Jeremy A. Yellen

Can expediency lead to meaning? That's sort of the question here, as Yellen examines how a program to build a self-contained security state morphed into something, on paper, that promoted a higher social and political purpose. This was more apparent than real, as it's mostly a commentary on Tokyo's desperation to maintain strategic momentum, having bitten off more than they can chew. The most interesting portion of this monograph is Yellen's examination of how politicians in Burma and the Philippines sought to turn collaboration into real progress towards political independence; this didn't happen, but it is a fascinating historical cul-de-sac.… (meer)

On 1 August 1940, the newly appointed Japanese foreign minister Matsouka Yōsuke gave a radio speech in which he explained the shift in policy undertaken by the recently formed government of Prime Minister Konoe Fumimaro. He declared that "the essence of our country's foreign policy must focus on the establishment of a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere that centers on Japan, Manchukuo, and China" (40), thus giving a label to the various war aims that underlay Japanese strategy until their surrender in September 1945. Yet as Jeremy Yellen (Chinese Univ. of Hong Kong) explains in his new book, the Co-Prosperity Sphere was not simply a synonym for Japan's wartime empire but a transnational project for restructuring the region that involved local elites in the territories Japan seized from the Western empires.

To read the rest of my review, click on this link:

http://www.miwsr.com/2020-004.aspx… (meer)