The fantasy of Greater East Asia: the racializing discourse of ‘peaceful construction’ and Japan’s occupation of Singapore

Abstract

This article examines the Japanese wartime discourse on the construction of Greater East Asia as an instrument of racialization by looking at the writings of Ibuse Masuji, Jinbo Kōtarō, and Nakajima Kenzō; Japanese writers and literary critics who served with the military propaganda unit in Singapore under Japanese rule (1942–1945). The nonfiction writings on Japanese language education by Nakajima and Jinbo and the interethnic romance written by Ibuse each take part in multilayered modes of racialization – (in)visibilization, infantilization, re-ethnicization, and feminization. I argue that these different modes of racialization collectively provide the language and content for the narcissistic fantasy of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, thereby displacing the brutal reality of Japanese occupation.