Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Circle or Greater East Asia New Order . One of the theoretical basis is Greater Japanese Empire Hong Kong's Meiji Restoration . Its coverage includes East Asia , Southeast Asia , and South Asia and Oceania . It advocates liberating Asia from the rule of the European and American under the leadership of Japan, establishing a new order of mutual respect, independence, coexistence and prosperity. In essence, it becomes the basis for Japan to carry out the Great East Asia War and expand imperialism . On August 15, 1945, after Japan surrendered and ended World War II , the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Circle also disintegrated.
The largest range of the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Circle (1942)
Origin and background
19th century to the beginning of the 20th century, Japan entered the industrial power through the Meiji Restoration and Modernization, but at the same time lacked mineral resources and declined for a long time. At this time, Japanese educator Fukuzawa Yukiki believed that Japan and China were close neighbors in his book " Theory of Age ".
Fukuzawa Yukiki
. Japan has successfully modernized, but China is still behind, so we must help China improve and build, otherwise China will implicate Japan and harm Japan. Therefore, the emergence of the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Circle idea was initially just a proposition to liberate Asian countries from the hands of Western colonists. This type of idealism is widely welcomed by the public and has attracted supporters of the anti-colonial independence movement in some Asian countries. But soon, this ideal was used by Japanese militarists and extreme nationalists and changed and broken.
Japan launched its expansion in East Asia under the pretext of its own welfare, and its ideological development also accumulated through the accumulation of distant and proximal causes: the North Korean peasant movement and the Japanese-Secret War occurred one after another in the 19th century; in the 1920s, the major casualties caused by the Kanto earthquake and the Showa financial panic caused by the Great Depression prompted Japan to accelerate its mainland policies and obtain living space and resources from the outside. In the 1930s, Japan launched the Manchuria Incident and officially began foreign military expansion.
implementation and implementation
Japan declares that it will combine itself with Manchuria and the Republic of China to become a special economic consortium special zone, and use Southeast Asian resources and the South Pacific to become its military defense line. On November 3, 1938, Prime Minister of the Imperial Japan, , Fumiji, , issued the "Second Konoha Statement", calling for the establishment of a new order in Greater East Asia, and to establish a mutual support and chain relationship between Japan, Manchuria and China, and to establish a mutual assistance and chain relationship in politics, economy, culture, etc., with the goal of the "new order of coexistence and prosperity" of the Imperial Japan, East Asia and Southeast Asia.
Prime Minister Fumikoto
The so-called "building a new order in Greater East Asia" was the concept published and promoted by the Koewe scribe cabinet in July 1940, namely: Japan formed an alliance with Germany and Italy, smashed the rule of the European and American powers over the world, liberated Asia from the colonial rule of Europe and the United States, and realized the "Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Circle" of common prosperity for all ethnic groups in Asia under the "big spirit" of " Eight-Hong Yiyu " (the world should be a family headed by the Emperor). In August 1940, Fumiko Konoe proposed the name of the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Circle" for the first time, and pointed out that the Great Japanese Empire (including the Cultivated Power, Manchuria), the Republic of China, the French Indochina Peninsula, Siam , British India (including Myanmar), British Malaya, British Hong Kong, British Borneo, Dutch East India, Australia, New Zealand and other Oceania are in the Greater East Asia. In the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Circle, Japan is an economic community, Manchuria and the Republic of China. Southeast Asia is a resource supply region. The South Pacific is the national defense circle.
Japan established shrines in various occupied areas and promoted Shintoism; forced people to learn Japanese, which was renamed the "Common Language of East Asia" in schools and other places. In order to achieve the Greater East Asia co-prosperity circle, in 1942, the Japanese cabinet established the Greater East Asia Province.In November 1943, in order to declare the formation of a new Asian order, Japanese Prime Minister Hideki Tojo summoned representatives of the "Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Circle" to Tokyo and held a Greater East Asia Conference. Almost all participants were representatives of the Japanese cooperative government, namely: Prime Minister of Manchuria Zhang Jinghui , President and President of the Republic of China Wang Jingwei , Prince Wang Weitayakan of Thailand, President of the Philippines Free State Jose Paciano Laurel , Prime Minister of Myanmar Bamo and Chief Representative of the Provisional Government of Free India Chandra Boss. The meeting issued the "Greater East Asia Common Declaration": For the prosperity of its own country, the United States and Britain suppressed other nations and invaded and exploited Greater East Asia. The reason for the Greater East Asian War was to overthrow the US-British affiliation of Greater East Asia. The countries of Greater East Asia completed the Greater East Asia War ahead of schedule, liberated Greater East Asia from the constraints of the United States and Britain, built a co-existence, co-existence, independence, and no ethnic differences, and contributed to the establishment of world peace.
Japan replaced the European and American powers to rule the colonies with the "Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Circle", with the purpose of soliciting resources, materials and labor and carrying out wars for a long time. In the occupied areas of Southeast Asia, in order to build railways, military roads and airports, the Japanese army forced many local people to engage in civil engineering and requisitioned them to engage in mining labor. Many overseas Chinese in Singapore and Malaya who are suspected of engaging in anti-Japanese activities were punished; but soon, an anti-Japanese movement was launched in Dutch East Indies , Philippines and other Japanese troops occupied.
Results and Influences
Since modern times, Asian countries have become colonies or semi-colonials of Western powers, suffering from double exploitation in culture and economy. Western white colonists discriminate against Asian yellow people under the influence of thoughts such as racial superiority. Against this background, Japan claimed that it would build a Greater East Asia co-prosperity circle of "equal and co-prosperity", prompting some independence movements in Asian countries to choose to cooperate with it. The first Prime Minister of the British Myanmar Colonial Bamo once stated excitedly at the "Greater East Asia Conference": "We have discovered again that we are Asians, and that we are flowing with Asian blood. It is this passion that can redeem us and return Asia to us. Therefore, let us take a step towards the end of the road. One billion East Asians will always be free and prosperous, and will eventually find a new world where they belong to themselves."
However, the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Circle" was criticized for its essence to beautify war. Many places in Asia were actually occupied by Japan, and it was accused that many "independent" governments were actually puppet regimes of Japan and the Imperial Army and were controlled by them. At that time, Japan, which was fighting with the Allies, plundered a large number of strategic resources such as rice, rubber, tin, and oil from its Southeast Asian occupation. Japanese militarists even advocated the theory of Yamato national superiority, believing that Japan has the right to rule other ethnic groups in Asia. Bamo once complained: "These militarists only have the 'imperial state' in their eyes. Not only that, they also insist that all those who deal with them must accept this view. In their opinion, only the Japanese are the right way, and only the interests of Japan are the real interests. Asian countries have only one destiny, that is, to become eternal 'imperial state' subjects like Manzhou people and Koreans. These racist views make the real understanding between any Japanese militarist and our people impossible."
Great East Asia Co-Prosperity Circle" actually only considers the interests of Japan, but also the rest of Asia The interests of all countries are second, not true equality. Therefore, when Japan was defeated in World War II and the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Circle disintegrated, Asian countries did not have much sympathy for Japan.
On August 15, 1945, Japanese Emperor Hirohito announced his unconditional surrender, and the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Circle substantially collapsed. Since then, the puppet regimes that Japan has supported in East Asia such as Manchukuo and Wang Jingwei regimes have collapsed one after another. Although its control area in Southeast Asia was once again controlled by Western powers after the war, most of them were independent in the 1950s after the struggle.
