The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere

As referenced to before I'm reading Hiroo Onoda's book "No Surrender", I think Onoda is definitely a unique case to study when looking at the Japanese side of things because.

1. He was drafted from civillian life while working at a civillian job in China
2. He was isolated from the foreign world for over 30 years and "thanks" to his training he did not believe the things he would read/hear about.
3. He wrote No Surrender immediately after returning to Japan, according to the translator Onoda was able to remember minute details within seconds to a great degree of accuracy

So far I'm at the part where Onoda thinks the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere has been established and that the IJA has adapted itself to better carry out the "100 year war". Onoda is under the impression that the Japanese government backed Mao and the Communists when they established themselves in China, he also believes Bose has freed India, and that the Dutch are completely out of Asia. Basically he describes a situation where everyone was happy to adopt a "united front" to fight the west.


When he was in China both during civillian and military life he doesn't mention the atrocities committed by the IJA in that region, the locals are also friendly to the Japanese, infact in some areas he describes mutual cooperation between Japanese and Chinese workers, businessmen, etc.

To basically sum things up, what were Japanese soldiers told about the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere? Were there others like Onoda who had no idea about what the IJA had done just minutes from where they were stationed? It's possible Onoda simply forgot or chose not to mention any of this when writing his book but he hasn't been subject to much controversy on that aspect. From the little I know about the sphere, it was originally a popular concept in Asia but something that began to "lose steam" when the IJA atrocities began in certain areas. I don't remember reading anything about it being controlled through a dictatorship or anything of the sort either.

As an aside, is Onoda still alive?

 

Indeed he is. I remember hearing a couple of years ago that he lived in Brazil, of all places.

Hiroo Onoda - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hiroo Onoda | The Japan Times Online

 

My understanding was that East Asia as a whole was supposed to prosper economically, militaristically, etc. This is all assuming that the sphere was indeed an actual goal and not just a propaganda tool to justify expansion like some theories state.

Thanks for the links, I saw the one about Brazil as well on his wiki although that interview is new to me. His views on Japan today are interesting, when looking at Japan one always wrongfully assume values of the past are still present in the "today" generation to a certain extent.