Japan Asean Co Prosperity Sphere

‘Japan and Asean can regard security cooperation as a realistic option because China is their common adversary.’ Dr Hideshi Takesada, a Japanese defence expert, former professor at South Korea’s Yonsei Unversity.

This is the gist of the vice ministerial meeting in Tokyo hosted by the Japanese for the Asean ministers. It is a new tag to bring the Asean countries into the Japanese sphere of influence not much different from the failed Asia Co Prosperity Sphere of the Second World War. The difference then and now is that Japan was the enemy, the invader of China and Asean countries. Now Japan is touting China as the common enemy of Japan and Asean.

Would the Asean countries bite this Japanese line and pitch themselves as the enemy of China, taking sides with their brutal and barbaric occupation force that attempted to colonise and rule over them? Japan has a real pricky problem with China, having seized Chinese territories during its imperial days through wars. There are disputes between some Asean countries with China but over islands in the South China Sea that have not belonged to any Asean countries in the first place. The Asean countries like Vietnam and the Philippines, including Malaysia and Brunei are staking claims over some rocks in the high seas that China had claimed centuries ago.

Japan is arrogantly and adamantly sticking to keep the Chinese territories it seized from China and is likely to go to war with China for that. Would the Asean countries be prepared to go to war with Japan against China for uninhabited islands that they are just staking claims to but with very little supporting documents of ownership?

The stage for a Sino Japanese war is imminent. Would the Asean countries, those with counter claims against China, willing to be sucked into such a war and fight for the Japanese that was the aggressor and holding on to war loots from China? Japan is luring the Asean countries and telling them China is their common enemy. Are the Asean countries that gullible to be conned by another revisionist Japan Asean Co Prosperity Sphere with Japan as the over lord? The tagline is very humiliating to the Asean Ministers attending the Meeting. The Japanese must be thinking that the Asean Ministers are impressionable little school boys with no knowledge of the past, of Japanese colonialism and atrocities, and can be easily talked into fighting with Japan against China.