 DAITOA JAPAN
•Japan’s war planners called it “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.”
It was Japan’s vision for a New Great Asia under the slogan “Asia for Asians.” Western colonizers were to be expelled and Japan become pre-eminent. To achieve it, there had to be complete thought control and cultural transformation in Asia and the Pacific so that the peoples there would accept the divinity of the Japanese Emperor and Japan as god’s country.
All other cultures, value-systems, traditions, and languages would be forcibly and harshly eradicated. Hakko Ichiu (the eight corners of the world under one roof) explicitly meant the conquest of the entire world. Southeast Asia rich in natural resources would supply food and raw materials to Daitoa Japan, while Manchuria and North China would provide the heavy industrial base. The rest of Asia was to become a vast market, defended by Japanese military power and subservient to the Japanese Empire.
At its fullest extent in 1942, the Japanese Empire had become incredibly extensive, it included China (Nanking, Amoy,Guangdong,HongKong), Taiwan,Korea,Manchuria,Malaysia,Singapore,Thailand, Burma, the Philippines,Guam, Okinawa, BritishBorneo, the Dutch East Indies, East New Guinea, New Britain, the Trobriand Islands and other Pacific Islands and the Sakhalin Peninsula..
 Japanese Army Flag during World War II
To circumvent the exigencies of geopolitics, research led us to the word “Daitoa.” It was the Japanese buzz word for “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere,” an official phrase officially used by Imperial Japan for its imperialistic ventures in Asia.Changing “Japan” to “Daitoa Japan” when referring to World War II Japan allows present-day Japanese to collectively “save face” and hopefully open the floodgates of atonement.
That said - Till this day, the Japanese government remains in denial and adamantly refuses to make reparations. Many still insist these were mere collateral damage inevitable in war, comparing this to US war crimes in Vietnam or Iraq. A sizeable segment of the Japanese population still exhibit collective amnesia about Daitoa Japan’s crimes against humanity. These events have consistently been conspicuously absent in Japanese books and textbooks. Most Japanese schoolchildren do not know nor believe these events actually took place.
Today, Japan is the second largest economic power in the world, despite that fact that it has no raw materials and is not agriculturally self-sufficient, not even in rice, its staple food.
Asians who were victims of Japan’s drive to conquer still fear its potential to easily convert its sophisticated industrial and high-tech infrastructure into a military juggernaut. Japan’s zaibatsu is capable of utilizing the North Korean nuclear threat as an excuse to re-arm, go nuclear itself, and launch new imperialistic adventures “self-defense,” putting into practice the American pre-emptive doctrine. The bushido code of the samurai, the secret society of the yakuza, and other machismo Japanese institutions are probably kept under warps underneath its supposedly democratic public face. It must not be forgotten that Japan was literally coerced to adopt democratic institutions by American-Allied powers. These remain potential sources of immense power if Japan decides to emerge from democracy and once again flex its imperial muscles in Asia.
Throughout Japan’s history, it has never been possible for the Japanese people themselves to alter their nation’s power structure which is linked to its wartime power bureaucracy. All important transformations have come through gaiatsu or outside pressure. We hope the Asian Holocaust Memorial will serve as gaiatsu for the Japanese people.
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