Friendly rhetoric toward Japan conflicted with the 1924 exclusion of Japanese immigration and the later wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans. Domestic policy supplied foreign audiences with evidence against claims of peace and goodwill. Politicians may believe that domestic language and policy can remain separate from foreign policy, but other states and publics read both together. What a government does at home therefore shapes the strategic image it projects overseas.
Notable Point · 1:00:47-1:01:23
Domestic policy can undo a government's diplomatic message
A closing observation links American treatment of Japanese people at home to the credibility of peaceful messaging abroad.