By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers

The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere Part One Of Two

Drawing on widely accepted ideas about racial hierarchies, regional economic blocs, and economic planning, the sphere’s advocates envisioned Asia as a “familial community” that would free itself from European exploitation under the leadership of an advanced Japan. Each nation would perform its economic role according to its natural abilities, coordinated by a planning system that would ensure a share in common prosperity for everyone.

 

Pan-Asianism

The Opium War of 1839–1842 was a watershed in the history of Asian–European encounters. The British victory led to the recognition, throughout East Asia, of Europe as a common threat. At that time, intellectuals and politicians throughout the region began to consider the questions of “Asia” and Asian solidarity. Intending to give the concept of solidarity substance, they began exploring Asian cultural commonalities and the common historical heritage of the continent. Scholars have pointed out that East Asian countries had long interactions before the nineteenth century. This took the form of an interstate system centered on China. It was this Sinocentric system (sometimes also known as the tributary system) the Western powers had to accommodate when they first came into contact with East Asian states. But it was the acute sense of crisis brought about by the Chinese defeat in the Opium War that forced Asian writers and thinkers actively to pursue the agenda of a united Asia, an Asia with a common goal—the struggle against Western imperialism.

The Japanese triumph in the war with Russia in 1904–1905 was an important turning point that accelerated the spread of pan-Asian ideas throughout the continent. Many Asians now believed that Japan would soon assume leadership in the struggle against the tyranny of the Western imperialist powers. Even in distant Egypt, a delighted Arab announced the news of the Russian defeat to the Chinese revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925), who was traveling by boat through the Suez Canal. “The joy of this Arab, as a member of the great Asiatic race,” Sun recalled many years later, “seemed to know no bounds.” However, disillusionment with Japan soon set in when it embarked on a program of carving out its colonial empire at the expense of other Asian nations and justified these expansionist policies with pan-Asian rhetoric.

 

The Origins Of The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere

A Japanese propaganda postcard depicting Asian people of different ethnicities dancing with a Japanese official, 1940s, via Japan War Art

In August 1940, Japanese foreign minister Yōsuke Matsuoka announced on national radio the concept of a unified East Asia free of Western colonial subjugation. This came to be known officially as the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. It promulgated the belief that Asia was meant for Asians and that any foreign subjugation would no longer be accepted under the newly established Japanese rule. Geographically, on top of mainland Japan, Manchukuo (Japan-occupied Manchuria), and China, Japanese rule would be expected to stretch to Southeast Asia, Eastern Siberia, and even extend to the outer regions of Australia, India, and the Pacific Islands.

Intuitively, most political observers would assert that the concept resembled the United States’ Monroe Doctrine, which opposed European colonialism in the Western hemisphere. With the same conviction to dominate a unified area of influence, Japanese imperial rule had long dreamt of putting the ideals of Pan-Asianism into practice. Typically imperialistic, Pan-Asianism is characterized by the belief in the political and economic unity of the Asian people. Although the official announcement only came in 1940, Japanese propaganda from the 1930s had already demonstrated the tenets of this concept.

The Greater East Asia Conference, 1943

The Greater East Asia Conference was covered in the Shashin Shuho, a weekly Japanese photographic journal, 1943, via the Japan Center for Asian Historical Records, National Archives of Japan

On 5 November 1943, the Empire of Japan hosted a high-profile international summit known as the Greater East Asia Conference in Tokyo.

The truth is that no Japanese American (for example, those in Hawaii) believed in this trend except that they were subjugated.

A show of superficial solidarity without any concrete framework for economic cooperation or integration, the conference achieved its propagandistic aims nonetheless. A Greater East Asia Joint Declaration was later announced, marking the members’ commitment to ensuring co-existence, co-prosperity, and liberation from Western colonialism. While the former might be lip service, the latter was what Japan had hoped to emphasize at the summit, that the Japanese people were the saviors of the Asiatics, single-handedly liberating them from Western colonial subjugation.

 

Asia for Asiatics: Driving Out Western Imperialism

A Japanese propaganda map illustration depicting Western exploitation of the Asiatics, 1942, via The Asia Pacific Journal

As was affirmed repeatedly during the Greater East Asian Conference, Japan’s cry for a united East Asia hinged heavily on removing Western colonial influences from the continent. Japan’s Vice Minister for Commerce, Etsusaburo Shiina, portrayed the ongoing war as a moral and constructive one fought to restore the dignity of the Asiatics. In other words, it was a holy war led by Japan to replace the egotistical and power-oriented blocs established previously by the Western colonial leaders. This set of beliefs manifested in the propaganda materials put forth by the Japanese rulers in the occupied territories. The 1942 wartime booklet and elementary text titled Declaration for Greater East Asian Cooperation is a prime example of such efforts.

The booklet aimed to convey the essence of the GEACPS, featuring colorful illustrations and a children-friendly design. This can be seen from the map above, which shows the various instances of Western colonialism in the region. The caption translates to Look! America, England, the Netherlands, and others have been keeping us down with military force and doing bad things to us in Greater East Asia. To highlight the exploitative nature of the Western colonial experience, a lone Japanese soldier is portrayed trying to protect parts of China from Western military incursions, juxtaposed against the hovering caricature of the nonchalant-looking Allied leaders Churchill and Roosevelt.

A Japanese propaganda poster titled “Roosevelt, the World Enemy No.1!”, targeted at the Filipino people in 1942 via the United States Naval Academy

Roosevelt himself was often the subject of ridicule in Japan’s anti-west propaganda. As with Western propaganda dehumanizing the Japanese people in their anti-Japan posters and leaflets, the Japanese often portrayed Western leaders as hairy and demonic looking. In one of the propaganda posters targeted at the Filipino people, Roosevelt was depicted as World Enemy No.1, the sole cause of wartime suffering. A clear-cut call to action or rally call would be emphasized in most of these prints. This was usually in the form of galvanizing the local people to join Japan to make reprisal on [their] common enemy.

Poster for Dawn of Freedom (1944), 1944, via IMDB

Besides print media, films were also widely used to stoke anti-west sentiments to promote the GEACPS. Emphasizing traditional Japanese values, filmmakers in Japan often portrayed the Japanese as pure, righteous, and loyal folks determined to liberate Asia from colonial oppression. Usually sponsored by the Ministry of Army, these films were also known for featuring themes of sacrifice and seppuku, Japanese ritual suicide.

Japanese Soldiers Beating Up Women Fruit Sellers for Trading with Prisoners by Ronald William Fordham Searle, 1942, via Imperial War Museum, London

In furthering the idea of the GEACPS, the Japanese proclaimed themselves as the liberators of Asia, swearing to save their fellow Asian brothers from centuries of Western colonial exploitation. However, within it existed an implicit, underlying agenda that sought to differentiate the superior Japanese race (Yamato) from the other Asiatics. A top-secret official document in 1943 titled An Investigation of Global Policy with the Yamato Race as Nucleus revealed such tendencies.

Detailing notions of racial supremacy, nationalism, and colonization for living space, the 3,127-page-long document reeked of the racist beliefs of Nazi Germany. Behind the so-called Asian fraternity and brotherhood, Japan had projected to the people in the occupied territories the master race theory that deemed the Yamato race as hereditarily superior. This manifested in abusive and vicious acts towards the people in occupied territories, which could range from the slapping of faces to torture and indiscriminate killings.

A Japanese map detailing the southern resources such as oil, tin, and rubber, 1942, via Story of Hawaii Museum

Beyond the grandeur of the ideological struggle put forth by the Japanese, a practical concern prevailed as part of the GEACPS, at least implicitly. Japan had long known for its vast resources in Asia. It could feast on the once the Western colonial rule was destroyed. In December 1941, Minister of Commerce and Industry Nobusuke Kishi reported on the extent of resources in Southeast Asia during a national broadcast. He detailed the abundance of iron ore, flax, and coal in the Philippines and the rich oil, tin, and coal supplies in the Dutch East Indies.

Malaya, the world’s largest rubber and tin producer, prioritized Southeast Asia's conquest to extend Japanese supremacy. In essence, the projection of the GEACPS was but a means to allow Japan to extract these resources to fuel its war machine.

 

The Sobering Reality In Japan-Occupied Asia

Bloody Saturday by H.S. Wong, 1937, via South China Morning Post

As promising and liberating as the GEACPS sounded, the reality in Japan-occupied Asia was far from it. Not only did Asia not prosper under Japanese leadership, but the wartime experience was also fraught with widespread starvation, poverty, and suffering. This was made worse by an oppressive and iron-fisted Japanese rule intolerant of the slightest hint of opposition. With the sobering reality on the ground, few could fully subscribe to the ideals of the GEACPS. The years of the Japanese Occupation wrote itself into the history of Asia as one of the darkest periods the continent had witnessed. Resembling nothing of the bright future, the GEACPS had promised, a regime of terror unfolded in the occupied territories, characterized by torture, mass killings, rape, famine, and widespread suffering. Collectively, the death toll from Japan’s war crimes in Asia ranged from 3 million to 14 million between 1937 to 1945, mainly consisting of civilians and prisoners of war.

 

Exploring Different Perspectives On The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere

A Japanese propaganda postcard that reads The Holy War for Prospering Asia and The Shine comes from the East, the 1930s, via Japan War Art

With the collapse of the Empire of Japan in 1945, the GEACPS ceased to exist, or has it ever really existed? Most scholars argued that it was, at best, an impractical concept that was created to cloak the sinister nature of Japanese imperialism. It was merely a justification for Japan to exert full political domination over Asia and exploit the resource-rich continent. Revisionist arguments, however, leaned closer to Imperial Japan’s idea of a holy war fought to liberate Asians from Western colonial subjugation. Though unpopular with academics, the revisionist school of thought found favor with right-wing politicians who propagated a liberal (mostly subjective) historical view or jiyushugi shikan.

A select group of scholars also took a step back to look at the bigger picture in the context of the GEACPS. Containing elements of fascism, Japanism, and Neo-Confucianism, the GEACPS reflected Pan-Asianism, which fundamentally motivated Japan to wage a war of such scale. Finally, another emerging view suggests that the GEACPS was a political dream for Japan to impose its new order. Still, the realization of this dream was hampered by the reality of Japan’s defeat.

While various views exist on the GEACPS, the reality on the ground has doomed it to oblivion. At its core, the GEACPS was a spectacular failure, no matter how sincere or sinister its motivations might or could have been at various points during the war. As historian Jeremy Yellen puts it, the GEACPS is a contested, negotiated process of envisioning the future during total war. Vague and constantly in flux, the GEACPS was a victim of the shifting wartime circumstances and came to be what Yellen deemed Japan’s failed process to represent their envisioned future.

 

Pan-Asianianism

Rare 1943 Japanese World War II map of Hawaii from the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere series.

The map shows the Hawaiian Islands with an inset of Honolulu and Pearl Harbor and another detailing the outer/minor Islands.

Flight and shipping routes appear in red. Including the map in the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere series demonstrates the Japanese designs to take over the island.

This map was issued as part of a 20-map series known as the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere (大東亜共栄圏). It was an imperial concept created and promulgated for occupied Asian populations during 1930-45 by the Empire of Japan. Hachirō Arita announced the idea on June 29, 1940.

Pan-Asianianism was intended as a self-sufficient 'bloc of Asian nations led by the Japanese and free of Western powers.' It covered Southeast Asia, Eastern China, Manchuria, Japan, the East India Islands, and parts of Oceania. The idea promoted the cultural and economic unity of East Asians, Southeast Asians, and Oceanians. That Hawaii is included in this map series addresses the claims the Japanese believed they had to the archipelago.

Pan-Asian cooperation was institutionalized through numerous pan-Asian associations founded all over Asia. It was also reflected in pan-Asian conferences in Japan, China, and Afghanistan in the 1920s and 1930s. These developments showed the diversity and interconnectedness of anti-Western movements throughout Asia. A few examples will be enough to show this phenomenon. In 1907, socialists and anarchists from China, Japan, and India joined forces to found the Asiatic Humanitarian Brotherhood in Tokyo. In 1909 Japanese and Muslim pan-Asianists in Japan established the Ajia Gikai (Asian Congress) to promote the cause of Asian solidarity and liberation. It was almost certainly this Ajia Gikai that a British intelligence report referred to when it mentioned “an Oriental Association in Tokyo attended by Japanese, Filipinos, Siamese, Indians, Koreans, and Chinese, where Count Okuma [Shigenobu, 1838–1922] once delivered an anti-American lecture”. In 1921, the Pan-Turanian Association was founded in Tokyo to rally Japanese support for the unification of the Turks of Central Asia and their liberation from Russian rule. The association cooperated closely with the Greater Asia Association (Dai Ajia Kyōkai) and other Japanese pan-Asian organizations. 

The transnational character of Pan-Asianism was also apparent in its publishing activities. Indian pan-Asianists published material in Japan, China, the United States, and Germany; Japanese pan-Asianists published in China, India, and the United States. Koreans, too, such as the court noble An Kyongsu (1853–1900), published their works in Japan. Journals with a clear pan-Asian message—the source of many of the documents in this collection—were published in Japan, China, and Southeast Asia. 

Although such writings might be dismissed as mere “propaganda”, there is no doubt that many Westerners were sympathetic to the ideals of Asian solidarity and Pan-Asianism. At the center of pan-Asian activities in Japan at the end of World War I stood the now obscure French mystic Paul Richard (1874–1967), whose works were published in Japan, India, and the United States and were certainly widely read in Japan.

 

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