Pan Asianism, the notion of creating a fraternity of Asians, provides insights on how transnational perceptions and policies toward Asia have been a powerful source of national identity among Japanese. Typically it is dismissed as a self-serving ideology aimed at legitimizing Japanese imperialism pre-1945. Japan's version of manifest destiny casts it in the role of liberator, joining forces with Asian brothers to throw off the yoke of Western colonialism.
After World War II, Pan Asianism has also been the source of an exculpatory and vindicating war memory, one in which Japan takes credit for the independence of its neighbors. The problem with Pan Asian idealism is that it has only been convincing to some Japanese and has not resonated with the alleged beneficiaries of Japan's self-proclaimed magnanimity.
Was Japan really the Light of Asia seeking to create an Asia for Asiatics? There is a consensus, at least outside Japan, that its "crusade" against the West was a fig leaf to justify its occupation of resource-rich colonies in order to win its ongoing war in China. Concerns about oil trumped liberation, and Japan's contributions to Asian independence were belated, limited and largely inadvertent