Idealising Empire

Japan’s Imperial Mission: The Idea and Reality of Co-

prosperity

Empty Slogans?

hakkô ichiû [eight corners of the world under one roof]

dôbun dôshu [same script, same race]

kyôei [co-prosperity]

ôdô [Kingly way]

The Meiji Empire

1879 Ryukyus became Okinawa prefecture

1894-95 War with Qing China: Treaty of Shimonoseki. Taiwan, Liaodong Peninsula and Pescadores.

Triple Intervention by Russia, France and Germany.

1902 Signing of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance.

1904-05 Russo-Japanese War: Treaty of Portsmouth. Lease of the Liaodong Peninsula returned to Japan (renamed the Kwantung Leased Territories. Acquisition of the southern half of Sakhalin (renamed Karafuto). Russia recognised Japan’s rights over Korea and her ‘special interests’ in Manchuria. Korea became a protectorate

1910 Annexation of Korea

Final Extent of Empire

1918 Acquisition of Germany’s Asian colonial territories after the Great War: Tsingtao on the Shantung Peninsula and the German-held islands in Micronesia, the Marshalls, Carolinas and the Marianas, called in Japanese the Nan’yô Guntô 1931 The Manchurian Incident leads to the creation in 1932 of an ‘independent’ state of Manchukuo1937 Marco Polo Bridge Incident1938 PM Konoe Fumimaro declares a New Order in East Asia1940 The Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere is planned

Yukizumari-ron: The Theory of Deadlock

1927 (Takahashi Kamekichi) addressed three factors:

1) Japan’s shortage of raw materials

2) rapidly expanding population

3) previous division of the world into economic blocs by the great powers

Yanaihara Tadao (1893-1961): Critic of Empire

Leader of Christian sect Mukyokai (No-Church Society)

Occupied of Chair of Colonial Policy 1923

Forced to resign in 1937 for publicly condemning the war

President Tokyo University 1951

Miki Kiyoshi and the Showa Research Association

Miki was chair of the Cultural committee

Tōa renmei East Asian Federation

Tōa Kyōdōtai [East Asian Community or Gemeinschaft]

Konoe and the Declaration of a New Order in Asia 1938

3 November 1938 proclaimed the New Order in East Asia.Pledged to co-operate with China without subjugating it.To carry out the mission of a united Asia leading a regenerated China.To ensure that the Chinese people will share in the great peaceful undertaking of the new East Asian Order.

The Reality: The Nanking Massacre and the Bombing of Shanghai 1937-8

Japanese Newspaper Column

Two Japanese officers, Toshiaki Mukai and Tsuyoshi Noda competing to see who could kill (with a sword) one hundred soldiers first. The bold headline reads, "'Incredible Record in the contest to cut down over 100 people. Mukai 106 – 105 Noda. Both 2nd Lieutenants Go Into Extra Innings"

The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere 1940

On 1st August 1940 foreign minister Matsuoka Yôsuke proclaimed the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity SphereJapan’s empire was to extend to Borneo, the Netherlands Indies, Philippines, French Indochina, Timor, Thailand and Malaya in the Southward Advance or nanshin giving Japan formal and informal dominion over 340-350 million people.

Definition of GEACPS

The general name for areas of Asia which are to live and prosper together, and complete the construction of a new moral order with Japan at its centre. . . . It covers a broad area liberated from the former slave-like exploitation of British, American, French and Dutch control. It has as its ideal the construction of a new moral order based on the founding spirit of Japan, in which each nation will take its proper place. (Dictionary of the Greater East Asia War [Dai-tōa sensō Jiten)

Basic Plan for Establishment of Greater East Asia Co-

Prosperity Sphere (Total War Research Institute 1942)

‘Occidental individualism and materialism’ would be rejected.‘a moral world view, the basic principle of whose morality shall be the Imperial Way’ to be established. The object was not ‘exploitation but co-prosperity and mutual help, not competitive conflict but mutual assistance and mild peace’. There was not to be a ‘formal view of equality’ but ‘a view of order based on righteous classification, not an idea of rights but an idea of service’.

On Culture

The stated aim was to develop and manifest the ‘essence of the traditional culture of the Orient’

‘negative and conservative characteristics of the continents’ (particularly those of India and China were to be cast off)

‘the good points of Western culture’ to be preserved.

In this way ‘an Oriental culture and morality, on a grand scale and subtly refined, shall be created.’

Nishida Kitarō

You call it a “Co-Prosperity Sphere,” but how can it be co-prosperity if it doesn’t meet the needs of all the peoples involved? If it means giving to our side the right to make all the decisions and tell the other side to “Do this and don’t do that,” it is a simple coercion sphere, not a co-prosperity sphere.

Conclusions

Legacies and Misconceptions