Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere - History

History

World War II puppet governments ran many countries occupied by Japan — manipulating local populations and economies for the benefit of Imperial Japan and backing the conception of a united Asia in the absence of (or opposed to) European influence. Propaganda claimed that they had liberated these countries for governments of their own (an effect somewhat undermined by these governments' total lack of effective power).

It was an Imperial Japanese Army concept that originated with General Hachiro Arita, an army ideologist who served as Minister for Foreign Affairs from 1936 to 1940. "Greater East Asia" (大東亜, Dai-tō-a?) was a Japanese term—banned during the post-war Occupation—referring to Far East Asia. The new Japanese empire was presented as an Asian equivalent of the Monroe Doctrine, especially with the Roosevelt Corollary. The regions of Asia, it was argued, were as essential to Japan as Latin America was to the U.S.

The Japanese Foreign Minister Matsuoka Yosuke formally announced the idea of the Co-Prosperity Sphere on August 1, 1940, in a press interview, but it had existed in other forms for many years. Leaders in Japan had long had an interest in the idea. The outbreak of World War II fighting in Europe had given the Japanese an opportunity to demand the withdrawal of support from China in the name of "Asia for Asiatics", with the European powers unable to effectively retaliate.

As part of its war drive, Japanese propaganda included phrases like "Asia for the Asiatics!" and talked about the perceived need to liberate Asian countries from imperialist powers. The failure to win the Second Sino-Japanese War was blamed on British and American exploitation of Southeast Asian colonies, even though the Chinese received far more assistance from the Soviet Union. In some cases local people welcomed Japanese troops when they invaded, driving out British, French, and other governments and military forces. In general, however, the subsequent brutality and racism of the Japanese led to people of the occupied areas regarding the new Asian imperialists as equal to or (more often) much worse than Western imperialists. The Japanese government directed that local economies be managed strictly for the production of raw war materials for the Japanese; a cabinet member declared, "There are no restrictions. They are enemy possessions. We can take them, do anything we want."

An Investigation of Global Policy with the Yamato Race as Nucleus — a secret document completed in 1943 for high-ranking government use — laid out that the superior position of Japan in the Greater Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, showing the subordination of other nations was not forced by the war but part of explicit policy. It explicitly states the superiority of the Japanese over other Asian races and suggests that the Sphere was merely propaganda intended to mask Japan's true intention of domination over Asia.

China and other Asian nations were regarded as too weak and lacking in unity to be treated as equal partners. The booklet Read This and the War is Won—for the Japanese army—presented colonialism as a tiny group of colonists living in luxury by burdening Asians, because ties of blood connect them to Japanese, and Asians had been weakened by colonialism, it was Japan's place to "make men of them again."

From the Japanese point of view, one common principal reason stood behind both forming the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere and initiating war with the Allies: Chinese markets. Japan wanted their "paramount relations" in regard to Chinese markets acknowledged by the U.S. government. The U.S., recognizing the abundance of potential wealth in these markets, refused to let the Japanese have an advantage in selling to China. In an attempt to give Japan a formal advantage over the Chinese markets, the Japanese Imperial regime first invaded China and later launched the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.

According to Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo (in office 1941-1942 and 1945), should Japan be successful in creating this sphere, it would emerge as the leader of Eastern Asia, and the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere would be another name for the Japanese Empire.