A Brief Note on the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere and the Outbreak of the Pacific War
The Pacific War was a deranged moral crusade carried out for the sake of destroying colonialism in the Far East and creating some version of that monstrous Han Chinese nation-state.
I. Introduction
The question of the relationship between the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere and the outbreak of the Pacific War overlaps to no small extent with that of the motivations for Allied policy toward Japan and, by extension, the war itself. If the intention of the Japanese leadership was from the beginning to create such a sphere, then the Allies were right from the standpoint of concrete material interest to take the hardline stance against Japan that they did in order to defend their colonial possessions. But if the Japanese leadership moved into Southeast Asia in response to Allied pressure and interference in the Sino-Japanese War without initially intending to establish permanent dominion over the region, and if there was at the time clear and unequivocal evidence of this both in Japanese words and actions, then not only can Allied policy toward Japan not be justified on the basis of the defense of their colonial possessions, but it becomes difficult to escape the conclusion that the Allies provoked the war out of other motives.
The question that concerns us here is not the evolution of Japanese political thinking with respect to Southeast Asia and the desirability of its inclusion into an informal or formal empire centered on Japan1. Nor is it the development of state-level Japanese thinking concerning the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere over the course of the war. Our question is rather simpler and more limited. Did Japan initiate hostilities with the United States and the United Kingdom on December 8, 1941 for the sake of seizing and establishing permanent dominion over European colonial possessions in Asia? I hope to convince you not only that Japan did not go to war for that reason, but that the ultimate cause of the war lies in the deranged drive of the Anglo-Americans to destroy imperialism across the world and to create what until then had been only a mirage, a genuinely unified Han Chinese nation-state.
II. Early Moves Toward Abolishing Imperialism in China2
Between 1921 and 1928, the Anglo-Americans made several moves toward putting an end to foreign domination of China and establishing a real Han Chinese national state. On December 13, 1921 the UK, France, Japan, and the US signed a four-power pact that committed them to respecting the sovereignty, administrative integrity, and independence of China and abandoning their spheres of influence there. These terms were formalized in the February 6, 1922 nine-power treaty, the signatories to which included in addition to the above the Nanjing government, Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, and Portugal. In December 1926, the UK called on the powers to abandon the idea that foreign tutelage was necessary for Chinese economic and political development. In 1928, after the Northern Expedition had concluded with the “conquest” of Beijing (then called Beiping) by Chiang Kai-shek, the Anglo-Americans recognized the Nanjing government as the sole legitimate government of China and signed treaties conceding tariff autonomy. The following years saw talks between the three that culminated in a declaration by the Nanjing government that if extraterritoriality were not ended through treaties by 1932 they would unilaterally abrogate it.
These moves toward establishing a unified Han Chinese national state under the Nanjing government were interrupted by the Manchuria Incident and the following years of informal frontier imperialism carried out by Japanese soldiers acting independently and, more often than not, against the wishes of both civilian and military authorities in Tokyo. The Japanese government would not come to play a leading role in and define explicit goals for policy in China until 1937, when Fujiwara scion and nobleman Konoe Fumimaro, chosen by the last of the Genrō3 Saionji Kinmochi to put an end to frontier imperialism in China, instead expanded it into an all-out “holy war” against the Nanjing government.
III. The New Order in Northeast Asia
The war might have ended quickly if not for the intransigence of the Nanjing government. After the fall of Nanjing, the Konoe Cabinet offered peace terms that included recognition of Manchukuo and Japanese paramountcy in the north. These terms were rejected. On November 30, 1938, the Imperial Conference4 approved a set of proposals that defined Japanese goals with respect to China and Northeast Asia. They included recognition of Manchukuo, the creation of a federal structure in China, a Sino-Japanese military alliance that would permit the stationing of Japanese forces in China and Mongolia to defend against the Soviet Union and suppress communism in China, the granting of special rights to Japan with respect to raw materials in Mongolia and North China, and the gradual relinquishment of Japanese privileges under the unequal treaties. That same month, Konoe publicly announced that he would consider peace talks with the Nanjing government, by then the Chongqing government, so long as they dropped their claim to speak for all of China and agreed to have Chiang Kai-shek step down.
IV. The Southern Advance
Throughout these events, the Anglo-Americans and their allies provided the Chongqing government with extensive material support using a route that led through Southeast Asia. In addition, the United States introduced a licensing system on the export of scrap metal and oil to Japan in July 1940. In September of that year, the same month in which the Tripartite Pact between Germany, Italy, and Japan was concluded, Japanese forces moved into northern Indochina with the explicit permission of the new French government in order to cut off the flow of supplies to Chongqing. The United States subsequently placed an embargo on iron and steel exports to Japan that same year, and in January 1941 on brass, copper, and zinc.
The Japanese government during this time attempted to secure guarantees from the Netherlands East Indies that they would supply them with the needed amounts of oil and other vital raw materials. These attempts failed. On July 2, 1941, the Imperial Conference resolved to expand into the southern half of French Indochina with the explicit understanding that this move would lead to further hostile measures from the Anglo-Americans and the Dutch and the readiness to go to war if they would not relent. They were right. The United States froze Japanese assets on July 26 and placed an embargo on oil exports on August 2; the British unilaterally abrogated commercial treaties with Burma and India on July 27; and the Netherlands East Indies banned exports of oil and bauxite to Japan on August 28.
V. Negotiations and the Outbreak of War
The Japanese government stated in the first 帝国国策遂行要領 Teikoku Kokusaku Suikō Yōryō An Outline for the Execution of Imperial National Policy of September 6, 1941, that it would not discount going to war with the Anglo-Americans and the Dutch in order to secure the necessary conditions for concluding the war in China on terms favorable to their interests.
The terms that they put forward in negotiations with the United States reflected this. The following two sets of terms were presented to Cordell Hull by Japanese Ambassador Nomura Kichisaburō. In Plan A, Japan proposed to accept non-discrimination in trade in China if applied equally across the world, interpret the Tripartite Pact as it wished without expanding the definition of self-defense, and, with respect to military forces on the continent, following the conclusion of a bilateral peace with the Chongqing government withdraw immediately from French Indochina and within two years from all of China except specified areas of Inner Mongolia, North China, and Hainan, where they would station forces for as long as necessary. In Plan B, Japan proposed to refrain from the use of force in Southeast Asia and the Pacific except French Indochina, to withdraw from all of French Indochina following the conclusion of a bilateral Sino-Japanese peace or a fair peace in the Pacific region and remove forces from southern French Indochina after the conclusion of an agreement with the United States, to cooperate with the United States in obtaining necessary raw materials from the Netherlands East Indies, to restore economic relations between Japan and the United States to their condition prior to the freezing of assets with a promise from the latter to provide the former with necessary supplies of oil, and for the United States to refrain from actions that would obstruct efforts to conclude a bilateral Sino-Japanese peace.
The American response was the Hull Note, the essential features of which were the demand for a unilateral and unconditional withdrawal of all Japanese forces from China and Indochina, a pledge to recognize only the Chongqing government as the legitimate government of China, the abandonment of all extraterritorial rights in China, and the acceptance of a set of ideological principles including the inviolability of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of all nations, non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries, equality, peaceful international cooperation, and the abolition of “extreme nationalism” in economics as represented by trade restrictions.
Faced with these demands, the Japanese government resolved to go ahead with its plan to initiate hostilities on December 8, 1941.
VI. The Plan
Various post-war sources, including Tōjō Hideki’s notes written while at Sugamo Prison and 昭和天皇独白録 Shōwa Tennō Dokuhakuroku5, indicate that the plan was to temporarily seize territory before returning to the negotiating table to force the Anglo-Americans to grant them more favorable terms. These sources had no contemporary corroboration until the recent publication of the 昭和天皇実録 Shōwa Tennō Jitsuroku, which records the private activities and discussions of the Shōwa Emperor for each day over the course of his life.
The sections detailing internal discussions in the lead-up to the war are revealing. First, just as they maintained after the war, the goal of the highest authorities in government was to force the Anglo-Americans to grant them more favorable terms in negotiations. The explicit promise made to the Jūshin6 was that the war would be brought to a conclusion through negotiation as quickly as possible. Second, all were aware that military victory was impossible7. Third, the great majority of the Jūshin, including Konoe Fumimaro himself, were staunchly opposed to war, but thought that the status quo should be preserved to the extent possible until a bilateral peace could be concluded with the Chongqing government. But they were only asked their opinion after the decision had already been made.
As for why the plan was not followed, I have no answer. Tōjō claimed that it was not really possible to do so because, war not being something one does alone, the circumstances did not allow for a conclusion that would be so favorable to Japan alone. It did not seem that the Allies would agree, both sides had treaties precluding the conclusion of unilateral peace, and they thought that they would have to bravely move forward under those conditions. I do not find this answer entirely satisfying.
VII. The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere
The Japanese government did not initiate hostilities with the United States and the United Kingdom with the aim of establishing permanent dominion over European possessions in Southeast Asia. But they did seize them, and they did establish a thing called the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. So, what was it?
According to Jeremy Yellen in The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere: When Total Empire Met Total War, it had no agreed upon meaning until 1943, when it was reimagined as a “unified community of independent and equal nations” for the purpose of bringing the Allies to the negotiating table by broadcasting a liberal internationalist message that would be agreeable to them. The second Greater East Asia Conference convened on April 23, 1945 continued this project by issuing a declaration calling for decolonization, non-interference in the internal affairs of other states, free trade, universal disarmament, and a collective security mechanism for preventing the outbreak of future global wars based not on the rule of the strongest like the League of Nations, but on “regional security guarantees.”
Thus, even the maximal case for the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere as more than one among many contradictory slogans used as fig leaves to mobilize for war ultimately brings us back to the initial point that the goal of the war was to gain better negotiating terms from the Allies.
VIII. The Nature of the Pacific War
The Pacific War was not a righteous war against fascism, nor was it a defensive war carried out to defend Western colonies from Japanese encroachment, nor was it a legitimate response to Japanese aggression against US territory. It was a deranged moral crusade carried out for the sake of destroying colonialism in the Far East and creating some version of that monstrous Han Chinese nation-state that now threatens to devastate much of the planet. This can be shown without resorting to bizarre theories about foreknowledge of Pearl Harbor, and even without leaving the accepted canon of sources and so-called secondary literature.
Those interested in this question may refer to Mark R. Peattie’s “Nanshin: The ‘Southward Advance,’ 1931-1941, as a Prelude to the Japanese Occupation of Southeast Asia” in The Wartime Japanese Empire, 1931-1945 edited by Peter Duus, Ramon H. Myers, and Peattie himself.
I have relied mostly on W.G. Beasley’s excellent book Japanese Imperialism, 1894-1945 for the details presented here, but my conclusions are quite different from his.
元老 Genrō. The Genrō were the group of statesmen, largely from Satsuma (present-day Kumamoto) and Chōshū (present-day Yamaguchi Prefecture), who were formally established in various Imperial Rescripts as having special privileges with respect to the selection and receipt of appointments to the position of Prime Minister and the formation of state policy. Such a group was necessary because, despite the formal investiture of sovereignty in the Emperor, He in fact played no role in politics, not only by tradition, but by personal preference. Since all parts of government were technically only responsible to the Emperor, formation and coordination of national policy could only be carried out through informal discussion and negotiation between such powerful figures. After 1924, Saionji Kinmochi was the last of them remaining, which, according to some, created a power vacuum that made the prewar state extremely dysfunctional for the last eleven years of its existence.
御前会議 Gozen Kaigi. Imperial Conferences were the highest form in which the Emperor supposedly exercised his sovereign powers. The composition differed by time and case, but in general consisted of the Emperor, the Cabinet, the Genrō, the Jūshin (see below), leading figures in the military, Privy Councillors, and selected leading bureaucrats. Matters relating to the declaration and conclusion of war were always decided at Imperial Conferences, but typically, with the exception of the final Conference that decided on the conclusion of the Greater East Asian War, the Emperor was not directly involved in decisionmaking.
For the 昭和天皇独白録 Shōwa Tennō Dokuhakuroku see Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi, “Emperor Hirohito on Localized Aggression in China.”
重臣 Jūshin. A group of former Prime Ministers, Privy Councillors, and Home Ministers first gathered by Saionji Kinmochi in 1934 in order to replace the Genrō.
It is often asked in popular discourse why the authorities did not listen to Yamamoto Isoroku. They did. He was one of the Navy figures who pushed hardest for immediate commencement of hostilities on the grounds that no better opportunity would ever come.
Alternative explanation to "deranged moral crusade" waged by the Americans: they wanted China for themselves, via their proxy Chiang Kai Shek. But Mao won the Civil War.
Also, not sure exactly what kind of apologetics position you are trying to stake out with this essay? Did the Americans "deranged moral crusade" also forced Japan's hand in the attack on Pearl Harbour? Japan played Game of Empires and they lost, why try to blunt of that imperial ambition?