Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
"A third editorial theme of 1928 was that the enthronement of the Showa emperor had inaugurated a new era in which youthful Japan was poised to become the hub of the entire world and to assume the mission of guiding all peoples. . . . This is an age in which Japan bears a global mission. . . . The idea of the universal reign of peace in which each nation would take its proper place in the sun and recognize the leadership of Japan had lain dormant in the writings of Tokugawa-era scholars. . . . . It cannot be overlooked that these tendencies of Japanese nationalism emerged in the late 1920s, on the very eve of the great world economic slump, when Italian Fascism first registered itself internationally and the Nazi Party began its electoral surge in Germany. . . . On balance, therefore, the ideological similarities among the leading revisionist fascist states during the 1930s, the similar psychological roles played by their cult leaders, as well as their historical trajectories of late developments, all seem to be more important than their obvious differences." [Hirohito, p. 200]