The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere...what was it really supposed to be like?

[iori]

(in Occupied Korea, the Japanese at least knew that, no matter how far they went, there'd always be someone who understood Korean -- go an equivilent distance in New Guinea, and you'd run into languages as different from one another as Ubykh, Navaho, and Swahili. I probably fail at imperialism, but what's the point in having a subject population who can't understand what you're telling them to do?)

Their were parts of Africa that did'nt even know they were colonies of the European powers, so I don't think it's that much an issue.

New Guinea would be important for its coastal areas initially, eventually the Japanese would gradually move in and both teach Japanese to the groups that they could get translators for as well as just force the rest to learn it, much as America did with Native Americans.

 

[Saladan]

If this is real. Wow. I've heard jokes and serious proclamations of how divorced from reality the Japanese military was but this really gives you a good idea of how delusional they were.

 

[Morgan Hauser]

Yes, Visions of Victory is a pretty good read for an overall understanding of WWII war aims. The only real mistake on Weinberg’s part I was able to spot were his statements on Turkey’s position in an Axis-dominated Europe.

As for the vagueness with much of China’s territory, as noted in that book the problem with the country is that the Japanese didn’t really have a long-term strategy for permanently turning it into a Japanese colony after they conquered large parts of it. At different times they either actively supported Wang Jingwei’s regime, at other moments they tried to undermine it. They also couldn’t really decide as to whether the Kuomintang should be destroyed entirely or if a negotiated settlement could or should be reached with them.

As for what to do with the territory, I’ve suspected the Japanese would in the first place turn its border regions and peoples into vassal states, namely:
- an East Turkestan State (Xinjiang);
- a Kingdom of Greater Tibet;
- the Manchurian Empire (Manchukuo).
- and the Mongol State of Mengkukuo.
Like so:

The latter two of those four could very well be united with their Soviet-controlled counterparts.

That still leaves the question though on what to do with the Han Chinese heartland. I don’t know if this is a policy that the Japanese either contemplated or implemented, but if I were in their position I’d advance the same general tactic that the Germans intended for Russia: break China up into as many small and individually weak states as possible. The non-Mandarin dialects of Chinese could be a start for creating new ethnic identities.

Otherwise it would be wise to maintain direct control over several or all of the coastal areas, cities, and islands (including Hong Kong, Taiwan and Hainan) and foster Japanese settlement in these areas. The Shandong peninsula could be combined with Liaodong as some sort of Yellow Sea Territory to retain permanent control over the Bohai Sea.

 

[Atom]

Even though they presumably faced the same language problems Dutch, Germans and British all controlled the island at one point or another. Why couldn’t Japanese control the island than?

But they didn't control New Guinea, they controlled the coasts. No westerner had ever even gotten into the highlands before the 30s! Hell in 1938 Europeans found 50,000 people they had no idea existed just in the mountains! There were first contact situation throughout the 60s at least. It's misleading to say that the controlled or owned anything in the mountains of New Guinea, it's more like no-one really agreed that they didn't.

 

[Keenir]

If this is real. Wow. I've heard jokes and serious proclamations of how divorced from reality the Japanese military was but this really gives you a good idea of how delusional they were.

Saipan was a productive agricultural island.

yes, the Japanese were efficient conquerers with brutal methods. I doubt, however, that they intended to keep every single thing they attacked. (ie "we'll give you back these lands and people, if you give us this")

hell, that's what Germany wanted to do in 1901 to the US - didn't want to rule America, just to get a better bargaining position. so, what would Japan keep, and what would they be willing to hand over?

(that and, Japan came to an agreement with Ho Chi Minh's government and let them run most of the internal matters within Vietnam)

Even though they presumably faced the same language problems Dutch, Germans and British all controlled the island at one point or another. Why couldn’t Japanese control the island than?

the bolded ones controlled the coasts; the Japanese can do that too...but that's different from running the entire island.

But they didn't control New Guinea, they controlled the coasts. No westerner had ever even gotten into the highlands before the 30s! Hell in 1938 Europeans found 50,000 people they had no idea existed just in the mountains! There were first contact situation throughout the 60s at least. It's misleading to say that the controlled or owned anything in the mountains of New Guinea, it's more like no-one really agreed that they didn't.

you said it better than me.

 

[Strategos' Risk]

No Japanese plans for occupying and reorganizing the Russian Far East?

 

[Chris S]

No Japanese plans for occupying and reorganizing the Russian Far East?

Re-read the thread. The Japanese and German's haggled over the division of Asia including Soviet Asia and that's reflected on the second map and on Morgan's mini map.

Haven't seen any specific plans with regards to the Soviet Far East if that is what you are asking about. Dunno if Morgan saw anything in Visions of Victory towards that end, but I haven't found anything specific online.

 

[Chris S]

Yes, Visions of Victory is a pretty good read for an overall understanding of WWII war aims. The only real mistake on Weinberg’s part I was able to spot were his statements on Turkey’s position in an Axis-dominated Europe.

As for the vagueness with much of China’s territory, as noted in that book the problem with the country is that the Japanese didn’t really have a long-term strategy for permanently turning it into a Japanese colony after they conquered large parts of it. At different times they either actively supported Wang Jingwei’s regime, at other moments they tried to undermine it. They also couldn’t really decide as to whether the Kuomintang should be destroyed entirely or if a negotiated settlement could or should be reached with them.

As for what to do with the territory, I’ve suspected the Japanese would in the first place turn its border regions and peoples into vassal states, namely:

- an East Turkestan State (Xinjiang);
- a Kingdom of Greater Tibet;
- the Manchurian Empire (Manchukuo).
- and the Mongol State of Mengkukuo.
Like so:


The latter two of those four could very well be united with their Soviet-controlled counterparts.

Yeah, that seems the most logical set up to me, although I guess it would depend on how victory was achieved over China, if ever. If the Japanese were able to completely destroy the KMT and overrun China (which is ASB territory I would think) then they could probably divide China as in your map, but if they have to come to a deal with the KMT in order to get a puppet China then they would probably have to promise no more territorial changes to China to get the KMT on board.

That still leaves the question though on what to do with the Han Chinese heartland. I don’t know if this is a policy that the Japanese either contemplated or implemented, but if I were in their position I’d advance the same general tactic that the Germans intended for Russia: break China up into as many small and individually weak states as possible. The non-Mandarin dialects of Chinese could be a start for creating new ethnic identities.

That would also depend on the manner in which the war with China ended. If they completely win (destroy KMT; Japanese troops can roam anywhere in China at will) then they could break China up, probably with the help of ambitious warlords. Can't see them coming to a deal with the KMT though that had the break up of China into different Han Chinese states as one of the provisions of said deal.

Otherwise it would be wise to maintain direct control over several or all of the coastal areas, cities, and islands (including Hong Kong, Taiwan and Hainan) and foster Japanese settlement in these areas. The Shandong peninsula could be combined with Liaodong as some sort of Yellow Sea Territory to retain permanent control over the Bohai Sea.

Well the plans did seem to call for Hong Kong, Macau and Hainan to be attached to Taiwan/Formosa as part of Japan.

 

[Strategos' Risk]

Hey, an article of dubious veracity, about Japanese designs towards Russia!

http://wikibin.org/articles/japanese-planned-republic-of-the-far-east.html

 

[Morgan Hauser]

I read somewhere that the Germans and Japanese were supposedly contemplating a far-future division of the United States along the Mississippi river, with Germany assigned the territory east of it, Japan that to the west. Does somebody know if there’s any grain of truth to this?

 

[Theodoric]

I read somewhere that the Germans and Japanese were supposedly contemplating a far-future division of the United States along the Mississippi river, with Germany assigned the territory east of it, Japan that to the west. Does somebody know if there’s any grain of truth to this?

Well, Hitler and his Nazi friends loved making such grand plans to redivide the world. I don't think the Japanese ever really bothered, though.

 

[Tobit]

According to Phillip K. Dick, the Japanese Empire would have marijuana cigarettes totally legal.

 

[Emmanuel Goldstein]

According to Phillip K. Dick, the Japanese Empire would have marijuana cigarettes totally legal.

And have forcibly turned every indigenous south american in the Amazon into lower middle class consumers.

 

[Joseph K.]

I read somewhere that the Germans and Japanese were supposedly contemplating a far-future division of the United States along the Mississippi river, with Germany assigned the territory east of it, Japan that to the west. Does somebody know if there’s any grain of truth to this?

Probably some lower ranking official mentioned it as an offhand remark at a meeting.

 

[Chris S]

I read somewhere that the Germans and Japanese were supposedly contemplating a far-future division of the United States along the Mississippi river, with Germany assigned the territory east of it, Japan that to the west. Does somebody know if there’s any grain of truth to this?

Well a dividing line along the Mississippi would make some amount of sense given that Japan was supposed to have Caribbean possessions. I don't recall that river being the dividing line though in an old historical magazine article that went into the "what if?" aspect of an Axis victory. Instead the Japanese just got Oregon and California and then all of Mexico, all of the Caribbean and Central America and I think northern South America (including the Guiana shield) and Peru and Chile.

A dividing line along the Rockies or the Mississippi would make some amount of geographical sense though.

 

[Morgan Hauser]

Probably some lower ranking official mentioned it as an offhand remark at a meeting.

If that were the case than I’d be willing to bet that the idea was thrown around during the same 1942 German-Japanese conference where the Yenisei river was definitively established as the dividing line in Asia.

Well a dividing line along the Mississippi would make some amount of sense given that Japan was supposed to have Caribbean possessions. I don't recall that river being the dividing line though in an old historical magazine article that went into the "what if?" aspect of an Axis victory. Instead the Japanese just got Oregon and California and then all of Mexico, all of the Caribbean and Central America and I think northern South America (including the Guiana shield) and Peru and Chile.

A dividing line along the Rockies or the Mississippi would make some amount of geographical sense though.

I doubt very much that they ran that information by their German allies, who would probably have been pretty surprised that Japan was actually aiming for control of Cuba, Central America, and Colombia.

A line on either the Rockies or the Mississippi river does apparently award Germany the more valuable slice of the pie.

 

[Constantinople]

A line on either the Rockies or the Mississippi river does apparently award Germany the more valuable slice of the pie.

Ah but anything west of the Rockies is automatically more valuable and good just by its very nature of being west of the Rockies......

 

[Eurofed]

Yeah, that seems the most logical set up to me, although I guess it would depend on how victory was achieved over China, if ever. If the Japanese were able to completely destroy the KMT and overrun China (which is ASB territory I would think) then they could probably divide China as in your map, but if they have to come to a deal with the KMT in order to get a puppet China then they would probably have to promise no more territorial changes to China to get the KMT on board.



That would also depend on the manner in which the war with China ended. If they completely win (destroy KMT; Japanese troops can roam anywhere in China at will) then they could break China up, probably with the help of ambitious warlords. Can't see them coming to a deal with the KMT though that had the break up of China into different Han Chinese states as one of the provisions of said deal.



Well the plans did seem to call for Hong Kong, Macau and Hainan to be attached to Taiwan/Formosa as part of Japan.

Expanding on this, which post-war situation can we deem most likely for Japanese-dominated China, e.g. how deep the Japanese planned to extend their control of Han China from the coast, if they had won the war ? I ask this because we have a ton of info on how Nazi Germany and (to a lesser degree) Fascist Italy planned to set up Europe/Russia and (again to a lesser degree) the Middle East and Africa, but info on what Japan planned to do with core China at large is not so plentiful, although the situation is slightly better for the rest of the GEACPS. Probably because the Japanese themselves never had a clear idea of how victory was to be achieved over China in the first place, as you implied.

 

[Morgan Hauser]

Expanding on this, which post-war situation can we deem most likely for Japanese-dominated China, e.g. how deep the Japanese planned to extend their control of Han China from the coast, if they had won the war ? I ask this because we have a ton of info on how Nazi Germany and (to a lesser degree) Fascist Italy planned to set up Europe/Russia and (again to a lesser degree) the Middle East and Africa, but info on what Japan planned to do with core China at large is not so plentiful, although the situation is slightly better for the rest of the GEACPS. Probably because the Japanese themselves never had a clear idea of how victory was to be achieved over China in the first place, as you implied.

Nor the United States for that matter. Their entire war strategy against that country basically hinged on the presumption that after Japan would have asserted its pre-dominance over the entire Pacific that the United States would not be determined enough to take it back to be willing to face the sacrifices that it would entail, especially if their attention were re-directed to Europe.

Both Germany and Japan were essentially trying to use each other as a shield against the US.

EDIT:
On a related note, I recently read that Chinese Muslims such as the Ma Clique actually declared Jihad on the Japanese invaders, contrary to the latter’s hopes of establishing a Muslim-Japanese alliance. Enough ground for trying to turn East Turkestan into another centrally-controlled Government-General?

 

[Morgan Hauser]

For the interested, here's a map I found in a book I just read:

http://morganhauser-2010.deviantart.com/art/Greater-East-Asian-Sphere-188344729

And yes, the Japanese also laid claim to half of Antarctica.