Short answers, pulled from the story.
Hakkō ichiu is a Japanese political slogan meaning the divine right of the Empire of Japan to unify the eight corners of the world. The literal components refer to eight crown cords, hanging decorations of a traditional Chinese-style crown, used as a metaphor for the eight directions. It was officially translated for foreign audiences as universal brotherhood.
The term was coined by Tanaka Chigaku, a Nichiren Buddhist activist and nationalist active in the early twentieth century. He assembled it from fragments of a statement attributed to the legendary first Emperor Jimmu in the ancient chronicle Nihon Shoki. Tanaka interpreted the originally universalist phrase as a justification for Japanese imperialism.
Hakkō ichiu entered general circulation on the 8th of January 1940, when Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe delivered a speech popularizing it. The second Konoe administration also issued a white paper that opened with the phrase and declared it the basis of Japan's national policy, linking it to what later became the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.
The hakkō ichiu monument was unveiled in November 1940 in what is now Miyazaki Peace Park in the city of Miyazaki, built to commemorate the 2,600th anniversary of Emperor Jimmu's ascension. It was constructed using stones taken from territories under Japanese occupation, including China and Korea. The structure still stands; the inscription was removed after Japan's defeat at US military insistence, then restored in 1958 under a new name, and the hakkō ichiu characters were added back after the 1964 Summer Olympics following a successful petition by a local tourism association.
After Japan declared war on the Allies in December 1941, Allied governments produced several propaganda films citing hakkō ichiu as evidence that Japan intended to conquer the entire world. The slogan's explicit claim to unify the eight corners of the world made it straightforward to deploy as evidence of Japanese expansionist intent.
On the 6th of December 1938, Japan's Five Ministers Council voted to prohibit the expulsion of Jews from Japan, Manchuria, and China. The council was composed of Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe, Army Minister Seishiro Itagaki, Navy Minister Mitsumasa Yonai, Foreign Minister Hachiro Arita, and Finance Minister Shigeaki Ikeda. Japan subsequently accepted Jewish refugees despite the opposition of its ally Nazi Germany.