Historical Dictionary of United States-Japan ... - Bakumatsu Films

94 • GREATER EAST ASIAN CO-PROSPERITY SPHERE
colonial regions of Southeast Asia. An expeditious response to the success
with which Germany’s blitzkrieg had met in Europe, which, in
turn, rendered defenseless British, French, and Dutch colonial possessions
in Southeast Asia, it was deemed essential to Japan’s existence as
an independent nation. For this purpose, the Japanese government in
late July 1940 determined that if favorable circumstances arose, it
would use force in Southeast Asia as a means to the construction of the
Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere.
On 1 August 1940, Foreign Minister Yōsuke Matsuoka publicly
announced Japan’s intention to construct the Greater East Asian Co-
Prosperity Sphere, and stated that it was logical to include French
Indochina and the Netherlands East Indies within it. Within weeks,
Japanese troops had moved into northern Indochina. The United
States, among the few nations still able to exercise a decisive influence
on Japan’s aggressive designs, signified its opposition by slapping
a virtual embargo on aviation gasoline, high-grade iron, and
steel scrap. This pattern was more or less repeated in July 1941,
when Japanese troops occupied the entire Indochinese peninsula
and Washington responded by freezing Japanese assets and embargoing
oil.
Following Pearl Harbor, despite Japanese appeals to Asian nationalism,
the fundamentals of the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity
Sphere remained bluntly utilitarian. Indeed, government leaders behind
closed doors made reference not to the Greater East Asian Co-
Prosperity Sphere, but to the “Imperial resource sphere.” Nonetheless,
the Japanese government in November 1943 convened a
Conference of Greater East Asia, with delegates from Manchukuo,
the Nanjing regime in China, Thailand, Burma, the Philippines, and
India in attendance. On 7 November, they released a joint statement
that affirmed their commitment to such principles as coexistence and
co-prosperity; respect for mutual autonomy and independence; and
the abolition of racial discrimination. These were fine-sounding
principles, but they were clearly honored in the breach by Japan.
Any country, by them, the relentless American counteroffensive
against Japanese positions in the Pacific rendered Japan’s self-appointed
position at the apex of the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity
Sphere extremely vulnerable. See also PACIFIC WAR; WORLD
WAR II.