Japanese "Co-Prosperity Sphere": What was it really?

[Picairn]

They weren't stranded. One was elected to the Japanese Diet twice and still came back to help out. I am citing this as an example of the benefit of when the actually Hakko ichiu concept was applied. But this is all way over your head so sorry about that.

Hakko Ichiu is world domination under Japanese rule and the Vietnamese decried the Empire as fascists and tyrants. But run along, I guess.

[Catsfern]

better a Japanese led Asian alliance than a Chinese led one

How about an alliance where every nation is an equal instead of colonial powers fighting over small countries?

also a good idea.

[Tergai]

The Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere was many things to many people, but it was ultimately a vehicle for Japan to exploit other Asians it saw as lesser. The Japanese did not want to develop the fellow states it subjugated as some would like to believe. Rather, it was the flying geese paradigm but without the assumption of economic development. It was more of a flying vulture.

I don't know where you get that from but the Vietnamese revolted against Japanese rule, the August Revolution. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Revolution

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Ind ... volunteers

You are stuck on 1945 and I am talking about 1946-1970s

That was primarily a byproduct of the surrender of Japan to the Allies. While it is true that former Japanese soldiers served with the Viet Minh on numerous occasions, the fact of the matter is this wasn't official government policy. You seem to be overinflating their importance as well as their cooperation; this was merely an alliance of convenience rather than anything genuine. In the Wikipedia article you mentioned, it states

For [the Japanese] that stayed behind, fighting with the Việt Minh became a more attractive idea than returning to a defeated and occupied homeland. In addition the Việt Minh had very little experience in warfare or government so the advice of the Japanese was welcome.

I highly doubt the soldiers truly cared about Vietnamese independence and it wasn't like the Viet Minh had many good options for military training.

[Nekostan-e Gharbi]

Your ideology is genocidal then.

Nekostan, noted Jewish Nazi, British Empire supporter, Japanese Empire apologist, China abolitionist.

Holy, all terrible positions.

Ailurocrat.

[Heloin]

That would have been political suicide. Could you imagine giving the soviets a more perfect propaganda opera unity then openly declaring Apartheid South Africa your friend and ally? That and swinging American support so solidly behind segregation?

No reason not to do it now. Apartheid went away a long time ago and the Soviets bit the bullet too.

Now, South Africa would not want that. Memories of the border war and the internal conflict still linger. If someone suggested that in parliament their party would lose my, and a lot of other people’s votes.

Anyways topic at hand. Neko still doesn’t know what he’s talking about and yes the Japanese empire was absolutely awful.

[Rusozak]

Nekostan, noted Jewish Nazi, British Empire supporter, Japanese Empire apologist, China abolitionist.

Holy, all terrible positions.

Ailurocrat.

You're not helping your credibility.

[Kubra]

Because the Korean peninsula is a very important geographic point for power projection and by the time of the Afghanistan conflict the USSR was already in the process of collapsing and we knew it.

To the USSR Korea doesn’t matter much and definitely not more than East Europe. US did also agree. Merely geographically Turkey and Iran matter much more.

>Russia not wanting more warm water ports
What a ridiculous thing to say

[TENNOHEIKA BANZAI NIHON]

They weren't stranded. One was elected to the Japanese Diet twice and still came back to help out. I am citing this as an example of the benefit of when the actually Hakko ichiu concept was applied. But this is all way over your head so sorry about that.

Hakko Ichiu is world domination under Japanese rule and the Vietnamese decried the Empire as fascists and tyrants. But run along, I guess.

You keep on repeating the same thing without reading what I have said or fully understanding sources. But run along, I guess.

The Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere was many things to many people, but it was ultimately a vehicle for Japan to exploit other Asians it saw as lesser. The Japanese did not want to develop the fellow states it subjugated as some would like to believe. Rather, it was the flying geese paradigm but without the assumption of economic development. It was more of a flying vulture.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Ind ... volunteers

You are stuck on 1945 and I am talking about 1946-1970s

That was primarily a byproduct of the surrender of Japan to the Allies. While it is true that former Japanese soldiers served with the Viet Minh on numerous occasions, the fact of the matter is this wasn't official government policy. You seem to be overinflating their importance as well as their cooperation; this was merely an alliance of convenience rather than anything genuine. In the Wikipedia article you mentioned, it states

For [the Japanese] that stayed behind, fighting with the Việt Minh became a more attractive idea than returning to a defeated and occupied homeland. In addition the Việt Minh had very little experience in warfare or government so the advice of the Japanese was welcome.

I highly doubt the soldiers truly cared about Vietnamese independence and it wasn't like the Viet Minh had many good options for military training.

Their contribution was fairly significant as the schools they founded helped to teach many new officers and soldiers. It is arguable some actually cared seeing as though they stayed behind or traveled back. Colonel Tsuji for example. He served with the Việt Minh immediately after the war as well as Chinese intelligence. He managed to go back to Japan and was elected to the Diet twice. However his belief in pan-Asian views led him to go back to Vietnam in the 60s and became an advisor there despite CIA ties.

[Picairn]

You keep on repeating the same thing without reading what I have said or fully understanding sources. But run along, I guess.

I already told you about this in the Japanese Politics thread and you had no responses. I suppose that is because you have no arguments left. Same as here.

[TENNOHEIKA BANZAI NIHON]

You keep on repeating the same thing without reading what I have said or fully understanding sources. But run along, I guess.

I already told you about this in the Japanese Politics thread and you had no responses. I suppose that is because you have no arguments left. Same as here.

No you just kept repeating yourself as a broken record so there is no sense in making you repeat yourself over and over.

[Tyunmen]

Nekostan coming in to justify Japanese imperialism in 3... 2... 1...

Yup. The Empire of Japan was awesome. The only issue here is that it shouldn’t have picked fight with Anglos which caused a lot of sorrows on both sides.

Yep, the Nanjing Massacre never happened, nor all the stuff about Comfort Women.

[Miku the Based]

I heard kiyoshi miki here. I wanna learn more about the Kyoto school so I'll post here. What books do y'all recommend by them to understand their philosophical thought. Also critiques on other political movements of the era.
Those pan-asian japanese-vietnamese communists sounds amazing any journals and political texts from them would be great too.

[Nekostan-e Gharbi]

Yup. The Empire of Japan was awesome. The only issue here is that it shouldn’t have picked fight with Anglos which caused a lot of sorrows on both sides.

Yep, the Nanjing Massacre never happened, nor all the stuff about Comfort Women.

They happened. However the Empire of Japan was still net positive to humanity despite these atrocities.

Not even Israel is perfect. This doesn’t mean it isn’t awesome.

[Kubra]

Yep, the Nanjing Massacre never happened, nor all the stuff about Comfort Women.

They happened. However the Empire of Japan was still net positive to humanity despite these atrocities.

Not even Israel is perfect. This doesn’t mean it isn’t awesome.

lol to this day most of Asia has only barely forgiven japan for the whole hubbub
For a guy who loves japan it uh, it wasn't much of a net positive for em
I mean I guess it got rid of army influence in politics in a bit of a roundabout way

[Nekostan-e Gharbi]

They happened. However the Empire of Japan was still net positive to humanity despite these atrocities.

Not even Israel is perfect. This doesn’t mean it isn’t awesome.

lol to this day most of Asia has only barely forgiven japan for the whole hubbub
For a guy who loves japan it uh, it wasn't much of a net positive for em
I mean I guess it got rid of army influence in politics in a bit of a roundabout way

Only China and the Koreas hate Japan. China is a lawless and brutal entity that simply needs to be abolished. The Koreas unfortunately hate Japan due to their own ethnonationalism not very different from Poles hating Germany and Russia.

There are always needs for checks and balances. Northeast Asia (minus China) historically serves this purpose by making sure that no Caucasoid group can dominate even the Caucasoid world, let alone the entire world. Huns disrupted Roman dominance. Mongols prevented Islamic dominance. Japan made sure that Turner Diary doesn’t actually happen and triggered the beginning of the end of colonialism.

This is the real primary contribution of NE Asia to humanity: Maintaining balance of power and preventing the world from deteriorating into one huge China-like political, ethnic, racial or cultural entity. This is a contribution more important than Japanese scientists discovering adrenaline or manufacturing MSG.

[Picairn]

No you just kept repeating yourself as a broken record so there is no sense in making you repeat yourself over and over.

I have to repeat myself precisely because you keep repeating the same debunked lies and half-truths.

[Brain Gremlin]

Originally it started out as a genuine call for the various Asiatic nations to join together in opposition to European and American imperialism. However it was coopted by Japanese ultranationalists and racialists to serve as an ideological justification for Japan's own imperial interests. Which of course led the Japanese to commit atrocities that at times disgusted the Nazi Germans.

[Glorious Hong Kong]

Japanese war crimes are history and we need to move on. All four of my grandparents who lived under Japanese occupation have since passed away, the last one just last year, and their atrocities are beginning to slip out of living memory. For me, it is nothing more than a matter for academics and historians. Communist China is as guilty as Japan of attempting to whitewash the horrifying events of WWII and have recently taken to revising Hong Kong's history textbooks. I have far more of a problem with Chinese revisionism than I do Japanese revisionism.

We need to recognize that Japan in 2021 is nothing like Japan in 1931-1945. Today, Japan is a prosperous, liberal democracy and close ally of the United States. It is a member of the civilized, free world. Japanese alive today should not have to apologize for the crimes of their ancestors just as white Americans alive today should not have to apologize for slavery and Jim Crow and Germans alive today should not have to apologize for Adolf Hitler and the Holocaust. By all means, Japan should be held accountable and reparations should be paid out to those victims of war crimes and forced prostitution who are still alive today. That Japan still hasn't fully reimbursed South Korea's comfort women remains a grave injustice and a stain on Japan's otherwise clean record. But eventually, we all have to move on.

I love and admire Japan and have visited that country twice, and each time I was impressed and blown away by what I saw and experienced. The Japanese people are extremely polite to a fault, extremely orderly and civilized, extremely tidy, extremely innovative, and extremely efficient. How in the world could such a people perpetrate the kinds of war crimes against Chinese and Koreans that their ancestors once did? I just don't see it happening. I went to school with Japanese classmates in Hong Kong. Are they genocidal war criminals? I hardly think so.

Japan, especially Kyoto, is more "Chinese" than China currently is because Japan never experienced a Cultural Revolution the way China did. Only Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau can claim to be even more Chinese. Japan has also given us Pokemon, Dragonball Z, Gundam, and Macross. It has given us Final Fantasy VII and Chrono Trigger. It has given us Super Mario World. It has given us Toyota and Panasonic. Miso soup and ramen are total delicacies. (The only thing I won't be missing is Kumon.) For these and so much more, I am grateful.

Today, it is Communist China that is the fascist, communist, genocidal, imperialist, expansionist dictatorship, not Japan. Hong Kong's freedoms have been utterly extinguished by the CCP, not the LDP, and Taiwan is at imminent risk of being invaded by Communist China, not democratic Japan. It is China, not Japan, that is occupying disputed islands and constructing artificial islands and airbases in the North Malaysian Sea with which to launch attacks on Vietnamese, Philippine, and Malaysian soil. The PLA is potentially within striking distance of where I live.

It is China that is attempting to market potentially inferior vaccines to easily bought and corrupt Third World countries such as my own, and it is China that is waging a Cold War against the West and against freedom as we know it. Not Japan. It is in China that the authorities initially covered up, and then ultimately failed to prevent a deadly virus from spreading around the world, hence the widespread use of the terms CCP virus and China virus. This would never have been allowed to happen in Japan.

Everyone objects to the term China virus and even Wuhan virus even though the virus originated from there, and woke, so-called progressives conveniently parrot the CCP talking point that the term China virus incites racism and violence against Asian people, yet both the WHO and the CDC retain the official use of the term Japanese encephalitis and nobody, not even Western media outlets and woke, "anti-racist" leftists themselves, object to that term because it is the CCP, not the LDP, that possesses the kind of stifling, geopolitical clout that Japan currently lacks. It's OK to stigmatize and be racist to Japanese people, but it's not OK to stigmatize and be racist to Chinese people. Or something. Anti-racist? Bull. Fucking. Shit.

It is in China that man's inhumanity to man is made manifest in the form of the CCP and its utterly vile, disgusting conduct at home and abroad, not the LDP in Japan. What has Communist China given us since the end of WWII and the Allied liberation of Japan? Communism, famine, political repression, genocide, intellectual property theft, social credit, and a pandemic that has killed over two million people around the world.

My beef is not with Japan, but with China. In contrast to my love and admiration of Japan and all things Japanese, I absolutely abhor China with all my guts. I would rather introduce myself as a Malaysian or a Hong Konger than a Chinese. Lately, I have taken to referring to Chinese New Year as Lunar New Year to further distance myself from China and align myself with Koreans and others who also celebrate the occasion at the same time as us in spite of attempts by the Chinese government and many brainwashed Mainland Chinese citizens to prohibit Koreans from using any other term besides Chinese New Year and engaging in racist, chauvinistic, far-right cancel culture.

We should be worrying about a Chinese Co-Prosperity Sphere, not a Japanese one. If ever there was a war between China and Japan, you can bet your ass I would be rooting for Japan, and I say this as a member of the ethnic Chinese diaspora. I stand firmly with Japan and all of China's enemies in their bid to contain and ultimately defeat the CCP and liberate China. Japan must amend its constitution and rebuild its military into the seemingly unstoppable war machine that it once was.

I wish there was another Japanese Co-Prosperity Sphere today because a second Japanese military occupation of present-day China would be far more humane and democratic than the original one and I would expect Mainland Chinese to be grateful for their liberation from communist rule instead of violently lashing out at their Japanese liberators in nationalistic spite and jealousy for the freedoms that Taiwanese and Japanese currently enjoy. (Taiwan, incidentally, was occupied by Japan once.) As I said earlier, Japan has definitely changed for the better.

#LiberateChina #RevolutionOfOurTimes #NipponBanzai

[Duvniask]

Nekostan coming in to justify Japanese imperialism in 3... 2... 1...

Can't have a thread without Nekostan shitting all over it.

[The Remote Islands]

It was bad.

[Alaska Hawaii and the Aleutes]

Cool Motive! Still Murder!

Yeah. Guess what? The world is full of assholes. The point is lowering the amount of total asshatry, not eliminating it for the latter is impossible.

Monopoly of any kind is evil and nomadic Northeast Asian peoples and later Japan played the crucial goal of preventing monopoly in the world.

Oh god, you are so foolish. Look at Unit 731! They were obsessed with themselves and only them. The others were for them creatures you could experiment on. The Japanese were fanatic! Kamikaze is fanatic! Unit 731 is fanatic! They were monsters and paid for it. They brought pain and suffering to everyone except themselves!

[Nekostan-e Gharbi]

Yeah. Guess what? The world is full of assholes. The point is lowering the amount of total asshatry, not eliminating it for the latter is impossible.

Monopoly of any kind is evil and nomadic Northeast Asian peoples and later Japan played the crucial goal of preventing monopoly in the world.

Oh god, you are so foolish. Look at Unit 731! They were obsessed with themselves and only them. The others were for them creatures you could experiment on. The Japanese were fanatic! Kamikaze is fanatic! Unit 731 is fanatic! They were monsters and paid for it. They brought pain and suffering to everyone except themselves!

Exclamation marks do not really improve the argument.

[Marxist Germany]

To all those defending the Japanese empire: Unit 731

Thousands of men, women, children and infants interned at prisoner of war camps were subjected to vivisection, often without anesthesia and usually ending with the death of the victim.[25][26] Vivisections were performed on prisoners after infecting them with various diseases. Researchers performed invasive surgery on prisoners, removing organs to study the effects of disease on the human body.

[...]

Prisoners had limbs amputated in order to study blood loss. Those limbs that were removed were sometimes re-attached to the opposite sides of the body. Some prisoners had their stomachs surgically removed and the esophagus reattached to the intestines. Parts of organs, such as the brain, lungs, and liver, were removed from some prisoners.

[...]

At least 12 large-scale field trials of biological weapons were performed, and at least 11 Chinese cities were attacked with biological agents. An attack on Changda in 1941 reportedly led to approximately 10,000 biological casualties and 1,700 deaths among ill-prepared Japanese troops, with most cases due to cholera.[4] Japanese researchers performed tests on prisoners with bubonic plague, cholera, smallpox, botulism, and other diseases.[33] This research led to the development of the defoliation bacilli bomb and the flea bomb used to spread bubonic plague.[34] Some of these bombs were designed with porcelain shells, an idea proposed by Ishii in 1938.

[...]

During the final months of World War II, Japan planned to use plague as a biological weapon against San Diego, California. The plan was scheduled to launch on September 22, 1945, but Japan surrendered five weeks earlier.[35][36][37][38] Plague fleas, infected clothing and infected supplies encased in bombs were dropped on various targets. The resulting cholera, anthrax, and plague were estimated to have killed at least 400,000 Chinese civilians.[39] Tularemia was also tested on Chinese civilians.[40]

[...]

Army Engineer Hisato Yoshimura conducted experiments by taking captives outside, dipping various appendages into water, and allowing the limb to freeze.[49] Once frozen, which testimony from a Japanese officer said "was determined after the 'frozen arms, when struck with a short stick, emitted a sound resembling that which a board gives when it is struck'",[50] ice was chipped away and the area doused in water, limbs brought close to fire and other "methods" used to determine the effect it had on frostbite. The effects of different water temperatures were tested by bludgeoning the victim to determine if any areas were still frozen.

[...]

"Infection of venereal disease by injection was abandoned, and the researchers started forcing the prisoners into sexual acts with each other. Four or five unit members, dressed in white laboratory clothing completely covering the body with only eyes and mouth visible, rest covered, handled the tests. A male and female, one infected with syphilis, would be brought together in a cell and forced into sex with each other. It was made clear that anyone resisting would be shot."

[...]

Female prisoners were forced to become pregnant for use in experiments. The hypothetical possibility of vertical transmission (from mother to child) of diseases, particularly syphilis, was the stated reason for the torture. Fetal survival and damage to mother's reproductive organs were objects of interest. Though "a large number of babies were born in captivity", there have been no accounts of any survivors of Unit 731, children included. It is suspected that the children of female prisoners were killed after birth or aborted.

[Nekostan-e Gharbi]

To all those defending the Japanese empire: Unit 731

Thousands of men, women, children and infants interned at prisoner of war camps were subjected to vivisection, often without anesthesia and usually ending with the death of the victim.[25][26] Vivisections were performed on prisoners after infecting them with various diseases. Researchers performed invasive surgery on prisoners, removing organs to study the effects of disease on the human body.

[...]

Prisoners had limbs amputated in order to study blood loss. Those limbs that were removed were sometimes re-attached to the opposite sides of the body. Some prisoners had their stomachs surgically removed and the esophagus reattached to the intestines. Parts of organs, such as the brain, lungs, and liver, were removed from some prisoners.

[...]

At least 12 large-scale field trials of biological weapons were performed, and at least 11 Chinese cities were attacked with biological agents. An attack on Changda in 1941 reportedly led to approximately 10,000 biological casualties and 1,700 deaths among ill-prepared Japanese troops, with most cases due to cholera.[4] Japanese researchers performed tests on prisoners with bubonic plague, cholera, smallpox, botulism, and other diseases.[33] This research led to the development of the defoliation bacilli bomb and the flea bomb used to spread bubonic plague.[34] Some of these bombs were designed with porcelain shells, an idea proposed by Ishii in 1938.

[...]

During the final months of World War II, Japan planned to use plague as a biological weapon against San Diego, California. The plan was scheduled to launch on September 22, 1945, but Japan surrendered five weeks earlier.[35][36][37][38] Plague fleas, infected clothing and infected supplies encased in bombs were dropped on various targets. The resulting cholera, anthrax, and plague were estimated to have killed at least 400,000 Chinese civilians.[39] Tularemia was also tested on Chinese civilians.[40]

[...]

Army Engineer Hisato Yoshimura conducted experiments by taking captives outside, dipping various appendages into water, and allowing the limb to freeze.[49] Once frozen, which testimony from a Japanese officer said "was determined after the 'frozen arms, when struck with a short stick, emitted a sound resembling that which a board gives when it is struck'",[50] ice was chipped away and the area doused in water, limbs brought close to fire and other "methods" used to determine the effect it had on frostbite. The effects of different water temperatures were tested by bludgeoning the victim to determine if any areas were still frozen.

[...]

"Infection of venereal disease by injection was abandoned, and the researchers started forcing the prisoners into sexual acts with each other. Four or five unit members, dressed in white laboratory clothing completely covering the body with only eyes and mouth visible, rest covered, handled the tests. A male and female, one infected with syphilis, would be brought together in a cell and forced into sex with each other. It was made clear that anyone resisting would be shot."

[...]

Female prisoners were forced to become pregnant for use in experiments. The hypothetical possibility of vertical transmission (from mother to child) of diseases, particularly syphilis, was the stated reason for the torture. Fetal survival and damage to mother's reproductive organs were objects of interest. Though "a large number of babies were born in captivity", there have been no accounts of any survivors of Unit 731, children included. It is suspected that the children of female prisoners were killed after birth or aborted.

This doesn’t change the fact that the Empire of Japan was net beneficial to humanity.

I know very well that your clean and moral world can not exist and any attempt to establish it will only cause horrors to be worse.

[Odreria]

The ideas behind Japanese pan-Asianism were quite based. The Japanese were initially welcomed as liberators across much of Southeast Asia, particularly Indonesia for example. This obviously doesn’t apply to China, where they were on a while different level of brutality. The reasons why the city prosperity sphere didn’t work in practice are pretty obvious - it was administrated by the military and used (after a brief period where they tried to actually do cultural exchange shit) purely to fuel the Japanese war machine, with no regard for any of the values the idea of the co prosperity sphere was based on. As far as I’m aware there were very few exceptions within the armed forces. All you can do now is dream about the 226 incident succeeding.

I’m not informed enough to try to give a full explanation of the reasons behind the extent and savagery of the crimes committed by Japanese troops. I know the absolute chad Yamashita Tokoyumi faced active hostility from other officers for things like treating his prisoners humanely.