MacArthur took the view that a few "militarist" extremists had "hijacked" Japan starting in 1931 with the Mukden Incident, the Emperor was a pro-Western "moderate" who had been powerless to stop the militarists, and thus bore no responsibility for any of the war crimes committed by the Japanese between 1931 and 1945. The American historian Herbert P. Bix described the relationship between the general and the Emperor as: "the Allied commander would use the Emperor, and the Emperor would cooperate in being used. Their relationship became one of expediency and mutual protection, of more political benefit to Hirohito than to MacArthur because Hirohito had more to lose–the entire panoply of symbolic, legitimizing properties of the imperial throne".