Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere

The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere was a concept created and promulgated during the Shōwa era by the government and military of the Empire of Japan. It represented the desire to create a self-sufficient "block of Asian nations led by the Japanese and free of Western powers".

The Japanese Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe planned the Sphere in 1940 in an attempt to create a Great East Asia, comprising Japan, Manchukuo, China, and parts of Southeast Asia, that would, according to imperial propaganda, establish a new international order seeking "co prosperity" for Asian countries which would share prosperity and peace, free from Western colonialism and domination. Military goals of this expansion included naval operations in the Indian Ocean and the isolation of Australia.

This was one of a number of slogans and concepts used in the justification of Japanese aggression in East Asia in the 1930s through the end of World War II. The term "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" is remembered largely as a front for the Japanese control of occupied countries during World War II, in which puppet governments manipulated local populations and economies for the benefit of Imperial Japan.

Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere in Days of Infamy
Hawaii was officially reinstated as part of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere after Japanese forces took the archipelago following the attack on Pearl Harbor 1941. Also as part of the Co-Prosperity Sphere's agenda, Stanley Owana Laanui was made as a puppet ruler of Hawaii, which became the reconstituted Kingdom of Hawaii.

Many elder and more conservative Japanese residents of Hawaii, especially Jiro Takahashi, were satisfied in becoming part of the Co-Prosperity Sphere.

Though, it is ostensibly mentioned by some, including coming from the Japanese military and navy, that the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere was more of a plain excuse for Japan to expand its empire and forcing its conquered nations to benefit Japan only.