 Matsui had told friends before going to Sugamo Prison that at the IMTFE he planned to defend not only himself but also Japan's wartime conduct as a whole. Matsui insisted that Japan had acted defensively against aggression by foreign powers and that Japan's war aims were to liberate Asia from Western imperialism. Concerning the origins of the Second Sino-Japanese War, Matsui called it "a fight between brothers within the 'Asian family'" and stated that the war was fought against the Chinese, not "because we hate them, but on the contrary because we love them too much. It is just the same in a family when an elder brother has taken all that he can stand from his ill-behaved younger brother and has to chastise him in order to make him behave properly."
