Rationalizing the Orient: The “East Asia Cooperative Community” in Prewar JapanJung-Sun Han

Excerpt

In the late 1930s an amorphous notion of kyōdōtai 協同体 graphic (cooperative community) gained currency among a wide range of Japanese intellectuals. According to Rōyama Masamichi 蠟山政道 (1895-1980), one of the leading proponents of the concept, the “cooperative community” should serve as a means of transcending regional ethnic and national conflicts and of facilitating “regional economic development” (chiikiteki keizai no kaihatsu 地域的経済の開発) for the welfare of all Asians. The notion also called for reorganizing the political economy of Japan so as to ensure efficient social mobilization and sustainable growth as an empire. In its domestic dimension, the kyōdōtai was to be the basis of a new voluntary collectivity, a “three-dimensional social entity” (rittaiteki na shakaiteki sonzai 立体的な社会的存在), encompassing diverse political and social interests.