Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere

The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere (Japanese: 大東亞共榮圈, Hepburn: Dai Tōa Kyōeiken), also known as the GEACPS,[1] was a pan-Asian union that the Empire of Japan tried to establish.

[3] The proposed objectives of this union were to ensure economic self-sufficiency and cooperation among the member states, along with resisting the influence of Western imperialism and Soviet communism.

[3] The latter approach was reflected in a document released by Japan's Ministry of Health and Welfare, An Investigation of Global Policy with the Yamato Race as Nucleus, which promoted racial supremacist theories.

"[6] When World War II ended, the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere became a source of criticism and scorn for Allies.

During the proceedings of the Lansing-Ishii Agreement, Japan explained to Western observers that their expansionism in Asia was analogous to the United States' Monroe Doctrine.

[3] The outbreak of World War II in Europe gave the Japanese an opportunity to fulfill the objectives of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, without significant pushback from the Western powers or China.

If territories were unprofitable, the Japanese would encourage their subjects, including those in mainland Japan, to endure "economic suffering" and prevent outflow of material to the enemy.

[14] As a result of the embargo, Japan decided to attack the British and Dutch colonies in Southeast Asia from 7 to 19 December 1941, seizing the raw materials needed for the war effort.

[15] As part of its war drive in the Pacific, Japanese propaganda included phrases like "Asia for the Asiatics" and talked about the need to "liberate" Asian colonies from the control of Western powers.

The Imperial Army operated ruthless administrations in most conquered areas but paid more favourable attention to the Dutch East Indies.

[33] To build up the economic base of the Co-Prosperity Sphere, the Japanese Army envisioned using the Philippine islands as a source of agricultural products needed by its industry.

The Japanese Army also tried using cane sugar for fuel, castor beans and copra for oil, Derris for quinine, cotton for uniforms, and abacá for rope.

The plans were difficult to implement due to limited skills, collapsed international markets, bad weather, and transportation shortages.

The Japanese-sponsored Second Philippine Republic, headed by President José P. Laurel, proved to be ineffective and unpopular as Japan maintained very tight control.

However, Willard Elsbree, professor emeritus of political science at Ohio University, claims that the Japanese government and these nationalist leaders never developed "a real unity of interests between the two parties, [and] there was no overwhelming despair on the part of the Asians at Japan's defeat".

[41]Pamphlets were dropped by airplane on the Philippines, Malaya, North Borneo, Sarawak, Singapore, and Indonesia, urging them to join the movement.

[42] Mutual cultural societies were founded in all conquered lands to ingratiate with the natives and try to supplant English with Japanese as the commonly used language.

[47] Prior to the escalation of World War II to the Pacific and East Asia, Japanese planners regarded it as self-evident that the conquests secured in Japan's earlier wars with Russia (South Sakhalin and Kwantung), Germany (South Seas Mandate), and China (Manchuria) would be retained, as well as Korea (Chōsen), Taiwan (Formosa), the recently seized additional portions of China, and occupied French Indochina.

[48] A reasonably accurate indication as to the geographic dimensions of the Co-Prosperity Sphere are elaborated on in a Japanese wartime document prepared in December 1941 by the Research Department of the Ministry of War.

It assumed that the already established puppet governments of Manchukuo, Mengjiang, and the Wang Jingwei regime in Japanese-occupied China would continue to function in these areas.

[50] When Tōjō spoke on the plan to the House of Peers he was vague about the long-term prospects, but insinuated that the Philippines and Burma might be allowed independence, although vital territories such as Hong Kong would remain under Japanese rule.

After Germany and Italy declared war on the United States on 11 December 1941, Japan presented the Germans with a drafted military convention that would specifically delimit the Asian continent by a dividing line along the 70th meridian east longitude.

[51] The plan of the Third Reich for fortifying its own Lebensraum territory's eastern limits, beyond which the Co-Prosperity Sphere's northwestern frontier areas would exist in East Asia, involved the creation of a "living wall" of Wehrbauer "soldier-peasant" communities defending it.