The Atlantic Charter and the British empire

Scholars, novelists, and biographers have told and retold the historic summit in August 1941 between Prime Minister Winston Churchill and American President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.Footnote ² For Churchill, this meeting could not have happened soon enough. The war, after all, was not going well. British forces retained superiority in the skies, dealing defeat to Hitler's Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain. But Great Britain still struggled to shoulder the demands of fighting Nazi Germany. Nazi submariners devastated shipping across the Atlantic sea routes—Britain's lifeline to foodstuffs and critical raw materials. In fact, between September 1939 and April 1941, the British had lost 2,000 ships and around 8 million tons of shipping. Making matters more complex, German armies were deep in Soviet territory, throwing into doubt the survival of the Soviet regime. And the Japanese occupation of French Indochina threatened the future of British holdings in Southeast Asia. It was a time of crisis for the British empire.

Churchill secretly hoped that, during the summit, he could help bring about an American declaration of war against Nazi Germany. But no such declaration would be forthcoming. Instead, he travelled to Placentia Bay, on the coast of south Newfoundland, to confirm what was tantamount to an informal alliance with the United States of America. At his first dinner meeting with Roosevelt aboard the Augusta on 9 August, the American president indicated a desire to ‘draw up a joint declaration laying down certain broad principles which should guide our policies along the same road’.Footnote ³ Roosevelt saw the conference primarily as a vehicle to sign a Wilsonian statement of peace aims for the postwar world. Churchill agreed and, after a flurry of drafting, the two sides created the Atlantic Charter, which was publicized on 14 August 1941.Footnote ⁴ The charter announced to the world that Great Britain and the United States of America would join together in creating a more secure, equitable, and moral postwar order.

In public, Churchill lauded the Atlantic Charter as charting a new course for world politics. He stated in a broadcast on 24 August 1941 that the Charter ‘symbolizes something even more majestic—namely, the marshaling of the good forces of the world against the evil forces which are now so formidable and triumphant and which have cast their cruel spell’ over much of Europe and Asia.Footnote ⁵ In his memoirs, Churchill lauded the document as ‘astonishing’. Its reference to the final destruction of Nazi tyranny, after all, ‘amounted to a challenge which in ordinary times would have implied warlike action’. And he further noted his excitement with the American commitment to ‘join with us in policing the world until the establishment of a better order’.Footnote ⁶

But, in private, Churchill was more critical. As David Reynolds reveals, the declaration ‘went down like a lead balloon’ in London, and Churchill decried the declaration in his unpublished diary as ‘a flop’. Churchill had participated in the conference with the hopes of securing from the United States of America a declaration of war, not a declaration of war aims. ‘Our object,’ he had noted in February 1941, ‘is to get the Americans into war.’ But, once it became apparent that Roosevelt remained unwilling to declare war, Churchill recognized that a press release was the best that he could get.Footnote ⁷ The British chiefs of staff, too, were ‘restrained rather than euphoric’ about the conference.Footnote ⁸ Indeed, in January 1945, Minister of State at the Foreign Office Richard Law referred to the Atlantic Charter as ‘mainly a dodge to get the U.S. a little bit further into the war’.Footnote ⁹ The Atlantic Charter, which is now celebrated across the world as the harbinger of a human rights revolution, was thus ironically regarded in London as a grand disappointment.Footnote ¹⁰

It was the third clause—that of national self-determination—that led to their biggest headaches. It is likely that Churchill failed to understand the explosive potential of this principle, preoccupied as they were with the European war.Footnote ¹¹ Churchill's aid, Permanent Undersecretary for the Foreign Office Sir Alexander Cadogan, penned this clause with Europe in mind, to appease American concerns that Britain wanted to carve up Europe in the aftermath of war.Footnote ¹² More likely, however, he simply did not see it as important as protecting the economic privileges of the imperial preference, which he pursued to great American opposition during the summit. The biggest conflict in drawing up the Atlantic Charter, after all, had to do with the principle of free trade found in the draft's fourth clause. The British side successfully watered down the commitment to free trade by making it contingent on ‘due respect for their existing obligations’. The imperial preference was so important that arch-imperialist Secretary of State for India Leo Amery rejoiced at ‘the comparatively innocuous character’ of the economic clauses.Footnote ¹³ British leaders were preoccupied with economics, not self-determination.

Whatever the case, with the third clause, Churchill committed Britain to assure ‘the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live’ and to restore ‘sovereign rights and self government to those who have been forcibly deprived of them’. The inclusion of the phrase ‘sovereign rights and self government’ represented a feeble attempt to make the principle inapplicable to Britain's colonies. But words take on a life of their own, and this clause constituted a promise to uphold the right of national self-determination. Leo Amery privately fulminated against this promise. In his diary on 14 August 1941, he grumbled that Burmese ministers had already approached the Governor General of Burma and demanded that Britain live up to its word. Amery wrote: ‘We shall no doubt pay dearly in the end for all this fluffy flapdoodle.’Footnote ¹⁴

True to Amery's words, Britain would pay dearly; and nowhere would it pay as high a price as in colonial Burma. The strongest reaction to the Atlantic Charter happened in Burma, where nationalists seized on it to call either for independence or for a constitutional advance. When British officials proved unwilling to give immediate assurances, Burmese nationalists would turn to Imperial Japan, in the hopes that an Asian partner would help them secure the independence Britain refused to offer.

Burma had witnessed by the late 1930s the rise (especially in Lower Burma) of a fierce political nationalism and desires for independence.Footnote ¹⁵ There was no more vocal proponent of this new nationalism than Ba Maw, who served as Burma's first premier from 1937 to 1939. As recounted in his memoirs, Ba Maw saw the Second World War as a great opportunity for Burma. ‘The Axis victories,’ he wrote, ‘had changed the entire picture for us. I was convinced that, however the war might eventually end, British power in Asia would never be the same again, and our liberation was nearer and surer than ever.’Footnote ¹⁶ Ba Maw's chief political rival, U Saw, also pushed for complete self-government.Footnote ¹⁷ Both leaders saw the war as a unique opportunity to seize a greater degree of independence. And both no doubt believed that bringing independence to Burma would put their position of power above reproach.Footnote ¹⁸ The oft-spoke mantra ‘Britain's difficulty is Burma's opportunity’ served national, political, and personal ends.Footnote ¹⁹

From September 1939, Ba Maw worked to exploit the war to restore Burma to Burmese hands. First, he courted Japan. Ba Maw anticipated that Japan would enter the war, and hoped Tokyo could provide aid to Burma's independence campaign. In September 1939, he sought out the Japanese consul in Rangoon. After a set of meetings, the consul suggested a trip to Tokyo for Dr Thein Maung, Ba Maw's closest friend and president of the Burma-Japan Association. Thein Maung agreed, and travelled to Japan in November 1939. Although ostensibly a trip to sell rice, inspect schools, and sightsee, the mission's true intention was to secure Japanese support for a peaceful Burmese independence movement. Thein Maung stayed for a month, during which he hammered out an initial agreement. As Ba Maw wrote, Thein Maung ‘brought back a firm assurance that financial help would be given [to] us in the campaign for independence that we proposed to start’.Footnote ²⁰

Ba Maw also utilized the Freedom Bloc to exploit the global crisis to demand political emancipation. The Freedom Bloc, which formed in late 1939, was an amalgamation of Ba Maw's Sinyetha Party, Thakin leaders Aung San, Nu, Ba Swe, Hla Ba, and Mya of the Dobama Asiayone, and other affiliated groups. Ba Maw was designated the president-dictator (Anashin) and Thakin Aung San was appointed as general secretary.Footnote ²¹ On the whole, the Freedom Bloc pushed for complete independence. To many of its members, Dominion status was unacceptable, as it would lock Burma within a political and economic structure dominated by imperial Britain.Footnote ²² In a tense 23 February 1940 meeting of the House of Representatives, the U Tun Aung tried to pass an amendment to have Britain make good on past promises ‘by immediately recognizing Burma as an independent nation with the right to frame her own constitution’.Footnote ²³ He further condemned the British as evoking bitter antagonism in Burma and, quoting author H. G. Wells, decried the British Raj. ‘In Burma as in India,’ he insisted, ‘the British raj never explains. In effect, it has nothing to explain. It is there a brainless incubus.’Footnote ²⁴ The House of Representatives ultimately rejected the amendment. In response, members of the Freedom Bloc shifted to more overt antiwar propaganda in May and June. In a dramatic move, Ba Maw resigned from the House of Representatives in late July. He then began delivering scathing attacks on Prime Minister U Pu's policy of supporting the war, and was arrested for sedition on 6 August 1940. British officials in Burma viewed him as ‘the most dangerous “Quisling”’, likely to enter into intrigues with the Japanese.Footnote ²⁵

The activities of the Freedom Bloc prompted U Saw—Ba Maw's rival, who became prime minister in September 1940—to press for a constitutional advance. Yet, whereas the Freedom Bloc demanded complete independence, Saw sought to attain Dominion status. He took his cue from Governor of Burma Sir Archibald Douglas Cochrane, who signalled in November 1939 that Dominion status should be seen as the natural endpoint of Burmese governmental progress.Footnote ²⁶ Throughout 1940 and 1941, Saw embarked on a quest for a clear, unequivocal statement from London that Burma would be granted Dominion status by the end of the war.

The Atlantic Charter emboldened U Saw, who, by August 1941, saw Dominion status as within Burma's grasp. After all, the third clause implicitly committed Britain to grant self-government throughout the empire. Obsessed by the opportunity dangling before him, Saw visited London with his secretary, Tin Tut, in October and November 1941. Their goal was to meet with Churchill and Secretary of State for India and Burma Leo Amery to pry out a promise of political emancipation. Saw found a willing ally in the Governor General of Burma Sir Reginald Hugh Dorman-Smith—an Irishman who sympathized with Burmese aspirations for independence, but wanted it to be a peaceful, if drawn-out, process. Although he did not think Saw would meet with success, Dorman-Smith believed that the trip might boost morale and ease tensions in Burmese politics.Footnote ²⁷ Saw nonetheless remained hopeful. Britain, after all, was engaged in war in Europe and needed the full support of its empire. What better way to get support than by showing that London could live up to its promises? Saw cherished the idea of becoming the hero who pressured Burma's colonial master into offering the gift of Dominion status.Footnote ²⁸ So he played up Burma's constitutional advance. He proclaimed:

Indeed, this was by no means the first time Burmese leaders took up the issue of a constitutional advance with London. Since 1929 (even before the separation from India), Burma's British overlords issued multiple statements asserting that the goal of political development would be ‘the attainment of Dominion Status’.Footnote ³⁰ But this remained a distant dream before the outbreak of war in Europe. The war gave Burmese nationalists an opportunity to demand a greater level of self-government. On 29 February 1940, Senator U Kyaw Din moved a resolution calling upon London to grant Dominion status.Footnote ³¹ Hard on the heels of this, on 22 June, Prime Minister Maung Pu sent a letter asking for ‘a Constitution which will enable [Burma] to take at once her due place as a fully self-governing and equal member of any Commonwealth or Federation of free nations that may be established as a result of the war’.Footnote ³² London, however, deflected this call, sticking to its policy that Dominion status would be considered in the future. But the Atlantic Charter gave Burma's demands further relevance and power. And Saw was more than happy to use the charter to demand a greater degree of self-government.

U Saw found some sympathy, but overall London remained cool to the Burmese request. On 9 September 1941, Churchill had repudiated the commitment to self-government, stating in the House of Commons that the Atlantic Charter referred only to ‘European nations now under the Nazi yoke’.Footnote ³³ Moreover, Amery refused to clarify Britain's policy, insisting that it was ‘not the time to enter upon constitutional controversies’. He only issued ambiguous and cautiously worded replies hinting that Dominion status would be granted ‘as a process of natural growth’.Footnote ³⁴ His clearest reply came in a letter to U Saw on 3 November 1941. Amery stated that only after ‘the war is brought to a victorious end’ would London ‘be willing to discuss the problems to be solved in Burma’.Footnote ³⁵ Such guarded statements failed to resonate with Saw, who expressed his dissatisfaction to the press. On 3 November, he lamented:

Saw even placed his complaints in the context of the Atlantic Charter and Britain's war aims of freedom and liberation: ‘My only request to the British Government and people is that before they free the countries under Hitler let them free the countries which are in the British Empire.’ But, he continued, the situation does not look promising: ‘No one knows when Burma will get self-government.’Footnote ³⁶ In a last-ditch effort, Saw requested on 11 November that Burmese affairs be transferred to the Dominion Office. This, he argued, could be taken as a sign that Burma was on the road to self-government. But Churchill and Amery refused, insisting that it was ‘not practicable’ to discuss independence or Dominion status while still engaged in a global war.Footnote ³⁷

U Saw would leave London disappointed. After all, he had not gone to London ‘simply to kiss Mr. Churchill’.Footnote ³⁸ Yet, in the end, kissing Churchill is all he accomplished. Far from receiving Dominion status, Saw had won only the reiteration of a hazy old promise to consider self-government after the war. This is unsurprising. As Christopher Bayly and Tim Harper have noted, Burma in 1941 ‘was so far down the list of political priorities as to be invisible’.Footnote ³⁹ And the Churchill government remained unwilling to consider granting independence within Britain's Asian empire. Even so, disgruntled as Saw was, he still admitted his commitment to working with Britain. He insisted that Burma ‘would rather trust the devil we know than the devil we don't’.Footnote ⁴⁰

But his faith had been shaken. Upon leaving, Saw stated ominously: ‘I cannot foresee what the attitude of my people will be when I explain the response of the British Government to my request.’Footnote ⁴¹ As it turned out, Saw would not make it back to Burma until after the war, and his tale would remain untold. Unwilling to go home empty-handed, Saw spent several weeks in a failed attempt to drum up support in the United States of America. In Washington, he hoped to persuade President Roosevelt to intercede with Churchill to apply the Atlantic Charter to Burma. Roosevelt, however, brushed aside discussions with Saw on Burmese independence. And discussions with ranking officials made it clear that the American interest in Burma only related to the flow of supplies to China through the Burma Road.Footnote ⁴² On his way back to Burma, however, opportunity knocked. He reached Hawaii on 8 December 1941, the day after the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. The Japanese assault on Hawaii and Hong Kong, the landing on the Malay peninsula, and the sinking of the ‘unsinkable’ British flagship HMS Prince of Wales revealed to Saw the frailties of Allied power. Halted at Hawaii, Saw was forced to retrace his journey home via the United States of America and Europe. At Lisbon, Saw courted a Japanese embrace. He contacted the Japanese Legation and offered Burmese support should the Japanese decide to invade.Footnote ⁴³ Unfortunately for Saw, however, the British had cracked Japan's diplomatic and naval cipher messages and were well aware of his overtures. The British police arrested U Saw upon his arrival in Egypt on 19 January 1942 and kept him prisoner in Uganda for the following four years.Footnote ⁴⁴

Governor Dorman-Smith secretly rejoiced. He had been worried that, upon his return, Saw might rally public sentiment against Great Britain. In a letter to Amery in October 1944, he hinted that Japan's invasion of Burma had perhaps saved Britain from a political disaster. He wrote:

Dorman-Smith further emphasized this point in his unpublished memoirs. ‘The lesson which I learnt arising out of the U Saw mission,’ he wrote, ‘was that it is possible to lose a country by haggling over a phrase.’Footnote ⁴⁶

The Atlantic Charter thus resonated throughout the British empire. It was produced owing to the exigencies of war, and accepted by Churchill as a consolation prize after failing to obtain an American commitment to enter the war against Nazi Germany. From Churchill's perspective, the Atlantic Charter represented part of a charm offensive to pull the United States of America into a formal alliance. In this sense, it was two parts propaganda, one part diplomacy, one part grandiloquence, and one part vision for the future. Churchill signed the charter in part because he hoped that American assistance in defeating Nazi Germany would preserve the British empire. British leaders, however, never intended to follow through with all included principles. By June 1943, the Foreign Office had distanced Britain from the universal application of the charter. In a confidential document (which was not sent to the Dominions), the Foreign Office noted that the charter merely ‘enunciates certain principles’, but does not commit its adherents to realize them ‘in every single case’ or to ‘[treat] all cases alike’.Footnote ⁴⁷ Moreover, Churchill remained steadfast in his opposition to self-determination throughout the empire. As Leo Amery privately noted, Churchill ‘has an instinctive hatred of self-government in any shape or form and dislikes any country or people who want such a thing or for whom such a thing is contemplated’.Footnote ⁴⁸ By 1945, as Churchill himself insisted: ‘The Atlantic Charter is a guide, and not a rule.’Footnote ⁴⁹

Nonetheless, the charter provided colonial elites with intellectual ammunition to protest the reality of British rule. As The Japan Times and Advertiser noted on 3 November 1941: ‘The Atlantic Charter has given Burma a new weapon to wield against Britain.’ The article further argued that ‘the promise of Dominion Status fell far short of the legitimate aspiration of the people’ and of the ideals of the Atlantic Charter.Footnote ⁵⁰ Even American commentators argued that Burmese resistance to London swelled ‘not only because it was fashionable to oppose everything bearing the British stamp but because of Britain's failure to offer any definite political bait’.Footnote ⁵¹ The failure to receive any such ‘political bait’ would drive the Thakins and Ba Maw into a firm Japanese embrace. In this manner, wartime Wilsonianism strengthened pressures against Britain's imperial project.

The Pacific Charter and Imperial Japan

Ba Maw and other disaffected Burmese leaders felt a sense of euphoria as Japanese forces swept through Burma between January and April 1942. This euphoria was strengthened by Japan's insistence that it would oust Western imperialism and create an ‘Asia for the Asians’. As Ba Maw noted in his memoirs, Japan's message ‘was direct and emphatic: Japan would win the war, she would give us our independence, she would lead us to future prosperity and greatness’.Footnote ⁵² In August 1942, Ba Maw, who escaped Mogok jail three months earlier, agreed to head a new Burmese government in the belief that a partnership with Japan would lead to an independent Burma. His collaboration would ultimately be rewarded. Japan offered independence (albeit nominal) in August 1943 and followed up by issuing a Pacific Charter in November 1943 that shadowed the Wilsonian values of the Atlantic Charter. To Burmese leaders like Ba Maw, then, Japan appeared to be positioning itself as the only empire that would provide for self-determination.

As with the British case, however, Japan's Pacific Charter was a product of geopolitical desperation. Despite a wild rush across Asia, by 1943, the war was not going well for Japan. The Battle of Midway in June 1942 resulted in the Imperial Navy's loss of the four aircraft carriers that formed the core of its power-projection capabilities. Moreover, the six-month Guadalcanal campaign, which ended in a full-scale Japanese evacuation in February 1943, placed Japan on the defensive in the Pacific. Guadalcanal also weakened Japanese forces across all fronts owing to Tokyo's consistent attempts to reinforce failing defenders with fresh supplies and troops. A perhaps more powerful, psychological shock came in April 1943 when Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku, the architect of the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, was shot down over Bougainville in the South Pacific. One could guess the shock and dismay of navy leader Yoshida Zengo, who called Yamamoto's death ‘an irrecoverable loss’.Footnote ⁵³ Japan, in short, faced as great a crisis as the one that confronted Great Britain two years earlier.

The declining war situation led Japanese leaders to rethink wartime strategy. No man was more instrumental in this shift than Shigemitsu Mamoru. From 1942, while still ambassador to the Chinese Nanjing Regime, Shigemitsu produced a number of widely circulated position papers that were harshly critical of the one-sided, military-first nature of Japan's war. Shigemitsu continually insisted that victory did not depend solely on fortunes met at the field of battle. ‘Military force,’ he asserted, ‘must be met with military force, and diplomacy must be countered with diplomacy.’Footnote ⁵⁴ Shigemitsu called for a revitalized diplomacy to counter the Allied propaganda of the Atlantic Charter and to secure Asian support for the war effort. Smart foreign policy, he argued in mid-1942, ‘has the same effect as military affairs in deciding victory or defeat’.Footnote ⁵⁵

Victory in Asia depended on whether Japan could win the hearts and minds of occupied territories. But Japanese policymakers consistently failed to consider how to win sympathy and support from Asia. Shigemitsu believed that Japan paid mere lip service to issues of Asian liberation, but geared war aims to secure autarky and regional hegemony. Political discussions failed to focus on how Tokyo could uplift the region. Rather, they revolved around how Asia would serve as a material supply post and subservient political partner. This was anathema to Shigemitsu. He argued:

Without friendship and true liberation, Japan's new order would not amount to much. Shigemitsu thus called for a nationalities policy of high ideals. To draw in supporters, he argued, Japan must create an Asia policy lauded by friend and foe alike. Failure to do so would further isolate Japan. Shigemitsu wrote:

But Japan had to support actual independence and equality. Superficial propaganda—accompanied by exploitative policies—would not bolster Japan's faltering international position. Instead, the Japanese empire would benefit more by taking direct action against Anglo-American propaganda. Shigemitsu, in short, called for pragmatic measures that would promote Japan as the moral leader of the region and crush Anglo-American propaganda. He insisted:

As a first step toward advancing Japan's moral leadership, Shigemitsu called for the promotion of the New China Policy and the New Greater East Asia Policy. The New China Policy resulted from the overarching need to make peace with the Chiang Kai-shek regime in Chongqing. This, Shigemitsu argued, was the basic premise for peace in Asia. The policy called for the revision of the unequal treaties, respect for Chinese sovereignty, and the eventual withdrawal of troops from Chinese territory. Shigemitsu broadened these ideas to encompass much of East Asia. The extension of independence and autonomy to former European colonies, he argued, would set Japanese policy apart from that of the Allied powers, which preached high ideals but controlled far-flung empires. Such ideas were part of Shigemitsu's broader wish to bring about ‘the liberation and rebirth of Asia’.Footnote ⁵⁹

These views do not imply that Shigemitsu was an anti-imperialist, committed to the end of empire in Asia. Far from it—Shigemitsu was a consummate political realist who recognized the importance of power in international relations. ‘The world has always been a world of power,’ he would write shortly after war's end. ‘International relations have always been policies of power. But it is only the content of that power that changes with both the time and place.’Footnote ⁶⁰ Shigemitsu had in fact supported the Manchurian Incident in 1931 and the formation of Manchukuo. Moreover, while vice minister for foreign affairs between May 1933 and April 1936, he called for something akin to an Asian Monroe doctrine, noting that Japan ‘is in the position to maintain peace in the Far East’ and ‘has the determination to do so’.Footnote ⁶¹ But, by 1942, with Japan's empire teetering on the precipice of disaster, Shigemitsu now counselled a diplomacy of reconciliation. Building a voluntary East Asian union would serve as the ‘biggest weapon’ in Japan's fight for Asia. In this sense, Shigemitsu is best understood as a child of Machiavelli—one who sought victory in diplomacy over defeat in war.

Shigemitsu's ideas struck a chord with Prime Minister Tōjō and other members of the ruling elite in Tokyo. Facing a string of military failures, even members of the high command began to pine for diplomatic successes. Japan began to forge a new strategy from January 1943 that mimicked policies that Shigemitsu had been advocating since 1942. The New China Policy, which gave greater independence and legitimacy to the Wang Jingwei regime in Nanjing, represented the first link of this new strategy. Tokyo announced the end of extraterritorial rights and allowed the Nanjing regime to declare war on Britain and the United States of America, thus eliminating most vestiges of overt political control. This was part of a naïve attempt toward peace with the Nationalist government in Chongqing. Japanese leaders hoped the new policy would, on the one hand, show the sincerity of their intentions toward China. More importantly, however, Japanese leaders hoped this new policy would facilitate peace talks with Chongqing, to be initiated through the Nanjing government.Footnote ⁶² To help with the implementation of this policy, on 20 April 1943, Prime Minister Tōjō invited Shigemitsu to join his administration as foreign minister. Shigemitsu agreed only after gaining Tōjō’s consent to enact his new strategy for Asia; he joined the Cabinet the same day.Footnote ⁶³

The extension of independence to other parts of the Co-Prosperity Sphere—a limited version of Shigemitsu's New Greater East Asia Policy—constituted the second aspect of Japan's reformulated regional strategy. The willingness to do so actually predated Shigemitsu's return to Tokyo, but was no doubt influenced by his position papers. On 21 January and again on 28 January 1943, Prime Minister Tōjō made statements in the Imperial Diet calling for the extension of independence to Burma and the Philippines.Footnote ⁶⁴ A 10 March Liaison Conference followed up on this call, agreeing to grant independence to Burma and calling for the country's leadership under Ba Maw.Footnote ⁶⁵ Shortly after, Japanese leaders decided to grant independence to the Philippines—with José P. Laurel as president. This decision was solidified in a 31 May Imperial Conference. Japanese authorities also took steps in support of the Indian independence movement. These initiatives culminated in Burmese independence on 1 August, Philippine independence on 14 October, and the creation of the Provisional Government of Free India (Azad Hind) under Subhas Chandra Bose on 21 October 1943.

One should be careful to avoid overstating the extent of this independence. As Takeshima Yoshinari has argued, Filipino and Burmese independence on the one hand represented conciliatory measures toward the local populace. They did not, however, imply national self-determination. Instead, independence was enacted in a way that would preserve Japanese leadership and control.Footnote ⁶⁶ On the same day they received their independence, both Burma and the Philippines signed agreements that gave the Japanese military wide leeway to intervene in their domestic affairs.Footnote ⁶⁷ Japan could mark nearly all demands for aid, facilities, infrastructure, or territory as ‘military necessities’—demands that neither government was able to refuse. Thus, Japan merely provided what is best understood as the Manchukuo model of ‘dependent independence’.

Offering ‘dependent independence’ to Burma and the Philippines constituted a Machiavellian strategy in another sense as well. Japanese leaders did not view either country as politically important, and did not covet their natural resources as much as those in Malay or the Netherlands Indies. Tokyo had little choice but to grant independence to the Philippines, which had already been set to receive independence from the United States of America in 1946. But the promise of independence to Burma had subtler designs. Tokyo viewed it as a useful tool for generating anti-British nationalism in South Asia. As early as 1941—before the outbreak of the Pacific War—policymakers discussed the political impact of granting Burmese independence. A 15 November 1941 Liaison Conference adopted a draft plan that sought ‘to hasten Burmese independence and use that to spur on Indian independence’.Footnote ⁶⁸ Burma's importance, then, rested on its effect on India. From the outset, independence was always tied to pragmatic concerns.

Finally, Japan decided to hold a Greater East Asia Conference in November 1943 to build moral and political support for the war. To this end, Japan invited only the independent nations of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere to declare their support for the war and for the establishment of Japan's new order.Footnote ⁶⁹ A 2 October Liaison Conference formalized the conference details. Participation would be limited to Japan, Manchukuo, China, Thailand, Burma, and the Philippines. The Provisional Government of Free India would attend as an observer. To lend the conference legitimacy, heads of government were to serve as representatives for each country. Policymakers also settled on other particulars of the conference, solidifying the date and time, the venue, and the seating arrangement and order of speeches (which would be arranged in Japanese alphabetical order, iroha jun). Most importantly, they formalized the topic for discussion as ‘clarifying to the world both the firm resolution to prosecute the war to a successful conclusion and the policy of establishing the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere’.Footnote ⁷⁰

The decision to hold the conference represented a convergence of two different visions of Japanese foreign policy. Prime Minister Tōjō and the Imperial High Command, on the one hand, envisioned the conference as a practical means of galvanizing Asian support for Japan's war. Tōjō also hoped that evidence of a unified Asia would undermine Allied morale. Foreign Minister Shigemitsu, on the other hand, saw the conference as a means to create a ‘Greater East Asia Confederation’—a group of independent states that would provide for cooperation in the postwar international regime.Footnote ⁷¹ Shigemitsu and other Foreign Ministry bureaucrats also viewed the drafting of an idealistic joint declaration—modelled after the Atlantic Charter—as a means to create a more positive image of Japan's war aims in both Britain and the United States of America.Footnote ⁷² Even though Tōjō and Shigemitsu differed in motives, both leaders shared an understanding of conference goals. The conference, they believed, would rally Asian nations to fight and convince Britain and the United States of America to make peace.

The Greater East Asia Conference formally convened at 10 a.m. on 5 November 1943. Each delegation filed into the Imperial Diet Building and took their seats. The following leaders headed each delegation: Prime Minister Tōjō, Japan; President of the Executive Yuan and former Guomindang leader Wang Jingwei, the China Nanjing Regime; Prime Minister Zhang Jinghui, Manchukuo; Prime Minister Ba Maw, Burma; President José P. Laurel, the Republic of the Philippines; Deputy Prime Minister Prince Wan Waithayakon, Thailand; and Head of State Subhas Chandra Bose, the Provisional Government of Free India. The full attendance of the event was nothing short of miraculous. Both Ba Maw and Prince Wan's planes crashed on the way to Tokyo. Ba Maw's plane crash-landed on some thatched huts, which cushioned the fall and saved him from certain death. And Prince Wan survived a plane crash upon takeoff, only to be hit by a fever of 40 degrees Celsius after arriving in Tokyo. Prince Wan felt well enough, however, to attend the afternoon session of the first day.

The climax of the conference came on 6 November, with the unanimous decision to approve Japan's ‘Pacific Charter’—the Greater East Asia Joint Declaration. This declaration, adopted formally the following day, articulated the principles that would undergird the new order.

These points can be condensed into the following: (1) mutual cooperation; (2) sovereignty, independence, and friendly relations; (3) the enhancement of cultures and civilizations; (4) economic development and prosperity; and (5) the abolition of racial discrimination and contribution to the progress of mankind. Strikingly, the new language of cooperation, independence, and friendship sits uncomfortably next to older ideas of ‘every nation taking its proper place’.

The Joint Declaration was, in fact, an amalgamation of two documents—one drafted by the Greater East Asia Ministry and the other by the Foreign Ministry.Footnote ⁷⁴ This accounts for the document's inconsistencies, where older rhetoric of ‘every nation taking its proper place’ existed alongside the new liberal internationalist language. The details concerning the Greater East Asia Ministry draft are unclear. But Japanese General Staff leaders did not feel the Greater East Asia Ministry draft to be a satisfactory document. On 14 October 1943, the General Staff offered a strong critique:

Much more is known about the Foreign Ministry drafts, most of which were drawn up and discussed by the War Aims Research Association from August to October 1943. The Foreign Ministry drafts sponsored, in a variety of forms, the main principles included in the final declaration: political equality and autonomy, respect for culture, economic prosperity, and contributions to mankind.Footnote ⁷⁶ Both drafts were combined on 20 October and adopted, with subtle changes, at a Liaison Conference three days later. This resulted in an ideologically inconsistent document. The introductory statement outlined the official position of the Greater East Asia Ministry, while the five points—the essence of the declaration—constituted that of the Foreign Ministry.

The Joint Declaration represented Japan's answer to the Atlantic Charter. So it is no surprise that the drafters of the Foreign Ministry's five principles referred to the Atlantic Charter when drawing up the document and that there are strong similarities between the two documents. The Joint Declaration's emphasis on ‘sovereignty and independence’ is equivalent to the Atlantic Charter's stress on national self-determination and ‘sovereign rights and self-government’. Both documents call for similar measures in the economic realm. In particular, both sought to advance international cooperation for economic development, to promote economic prosperity, and to guarantee equal access to markets and resources. And the Joint Declaration's stress on regional stability, coexistence, and co-prosperity parallels the Atlantic Charter's promotion of ‘peace which will afford to all nations . . . safety within their own boundaries’ and ‘freedom from fear and want’.

The similarity between the two documents was not lost on contemporaries. Some Japanese evening newspapers on 7 November declared the declaration a ‘Pacific Charter’ written in opposition to the Atlantic Charter.Footnote ⁷⁷ Foreign Minister Shigemitsu Mamoru, writing after the war, stated that the Joint Declaration ‘includes many ideas common to the Atlantic Charter’.Footnote ⁷⁸ Further, liberal critic Kiyosawa Kiyoshi dryly noted: ‘It is Japan's tragedy that it had to draft a declaration that resembles the Atlantic Charter, granting independence and freedom to all peoples.’Footnote ⁷⁹ Kiyosawa was criticizing the promotion of universal over pan-Asian values. The shift away from pan-Asian rhetoric, he no doubt felt, negated the notion that Japan was fighting for Asian solidarity.Footnote ⁸⁰ Even Filipino President José P. Laurel and Burmese Prime Minister Ba Maw noted similarities between the two documents. ‘The idea of co-prosperity,’ Laurel stated in his memoirs, ‘is found in the Atlantic Charter no less than in the Pacific Charter. Fundamentally, they (charters) coincide in the enunciation of many vital principles!’Footnote ⁸¹ And Ba Maw, who was shown a copy of the declaration a week before the conference, immediately recognized that the declaration was meant in opposition to the Atlantic Charter. He then argued to the Japanese ambassador in Burma that the Joint Declaration should not be limited to the region. It should be a worldwide call for the support from all peoples who hold negative views of Britain and the United States of America, including Arabs, Egyptians, and Palestinians.Footnote ⁸² Although the ambassador recognized the merit in this critique, Tokyo had no intention of changing the declaration.Footnote ⁸³

There is good reason why the two documents shared such similarities, and why Foreign Ministry officials referred to the Atlantic Charter when drafting the Joint Declaration. Japanese authorities had struggled to forge an ideology that would win the hearts and minds of political elites in the region. This resulted from longer-term trends in Japanese political culture. Foreign policy since the late Meiji period operated as a realist pursuit of national power. Ideology played a mostly negligible role in the attainment of empire. From the 1930s, however, pan-Asianism took a stronger foothold among Japanese political elites owing to Japan's intellectual and political revolt against the West.Footnote ⁸⁴ Japanese leaders used pan-Asianism as part of a propaganda campaign in support of war in China and the new order. But pan-Asianism never had a defined ideological programme or systematic doctrine, and it lacked a positive programme that Japanese leaders could use to gain allegiance in the region.Footnote ⁸⁵ The urgency of forging a compelling ideology—particularly as the war turned against Japan—led the drafters of the declaration (at least those in the Foreign Ministry) to Anglo-American internationalist language. They no doubt found in Wilsonian language a way to resolve Japan's crisis of legitimacy. Borrowing Wilsonian language does not suggest, as Akira Iriye argues, a return to values held in the 1920s.Footnote ⁸⁶ Instead, it reveals the pragmatism of Japanese elites. They were willing to utilize values known to have broad appeal to rally Asian support for Japan's imperial project.

This pragmatic attitude led Tokyo to accept the greatest difference between the two documents: the clause abolishing racial discrimination. At its core, this clause appears extremely idealistic (more Wilsonian than Wilson!)—more so than the Atlantic Charter, which lacked provisions for racial equality. But conflict within leadership circles over whether to include the clause reveals the pragmatic aims behind the use of such language. According to Lt General Satō Kenryō, Tōjō's protégé and director of the Army Ministry's powerful Bureau of Military Affairs, assistant secretaries in the Foreign, Army, and Navy Ministries expressed opposition to the racial-equality clause. They thought that its inclusion would prove an obstacle to reaching a separate peace with the Allied powers. The Allied powers, after all, had opposed the inclusion of a racial-equality clause at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. The Navy Ministry came up with a revision plan that changed the phrase ‘abolish racial discrimination’ to ‘devotion to mutual love among mankind’.Footnote ⁸⁷ But Satō insisted that, since Japan was fighting with the very ‘conquerors’ that opposed the clause, Japan ought to call for the abolition of racial discrimination. Moreover, Satō added that this would both ‘win public sentiment’ and breed fear among the Allied powers that the war would devolve into a race war.Footnote ⁸⁸ Satō’s arguments held the day and the clause remained unchanged. The lack of idealism behind this revolutionary clause is telling. Japanese leaders enshrined it in the declaration to provide Tokyo with sufficient leverage to prosecute or end the war on favourable terms.

The Joint Declaration thus served as a formidable weapon for ideological warfare. And Japanese intellectuals jumped on the bandwagon, quickly dismissing the Atlantic Charter as mere propaganda. After all, many argued, Churchill refused to return self-rule to India and other small countries across Africa and Asia. Making matters worse, the Allied powers provided the Soviet Union with postwar hegemony in Finland, the Baltic States, Poland, and Romania. Moreover, Japanese intellectuals argued that free trade and the Open Door might be splendid principles, but they only served to undergird British and American domination of global economic life. The Atlantic Charter, then, sugar-coated a status quo beneficial to Anglo-American national interests. It epitomized the negative aspects of ‘Anglo-Saxon’ culture: national self-interest, individualism, liberalism, plutocratic capitalism, and imperialism. Tokyo Imperial University Professor Kamikawa Hikomatsu, who marshalled the strongest arguments for the hypocrisy of Allied propaganda, declared that the Atlantic Charter established an international society in which the wolves ruled the sheep.Footnote ⁸⁹ To most intellectuals like Kamikawa, the Joint Declaration offered an authentic morality in opposition to the duplicity of the Atlantic Charter.

Unlike the British Foreign Office, Japanese Foreign Ministry officials never distanced themselves from the Joint Declaration. It never made any sense to do so. The declaration was a tool of ideological warfare—one that could help Japan gain legitimacy in the region and create a positive image abroad. Even though the military in occupied territories trampled over ideas of independence, autonomy, and cooperation, the Foreign Ministry could still argue that these principles would be implemented upon war's end. Japan's new idealistic language, furthermore, was reinforced for pragmatic ends. Giving Asians a stake in Japan's new order, after all, might help Japan survive its gruelling global war.

Needless to say, Greater East Asia Conference representatives were ecstatic that Japan committed these new principles to paper. Whether or not they believed in Japan's ability to practise what it preached was immaterial. Ba Maw publicly expressed his appreciation for the racial-equality clause. He further stressed that the declaration should be seen as applicable to the whole world.Footnote ⁹⁰ Subhas Chandra Bose, who represented the Provisional Government of Free India, noted that the Joint Declaration was a ‘charter for liberty’—one intended for the ‘suppressed nations of the whole world’.Footnote ⁹¹ And Wang Jingwei, the leader of the Chinese Nanjing regime, saw the racial-equality clause as setting the Joint Declaration apart from America, which practised racial prejudice within its own borders (Wang labels this ‘Monroe-ism’). ‘The spirit of the Greater East Asia Joint Declaration,’ Wang declared, ‘is in the liberation of the East Asian sphere from the oppression of Britain and America. The spirit of the Greater East Asia Declaration is the realization of coexistence and co-prosperity through our independence and autonomy.’Footnote ⁹²

Filipino President José P. Laurel, however, maintained the most conflicted view. On the one hand, he acknowledged the progressive nature of the document and, even after returning to the Philippines, declared the Joint Declaration a ‘great human charter’. Laurel further stressed his respect for the provisions guaranteeing freedom and equality to all, and that these provisions convinced him to cast his vote in favour of the document.Footnote ⁹³ But, owing to his experience with Japanese occupation forces, Laurel privately doubted the willingness of Japan to enforce such principles. He stated in his memoirs:

Memoirs should, of course, be read with caution. But this postwar statement is consistent with his private views on Japanese policies. He laid bare his resentments toward Japan-sponsored independence in February 1944 with Dr Victor Buencamino. ‘I am faced with many tremendous difficulties,’ Laurel complained. ‘This independence we have is an independence which is not independence. You have the [Japanese] Navy on one side, the [Japanese] Army on the other, the guerrilla, the Embassy and my own government. Five in all!’Footnote ⁹⁵ Such being the case, it is not a far stretch to suggest that Laurel saw the Joint Declaration as mere propaganda. But, since this propaganda formed the new language of Co-Prosperity Sphere international relations, he recognized that it could be used to the advantage of the region's weaker states. And, in a 20 November 1943 speech meant for the people of Japan, Laurel did just that. He stressed that he voted to approve the declaration owing to its guarantee for ‘free and equal treatment to all members of the Co-Prosperity Sphere, irrespective of size or strength’.Footnote ⁹⁶

In fact, Laurel later used the Joint Declaration to protest Japanese infringements on Philippine industry. On 26 July 1944, he objected to Japan's use of the Alabang Biological Laboratory, located on the outskirts of Manila. The Japanese appropriation of the laboratory inhibited the Philippines’ ability to produce biological products, serums, or vaccines necessary to nurture scientific industries. Strikingly, Laurel appealed to both the Greater East Asia Joint Declaration and the Pact of Alliance in making his case. He argued:

Laurel insisted that Japan should provide the republic with the opportunity to produce goods, even military necessities, for the Japanese army. Only through actual production would the quality of serums and vaccines improve at Alabang. Nonetheless, there is no evidence that Japan budged on the matter.

The Ba Maw regime also found Japan's Pacific Charter useful in similar ways. Upon his return to Burma, Ba Maw extensively publicized the aims of the Joint Declaration.Footnote ⁹⁸ But, when the opportunity arose, he also used the Pacific Charter to protest violations of Burmese sovereignty. His government, for instance, tried to gain control over shipping by demanding the registration of all vessels with the Burma government. This order was aimed at Japanese firms, which had seized Burmese ships or procured them under the New Order Demand Request system. Burmese leaders hoped to utilize these vessels in the interest of local industry. They pointed out to Japanese staff officers the iniquities of this system, which prevented Burma's ability to safeguard civilian interests. Such a ‘special exemption of Japanese civilian firms’, they argued, ‘was not in keeping with the Greater East Asia Declaration’. But Japan refused to budge. Once the issue reached the highest levels of Burmese and Japanese governments, it was swept under the rug. A scapegoat was found in the Director of Civil Transport, on whom sole blame was laid.Footnote ⁹⁹

No doubt in response to such demands, in November 1944, Lt General Kimura Heitarō, commander-in-chief of Japan's Burma Area Army, spoke in Rangoon to caution restraint. He urged Burmese to ‘trust implicitly in Nippon's sincerity’ and argued that full independence would be promoted as part of a gradual process, to be completed after war's end. For now, however, Burma needed ‘to harmonize the civilian and military needs of the country’. This would require sacrifices, as Burma needed to go through ‘war time quasi-civil administration’ before finally reaching ‘the normal peacetime form of government’ after war's end.Footnote ¹⁰⁰ Kimura's comments underlined the fact that the Imperial Japanese Army viewed the Pacific Charter as worth less than the paper on which it was written. Burmese would have to ‘trust implicitly’ in Japan to practise what it preached after war's end.

Given time, Japan's Pacific Charter might have proved as explosive as the Atlantic Charter. After all, like the Atlantic Charter, it gave subordinate countries a rhetorical means to protest the realities of Japan's empire of ‘dependent independence’. And it gave other directly controlled territories a means to demand their independence from Japan. And it gave further cause to resist Japan's war effort. By 1944, Japan had lost any remaining support in Burma and the Philippines. This highlights an important irony behind Japan's adoption of Wilsonian language. Although done in the service of empire, as with Britain, wartime Wilsonianism became a thorn in the side of Japan's imperial project.