The Diplomatic Diligencies of Miura Yoshiaki as the last Minister of Japan in Mexico on the Threshold of the Pacific War

Abstract

Minister Miura Yoshiaki was the last diplomatic representative of Japan in Mexico at the beginning of the War of the Pacific. The objective of this article is to analyze the conditions and actions carried out by Miura before and after the severance of diplomatic relations on December 8, 1941 as a result of the start of the Pacific War. Within the growing tension between Tokyo and Washington, Miura deployed offensive diplomacy to contain the economic siege that the United States was arming against Japan, seeking to prevent Mexico from aligning itself with those actions. It is a fact that the efforts to endorse the ties of friendship between the two nations were increasingly difficult to maintain due to the conditions of rapprochement of the government of Manuel Ávila Camacho to the directives set by the White House against the Axis powers.