ABSTRACT
The Japanese position is illustrated, for example, by the Japan-Thai Friendship Treaty mentioned above. The Friendship Treaty was actually an unequal treaty, an imitation of the one which the Western powers had imposed on Japan. Japan imposed the treaty on Thailand, a weaker nation, though independent. Pre-war Japan had a dual personality, as it were, of being both superior to other Asian nations and yet held in some regard by them. Under the political situation overpowered by the military, the Japanese government in August 1936 decided upon the ‘Basic Line of the State Policy’ at its Five Ministers Conference. Japan’s economic advance into South-East Asia had been accelerated during WWI when Europe became the battleground. Japan has reached a position of having great economic influence over South-East Asia, to the point where voices are heard echoing the fact that Japan has realized the ‘Great East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere’ without resorting to military power.
