On the Japanese Economic Control of the South-East Asia During the 15 Years War Period

Research Project

Project/Area Number	02301091
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Co-operative Research (A)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Research Field	Economic history
Research Institution	Rikkyo University
Principal Investigator	HIKITA Yasuyuki Rikkyo University, Department of Economics, Assistant Professor, 経済学部, 助教授 (70147924)
Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha)	HANAI Shunsuke Mitsui Research Institute for Social and Economic History, Researcher, 三井文庫, 専任研究員 (70212149) SUZUKI Kunio University of Electro-Communications, Department of Electro-Communications, Assi, 電気通信学部人文社会学系列, 助教授 (50132783) KOBAYASHI Hideo Komazawa University, Department of Economics, Professor, 経済学部, 教授 (80052546) KURASAWA Aiko Setsunan University, Department of International Culture and Language, Professor, 国際言語文化学部, 教授 (00203274)
Project Period (FY)	1990 – 1991
Project Status	Completed (Fiscal Year 1991)
Budget Amount *help	¥3,300,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,300,000) Fiscal Year 1991: ¥1,300,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,300,000) Fiscal Year 1990: ¥2,000,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,000,000)
Keywords	War Economy / War in Pacific Ocean / Business Inroad / Mobilization of resources / Control of Money / South-east Asia / Nampo / 企業進出
Research Abstract	Since 1990. We have been engaged mainly in searching for and collecting the documents concerning our reseach, and investigating those documents. The summary of the research results is as follows ; 1. The Informations of the Documents ; As our search for the reservation of documents, there are many documents not-opened to the public in the governmental institutions, such as Diplomatic Record Office, Library of the National Defense College Military Archives, Library of Congress and so on. These are still under or waiting for classifying. Similarly, many documents concerning the activities of companies still have not been opend to the public. It will be long for most of these documents to be opened to the public, but we intend to get them as early as we can. National archives of foreign countries reserve many documents. too. For instance, National Archives of Malaysia reserves Japanese documents issued by Japanese Military occupying British Malaysia, and National Archives of Thailand keeps … More the memorandum of negotiations between Japanese officers and Thai bureaucrats. 2. Obtained Documents and the Results from Investigation ; We have got many documents, most of them are diplomatic, financial and military. We collected many published materials from Institute of Southeast Asian Studies of Kyoto University and other libraries. Some of the results of investigation are as follows ; (1) In late 1930s, Japan activated lier expantion toward the south-east Asia. Two special companies were newly organized and they competed with each other in investing to the area. Few Japanese companies had enterd to FrenchIndochina by mid-1930s, but one of the special companies broke through the way and massively invested to mining and other industries. (2) ln 1940, Japanese government planed the economic control policy of the South-east Asia backed-up with its military power. In 1941, Japan agreed the economic "co-operation" with French-Indochina. The negotitation with the government and the companies of Dutch-East Indies was carryed out by Seizah Ueshima, a director of Furukawa Electric Industry Co., who had close connection with the business group of the country, and Ichizoh Kobayashi, Minister of Commerce and Industry. Ueshima had been playing his role successfully, but Japanese alliance with Nazi-Germany shut the door to the economic co-operation. (3) Japanese companies competed with each other to get the profitable concessions in the South-east Asian countries under the Japanese occupation, and they oftenly draged the Japanese economic control agencies. But. under the war, they did not always gained. The South-east Asian branches of Mitsui Trading Company was heavily lost during the war. (4) Military money was issued, although temporarily, even in French-Indochina where Japan had not governed by her military until March 1945. (5) In Dutch-East Indies, Japan issued military money and, after April 1943, note of "Nan-poh Kaihatsu Kinko", but there were controversies between the central office of Ministry of Finance and the branches in the area. Less