JAPANESE INVASIONS OF SOUTHEAST ASIA

• The 1938 concept of, New Order in East Asia, restricted to Northeast Asia, was turned into the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere (1940) aimed at forming a bloc of Asian nations led by the Japanese and free of Western powers
• After the World War II the concept emerged as an Asian equivalent of the Monroe Doctrine, especially with the Roosevelt Corrolary. The regions of Asia, it was argued, were as essential to Japan as Latin America was to the U.S. - Asia for asians.
  • It's historically rooted on the Asian puppet governments responding to Tokyo from 1895 (the first sino-japanese war, when Japan annexed Taiwan and forced China to accept Korea's independence) to 1937 (the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War)
    • The Second Sino Japanese war was the conflagration of a total war after many skemishes happening all over the previous century, including partial coloniztions of Manchuria through client landlords.
    • In 1937 Japan bombed Beijing and the KMT decided to stop concessions and engaged on full war
      • Marco Polo Bridge and Nankin massacre (rape of nankin)
    • Initially Japan invaded China, which was supported by Germany and URSS since before the war, but soon Hitler shifted the support to Japan and Stalin made assumed neutrality due to an agreement avoiding confrontation with Japan in Siberia
    • In 1940 Hitler betrayed Stalin and forced him to focus his power at the western front, while Japan invaded north Indochina to prevent China of being supplied by the allies. In 1941, as Japan extended the domination to south of Indochine, the allies imposed an oil embargo which lead Japan to declare war through attacking pearl harbour and aligning Hitler.
    • Japan also dominated Thailand, though the Thai government maintained nominal independence by signing an armistice (hours after the battle only) and supporting the japanese side, even declaring war to the US and UK
      • It was strategical to bomb Malasya and Burma of British
      • From 1942 to 1945 Japan occupied Burma and set it independent under Ba Mao
    • A key alliance between China and the allies focused on liberating the Burman road through which China could be supplied, what just happened in 1944
    • China seek alliance with Indochinese nationalist groups, mainly Vitnamise Viet minh, which were under Japanese conquest. Kaishek even refused Roosewelt proposal to get Indochina after the war.
    • In 1946 China was against the French re-colonization of Vietnam and even mentioned war, settling an agreement of mutual desocupation at that year
    • After the Allied victory in the Pacific, General Douglas MacArthur ordered all Japanese forces within China (excluding Manchuria), Formosa and French Indochina north of 16° north latitude to surrender to Chiang Kai-shek, and the Japanese troops in China formally surrendered on September 9, 1945.
• In 1943 there was even a summit with leaders of local political organizations of territories which further become modern southeast asian countries