In 1940, the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere was declared by Japan, which envisioned an independent pan-Asian alliance free of Western influence and based on strategic and economic interests.
When Prime Minister Matsuoka Y÷osuke laid out the plan for the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere in August 1940, he asserted a pan-Asianism that dated back to at least the 1880s. The tradition included romantic idealism, an awareness of a common cultural heritage, and a view of Asian spirituality as superior to the materialism of the West. By the 1930s, pan-Asianism was more pragmatic and realistic, based on strategic and economic considerations. The sphere also served as an expression of Japanese “manifest destiny,” its mission to become Asia’s leader. This sentiment had been growing since the turn of the twentieth century.
A struggle partly over trade in East Asia, the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905 was the first major conflict to result in the victory of a non-European power over a European one. Shown here are Russian sailors loading torpedoes. (© Topham/The Image Works)
Japan had established a presence in China and in Korea and in 1905 had won the Russo-Japanese War. Still, it perceived that the West had not shown Japan the respect it was due. In 1919, the West rejected Japan’s request for inclusion of a racial equality provision in the League of Nations charter. The Washington Naval Conference of 1921 defined a battleship ratio of 5:5:3 for the United States, Great Britain, and Japan. And in 1924 the United States enacted the Japanese Exclusion Act.
Japanese militarism found an outlet in China, a source of raw material and a market for Japanese industries and investments. Japanese aggression in China led the United States to embargo oil from the Dutch East Indies and rubber from Indochina, and the other colonial Westerners restricted other resources. Japan needed Asian raw materials for economic self-sufficiency. As a neomercantilist venture, the co-prosperity sphere was to provide Japan markets for its finished goods in return for a secure source of raw materials. It was also hoped that Japanese expansion would help relieve population pressures mounting in Japan.
The popular projection of the plan did not stress aspects that highlighted Japan’s expansive designs on its neighbors. Rather, it stressed “Asia for the Asians,” liberated and prosperous Asian nations working together without the West. Rhetoric of coexistence and co-prosperity was designed to increase cooperation. Burma and Indonesia remained more susceptible to the rhetoric than other Asian countries. But the reception in Asian countries did not matter to the Japanese government, which established puppet governments, notably in the Manchurian region of China. The program of “Japanization” disregarded local customs and mores. The Japanese also practiced torture, execution, and forced labor, causing local populations great suffering.
Some Japanese wanted the sphere to include India, Australia, and New Zealand. When attempts to include part of India failed, military considerations limited the western extent to Burma. Japan occupied Indonesia, North Sumatra, Malaya, Vietnam, Burma, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, and Siam (renamed Thailand in 1939), though its control varied by location. Generally, local elites worked with the Japanese to preserve or enhance their power. Most conquered nations experienced armed violence and political disruption. A disruption of commercial links with Europe followed. In Indonesia and Malaya, the sphere promoted local nationalism, but the rest of Southeast Asia changed little. Japan’s defeat in World War II ended its pursuit of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.
John Barnhill
See also: World War II.
Gordon, Bill. “Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere” (http://wgordon.web.wesleyan.edu/papers/coprospr.htm, accessed March 2000).
Lebra, Joyce C., ed. Japan’s Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere in World War II: Selected Readings and Documents. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1975.
McCoy, Alfred W., ed. Southeast Asia Under Japanese Occupation. New Haven: Yale University, Southeast Asia Studies, 1980.