy, he ordered the occupation of Indochina in 1941 and maintained peace negotiations with the USA right up until the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.