A Forgotten Declaration of Asian Decolonization

On 8 December 1941, approximately ten hours after the opening of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Imperial Government of Japan released an official statement explaining the objectives of the war. The statement was approved by the Japanese Cabinet on the previous day and released following Imperial sanction. Among its most notable passages was a declaration that Japanese military operations in Southeast Asia were directed not against the inhabitants of the region but against Anglo-American domination, and that their purpose was to restore East Asia to its original condition and establish mutual prosperity among Asian peoples. Although the statement was published in major Japanese newspapers and survives in official archival collections, it has received comparatively little attention in English-language scholarship. This article introduces the Imperial Government Statement of 8 December 1941 as an important but largely overlooked primary source concerning Japan's publicly declared war aims at the outbreak of the Pacific War.