This chapter looks at Hirota’s return as foreign minister from 1937 to 1938. This period saw the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War in the wake of the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, and much of the chapter is dedicated to Hirota’s overseeing of the Japanese peace negotiations with China in the early months of the war. Hirota’s negotiations were closely tied to the increasingly populist nature of contemporary Japanese politics. Initial success in the war led to heightened popular expectations and he made increasingly severe demands of the Chinese, a trend that culminated in the Konoe Statement, a declaration that Japan would “no longer treat with” the existing Chinese government. Hirota’s inability to exercise leadership and hold firm in the face of popular and military pressure caused him to be unpopular within the foreign ministry and government. It would also notably cause him to take a largely passive role in response to the Nanjing Massacre; kept fully informed of developments in Nanjing, his reaction went no further than making occasional protests to the war ministry, and this failure to act would contribute greatly to his execution following the end of the war.