Japanese Solidarity with Other Monarchies

At the main weblog, the subject was recently raised of solidarity and cooperation between monarchies. In its time, the Empire of Japan had a more praiseworthy record in this regard than many others. In the days when more successful countries had a proper, upright, national pride it was not uncommon for a country to defend its own monarchy more zealously than most today, but to take a risk to support another or most especially to help bring about the restoration of a fallen monarch to their legitimate throne was something which required the courage of heroes. Japan was one of the few to undertake such action. Here is a brief record of those occasions:

The Empire of Manchukuo: Of course, the most prominent is the restoration of the last Qing Emperor to his ancestral throne in Manchuria. If the Han Chinese did not want to continue the Great Qing Empire, that was their own business but they certainly had no right to those countries outside China which had only come together because of the personal union with the Manchu Emperor. That included such examples as Mongolia, Tibet and Xinjiang, which, it should be noted, Japan supported independence for as traditional monarchies. Prince De Wang of Mongolia was backed as leader of the Autonomous Inner Mongolian government, Tibet had been contacted by Japan but was under a regency as the recently discovered 14th Dalai Lama was still a child and in Xinjiang there was a plan to see a son of the Turkish Ottoman Empire restored to a throne closer to that of his ancestral homeland by making Prince Abdul Karim the Sultan of East Turkestan but that never came to be due to the war situation.

The Kingdom of Malaysia: The area that is today the Kingdom of Malaysia was not united to the same degree at the time of the Greater East Asian War. When the Imperial Japanese forces drove out the British, all the existing monarchies were maintained, even those which had been the most supportive of Britain. The only changes were those who had been unjustly deprived of their legitimate thrones and replaced by others who were reliably pro-British. Japan corrected this injustice by restoring Sultan Ali Shah of Terengganu (pictured above) and Sultan Musa Ghiatuddin Riayat Shah of Selangor. There was some talk of merging Malaysia and Indonesia into a "Greater Indonesia" but nothing ever came of the idea, partly because the status of these areas was never firmly settled. Indonesia was particularly problematic as those who first showed the most willingness to cooperate with Japan later proved untrustworthy.

The Monarchies of Indochina: Throughout Indochina, Japan supported the existing, legitimate monarchies and never took action against a legitimate monarch even if they were anti-Japanese. In Cambodia, King Norodom Sihanouk declared independence but his friendliness with socialists and even radical communists was concerning but his position remained sacrosanct. The precaution taken was the appointment of the staunchly anti-communist Son Ngoc Thanh as his prime minister (also a supporter of the pan-Asian movement). In the Kingdom of Laos there was the situation for Japan of a monarch who was adamantly pro-French, King Sisavang Vong. He was, therefore, simply sidestepped as Japan worked with the very popular, pro-independence nationalist Prince Phetsarath Ratanavongsa (pictured above). In Vietnam the most pro-Japanese royal was Prince Cuong De who had lived in Japan for years advocating for an end to French rule. However, the reigning monarch, Emperor Bao Dai, also supported independence and Prince Cuong De was not power-hungry. He was happy just to see his country independent and supported Bao Dai in declaring the independence of the Empire of Vietnam. In the Kingdom of Thailand, the monarch was largely absent but supported nonetheless and it would be the last time Thailand ever had any territorial gain. Burma was the only republic in the region and even that may not have lasted long. Japan supported the independence leader Dr. Ba Maw who was the son of a court official and strong Burmese monarchist so, in time, it is entirely possible that the Burmese monarchy might have been restored if Japan had won the war.