Asian Monroeism

History

It is said to have originated in November 1898, when Konoe Atsumaro proposed the Monroe Doctrine of Asia (亜細亜のモンロー主義). After the Racial Equality Proposal was rejected at the Paris Peace Conference following World War I, and the Immigration Act of 1924 was passed by the U.S. Congress, the idea that "Japan should deal with Britain and the United States through an Asian alliance" gained momentum within Japan. On November 28, 1924, Sun Yat-sen delivered his lecture on "Greater Asianism" in Kobe, leading to new developments. Sympathy for Indians under British oppression, subsequent international isolation, and economic pressure from the trade blocs of Western powers fostered Great Pan-Asian thought in Japan. This overlapped with Pan-Asianism and the Nanshin-ron (Southern Expansion Doctrine) since the Meiji era, leading to the birth of "Asian Monroeism," which was also used to justify the construction of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.

Mukden Incident

Following the Mukden Incident, it saw significant development as a logic to counter the Washington System. In April 1934, an informal statement by Amau Eiji, then-Director of the Information Bureau of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (the 'Amau Statement'), was regarded by Western powers as a "Declaration of an Asian Monroe Doctrine" (アジア・モンロー主義宣言) and was condemned. Subsequently, during the pre-war Shōwa era, Asian Monroeism became the ideology justifying the expansionism and imperialism of the Empire of Japan in the Asian region.