‘Co-Prosperity’ or ‘Commonwealth’?: Japan, Britain and Burma 1940-1945 Takato Mori Thesis submitted to the University of London for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy London School of Economics and Political Science 2006 UMI Number: U61BB68 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U613368 Published by ProQuest LLC 2014. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 £ S Libra y BnDsnUWatyoik and Economic Sow*-- I I 0 % V I Abstract The entry of Japanese forces into Southeast Asia in 1940 and 1941, now generally identified as one of the vital causes of the Pacific War, and the following Japanese interregnum in the region during the war have been the focus of a considerable volume of studies. In particular, the causation and motivation behind Japanese expansion into Southeast Asia has been a matter of much historiographical and public debate in recent years. This thesis aims to clarify the goals behind Japanese policy and explore how it evolved both prior to and during the war, and how it in turn affected British policy. This study explores these subjects with particular focus on the following issues. It examines how the idea of building a ‘Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere' developed as the rationale for Japanese policy and to what extent the Japanese pre-war and wartime policy to nurture nationalist aspirations in Southeast Asia was driven by the ideological claims behind this concept. It also assesses how the Japanese southern expansion and the following occupation influenced British policy towards Southeast Asia, where Britain faced the rise of a number of active nationalist movements. These questions considered at the general level are also examined through a case study of Burma which provides an interesting example for the analysis of the real motives and intentions behind Japanese policy as well as for studying its impact on British policy planning to maintain its presence in the region. Acknowledgements I would like to express my thanks to Dr. Antony Best, London School of Economics, who has acted as my doctoral supervisor. Without his support and valuable advice over the years, I would have never seen this work completed. I have not only been benefited by his insightful comments and criticism as a professional historian but also by guidance and kind support as a person. He has my deepest respect and gratitude. I would also like to thank the staff of all institutions below for their kind assistance in my endeavours. In U.K., the staff of the following institutions have always been exceptionally helpful whenever I have had occasion to consult the records in their care: the Public Record Office in Kew; The British Library, Asia, Pacific and Africa Collections; Churchill College, the University of Cambridge; Hartley Library, University of Southampton for Mountbatten collections; the British Library for Political and Economic Science; the School of Oriental and African Studies Library. In Tokyo, I own many debts of gratitude to the staff of the following institutions for their consulting enormous volume of primary sources: Diplomatic Record Office, the Foreign Ministry; Modem Japanese Political History Materials Room, National Diet Library; the National Institute for Defence Studies, Japan Defence Agency. The financial support offered by the Matsushita International Foundation is also gratefully acknowledged. I must thank Professor Steve Smith and Professor Stuart Woolf for guiding me to study of modern history. I am also grateful to Dr. Matsuura Masataka and Professor Hayashi Hirofuml for their valuable advice and insights. The discussion and the interchange of ideas on both formal and informal occasions with them was very fruitful and often a source of inspiration throughout this work. For advice and support, I would like to thank my friends whom I have met along the way at the University of Essex, London School of Economics, the Public Record Office and the British Library. Finally, my deepest thanks must go out to my family. My mother and father have not only given great encouragement to my idea of studying in U.K. 11 years ago but also supported me in every imaginable way over all these years to complete this doctoral thesis. Without the support of my family, it would have never been possible to see this study as it is now. ii Table of Contents Abstract Acknowledgements List of Tables Introduction Chapter 1 The Emergence of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere and Japan's Southern Advance, up to July 1940. Chapter 2 The Emergence of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere and the Policy of the Southern Advance, July 1940 - December 1941. Chapter 3 British and Japanese Policies towards Burma and Growth of Nationalist Movement, 1935-41. Chapter 4 The Start of the Japanese Occupation and British Reconstruction Planning in Burma, December 1941 - March 1943. Chapter 5 Redefining War Efforts: Japan's New Policy towards the GEACPS and British Policy Planning for the future of Burma, April 1943 - December 1943. Chapter 6 Struggle for Independence Continued: Japanese Policy towards Burma and British Policy of Reoccupation, January 1944 - August 1945. Epilogue and Conclusion ‘Co-Prosperity’ or ‘Commonwealth’?: Fall of the GEACPS and End of British Rule in Burma. Bibliography List of Tables and Charts Chart 3.1 Japanese Rice Imports, 1936-41. 96 Chart 3.2 Export of Rice from Burma, 1931-41. 96 Table 4.1 List of Member of Dai Toa Shingi-kai 110 Table 4.2 Trade Balance in Southeast Asia (1938) 112 Table 4.3 List of Japanese Companies opened branches in Burma (as of 31 July, 1942) 119-120 Table 4.4 Burma: percentage of trade, 1935-40. 121 iv Introduction More than sixty years have already passed since the end of the Second World War in Asia and in the intervening period, the confrontation between Japan and the West over the control of Southeast Asia both prior to and during the war has attracted scholarly attentions of from many different angles. Among the many perspectives on the Japanese-Allied conflict in the region, the emergence and impact of the vision of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere is probably the most politically controversial subject. The war fought in Asia and Pacific between 1941 and 1945 is often referred to in Japanese by its wartime name 'Dai Toa Senso’ [the Greater East Asian War] which implicitly identifies the conflict as a struggle to achieve the elimination of the Western colonial structure from the region. From this viewpoint, the concept of the GEACPS is often considered to be a symbol of Japan’s altruistic efFort for decolonisation and ‘Asian liberation*. Some Japanese writers and scholars have supported the view that Japan's aim was, from the beginning, to liberate Asia from the yoke of Western colonialism and that it should be given considerable credit for bringing about the collapse of the pre-war colonial regimes and for emergence of independent states in the region following the end of Dai-Toa Senso. This view has, for instance, been presented by Hayashi Fusao in one of his works ‘Dai Toa Senso Koteiron [An Affirmation of the Greater East Asian War]'. Hayashi has argued in this study that the war fought during the period of 1941-45 was a conflict between America’s attempt to maintain a ‘white Pacific’ and Japan's struggle to construct a ‘yellow Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere’. He interprets the war not as an act of Japanese aggression or as a struggle for the redistribution of colonial territories but as Japan's heroic effort to liberate the oppressed Asian peoples from more than two centuries of Western domination which had shattered the peace that Japan had previously maintained with its neighbours. The emergence of new independent states after the war, he argued, is a reminder of the objectives that Japan fought for during the war against the Anglo-American powers. Such ideas have been repeatedly enunciated by many authors, especially on the Japanese side. It is not unusual even nowadays to find a considerable numbers of studies which follow a similar line of argument.1 One notable example of the resurgence of this revisionist interpretation of the war during the latter half of the 1990s was the establishment of the ‘Association for the Advancement of Liberalist [sic] View of History’ with Professor Fujioka Nobukatsu of Tokyo University as its driving force. Heading a group of scholars and teachers who demand a fundamental reconsideration of modem history education, Fujioka argues that Japanese 1 Introduction history is steeped in self-negation because it has embraced and indigenised two hostile foreign conceptions of Japanese history: the Asian nations' hatred of Japan and the national interest of the Western Allies. Fujioka has affirmed both that the war was one of self-defence and that the Asian nations had ultimately benefited from Japan's actions, and he developed those ideas further in an intensive debate with his opponents such as Yutaka Yoshida, a professor of social science at Hitotsubashi University. It is important to note that this ‘revisionist’ school in Japan has created a ‘public’ image of the war which has resonated with some in Japanese society beyond the boundary of intellectual circles.