Jeremy Yellen, "The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere: When Total Empire Met Total War" (Cornell UP, 2019)
Dec 26, 2023
auto_awesome
Jeremy Yellen, author of The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, discusses Japan's attempt to create a new bloc order in East and Southeast Asia during World War II. He explores the diplomatic arguments, visions, and initiatives within the Sphere, as well as the motivations behind patriotic collaboration in Southeast Asia. The podcast also touches on the impact of the Sphere on Japan's post-war foreign policy and concludes with a humorous conversation about applying the concept to food.
The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere aimed to establish a new order in Asia led by Japan, combining cooperative imperialism with the conflict of empires and the anti-colonial war for independence.
Foreign Minister Matsoka's vision of the Coprosperity Sphere relied on pragmatic negotiations and gaining acceptance from major powers, initiating its subsequent evolution.
The establishment of sham independence during the Coprosperity Sphere provided opportunities for nationalist elites in Southeast Asian countries to build new institutions and influenced the end of European empires in Asia.
Deep dives
The Genesis and Formation of the Coprosperity Sphere
The Coprosperity Sphere, initiated by Japan during World War II, was a vision for creating a new future for Asia. It aimed to cast off the iniquities of international politics and establish a new order led by Japan. The idea of cooperative imperialism was central to this vision, where Japan sought to gain acceptance and respect for its leadership over the region. However, the Sphere underwent significant changes after 1943, as Japan faced challenges and sought to give true meaning to its vision. The Sphere became part of both the conflict of empires and the anti-colonial war for independence. The story of the Sphere intertwines the height of Japanese imperialism with the beginnings of decolonization in Asia.
Matsoka and the Development of the Coprosperity Sphere
Foreign Minister Matsoka played a crucial role in the development of the Coprosperity Sphere. He advocated for a vision of cooperative imperialism, where international spheres of influence were respected. Matsoka believed that this approach could ensure peace and stability in Asia. However, his ideas were a mix of great imagination and naivety, as he underestimated the complexities of international relations, particularly with the United States. Matsoka's vision of the Sphere relied on pragmatic negotiations and attempting to gain acceptance from major powers like Germany and the Soviet Union. While Matsoka's tenure was short-lived, his efforts set the stage for the subsequent evolution of the Sphere.
Legacy and Post-War Implications of the Coprosperity Sphere
The Coprosperity Sphere had a lasting impact on the post-war era in Southeast Asia and the broader region. The establishment of sham independence during the Sphere provided opportunities for nationalist elites in countries like the Philippines and Burma to build new institutions and gain experience in governance. These institutions and experiences had legacies that influenced the post-war states. The Sphere also initiated the beginning of the end of European empires in Asia, as the war made it clear that imperial powers could no longer hold onto their vast holdings. Additionally, the ideas and language of the Sphere persisted in Japan's post-war foreign policy, shaping its normalization of relations with the Philippines and its admission to the United Nations. The Coprosperity Sphere, despite its controversial nature, left a lasting imprint on the region's history.
The Complexity of the Coprosparity Sphere
The coprosparity sphere, despite being a central concept in Japan during World War II, was not well understood by prominent thinkers and leaders. Even Loyama Māfānichi, the former architect of Japan's East Asian community, considered it nonsense. Prime Minister Tojo himself was unclear about its meaning and had to ask for clarification. The coprosparity sphere was envisioned as a hybrid political hierarchy of nations with Japan at the top, independent states in the middle, and protectors and colonies at the bottom. It aimed at exploitative development to extract resources while guaranteeing Asian security and uplifting the region.
Patriotic Collaborators in the Philippines and Burma
The concept of collaboration during wartime is often misunderstood, dismissing those who worked with foreign powers for political freedom or societal remaking as mere traitors. In the Philippines and Burma, nationalist elites sought the best outcome for their countries while caught between the invading Japanese and their former colonial masters. Burmese elites saw collaboration with Japan as an opportunity to secure independence from the British Empire, while Filipino elites collaborated in hopes of gaining independence even if they switched from one colonial ruler to another. These patriotic collaborators sought positive legacies of occupation for the post-war era, making collaboration complex and their later recognition as national heroes relevant.
Jeremy Yellen’s The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere: When Total Empire Met Total War (Cornell University Press, 2019) is a challenging transnational exploration of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, Japan’s ambitious, confused, and much maligned attempt to create a new bloc order in East and Southeast Asia during World War II. Yellen’s book is welcome both as the first book-length treatment of the Sphere in English and for also being innovative in both approach and analysis. The book is divided into two parts, each addressing one of the “two Pacific Wars,” as Yellen puts it: a “war of empires” and “an anticolonial war… for independence.” The first half of the book treats the Japanese “high policy” of the Sphere. Here, Yellen not only provides—through the Coprosperity Sphere—a provocative new reading of the Tripartite Pact and the imbrication of Japan’s regional and global geopolitical strategies, but also outlines an important timeline of how Japanese conceptualizations of the Sphere evolved with the changing economic, political, and military expediencies of the Pacific War. Though ideas about the Sphere as a regional order of hierarchical solidarity with Japan at its apex, a “grand strategy of opportunism” rooted in the “sphere-of-influence diplomacy” and “cooperative imperialism” of Japan’s bombastic and enigmatic foreign minister, Matsuoka Yōsuke, Yellen shows that plans for the Sphere only became specific and concrete when Japan’s war situation descended into increasing desperation from 1942 on. The second half of the book shifts gears to examine responses to the Sphere in the Philippines and Burma. Yellen shows that for local nationalist elites like Burma’s first prime minister Ba Maw, whether Japanese rhetoric about the creation of more-or-less liberal international order within the Sphere for the top-echelon nations like Burma and the Philippines was genuine or self-serving, “even sham independence brought opportunity.” By focusing on these pragmatic nationalists (“patriotic collaborators”) Yellen contributes to a growing body of literature on empire that refuses to be pigeonholed by binaries of virtuous resistance and traitorous collaboration.
This podcast was recorded as a lecture/dialogue for a live audience at Nagoya University.
