As foreign minister, Hirota received regular reports from the War Ministry about the military's atrocities such as the aforementioned Nanjing Massacre, but lacked any authority over the offending military units themselves. Nonetheless, the tribunal condemned Hirota's failure to insist that the Japanese Cabinet act to put an end to the atrocities. Other possible factors in Hirota's sentence included his signing of the Tripartite Alliance, and the antipathy of China's Kuomintang government towards the "Hirota Sangensoku", which they viewed as providing justification for Japan's aggression against China in the Second Sino-Japanese War (which began during Hirota's second term as Foreign Minister).