Seventy years ago, on Nov. 5 and Nov. 6, 1943, Japan hosted a meeting of Asian leaders in Tokyo, hub of the Greater East Asian Co-prosperity Sphere — the name it gave its wartime empire under the guise of Pan-Asian liberation.
Certainly, the toppling of colonial governments in the region gave some credence to the notion that Japan was liberating Asia from the yoke of Western imperialism. However, the realities of Japanese subjugation soon sank in: It was a continuation of empire under new management.
This historical gathering dubbed the Greater East Asia Conference included representatives from six nations: Japan, Thailand, Manchukuo (a puppet state of Japan carved off from northeast China and parts of Inner Mongolia in 1931), China (represented by the wartime Wang Jingwei government established by the Japanese in post-massacre Nanjing), the Philippines and Burma.