Japan declares free Indonesia after the Fall of France.

What would have happened if, after the Fall of France and the occupation of the Netherlands, Japan had declared an independent Indonesia? It declares its support for the Indonesian independence movement,and sends in troops to install a puppet government and displace the Dutch colonial administration. It thereby secures the rich oil and mineral resources of the Indies to support its war in China, while posing as an emancipator of colonial peoples. What effect would this have?
 
This is a declaration of war on the Allied powers; what is more, the Japanese know it. Such a move would not come without a larger attack on British possessions, and likely on the US as well.
 

GarethC

Donor
Do you mean in May/June 1940 after the fall of the Netherlands, or in March 1942 after the fall of the Dutch East Indies?
 
This is a declaration of war on the Allied powers; what is more, the Japanese know it. Such a move would not come without a larger attack on British possessions, and likely on the US as well.

But given the position the British would have been in such a time (assuming the OP meant a time period after the Fall of France not after it's OTL offensives of 1941) would they have been a position to DoW? Seemingly putting India and their Far east positions under threat as well as simply expanding Axis naval power tremendously? Granted, it would be seen and understood as just such a declaration but might Britain be forced to hold its tongue here rather than jump into another front?
 
The Japanese helped build the Indonesian Independence movement. The only reason they never declared one, independent Indonesia, is that the concept was completely alien to the people of the East Indies. If you had asked a native, they wouldn't agree that all the people of Borneo were of one race, let alone all the islands.
 
I have pondered this theme from time to time. Japan as an anti colonial power. Couple this with a decision not to attack China and you have a very different world. The United States had agreed to Philippine independence so they could ally themselves with the US. It would have been easy to provide military supplies to Ho in French Indochina and Sukarno in the Dutch East Indies. I find it hard to believe that the United States would go to war to defend the detached colonial administration in either
 
I have pondered this theme from time to time. Japan as an anti colonial power. Couple this with a decision not to attack China and you have a very different world. The United States had agreed to Philippine independence so they could ally themselves with the US. It would have been easy to provide military supplies to Ho in French Indochina and Sukarno in the Dutch East Indies. I find it hard to believe that the United States would go to war to defend the detached colonial administration in either

The thing is Japan would likely not simply permit Indonesia to go independent, they would do what they did OTL and prop up a puppet regime in Jakarta that on paper was independent and in reality was a vassal of Tokyo's interests. This, as with what happened elsewhere during the war, the Japanese governed the place as effectively a resource colony and sucked it dry for resources, Indonesia is ideal for this.

A Japanese confrontation with the US over the vital Philippines is almost inevitable.
 
The Japanese helped build the Indonesian Independence movement. The only reason they never declared one, independent Indonesia, is that the concept was completely alien to the people of the East Indies. If you had asked a native, they wouldn't agree that all the people of Borneo were of one race, let alone all the islands.

The idea of an Indonesia had existed since the 20's but I agree, it took Sukarno to really instill that sense of an Indonesian nationalism.
 
Any Japan that declares such a thing is going to have a much harder time convincing Vichy France to allow it to "protect" Indochina.
 
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