In search of an independent Indonesia Japanese occupation policies for Asia versus Indonesian nationalist aspirations during World War Two

Indonesia, the largest and most populous country in Southeast Asia, declared itself independent on 17 August 1945. This event occurred just two days after Japan announced its surrender on 15 August. The impact of years of Japanese policies during World War Two on the territory of the Netherlands-Indies had been very significant. Contrary to many other Southeast Asian nations, the Japanese government in Tokyo never formally declared Indonesia independent during the war. The paper argues that the role of the Indonesian nationalists in obtaining these concessions from the Japanese was very minor, and that it was in fact the external World War Two developments in Asia that increasingly forced the Japanese to grant concessions to the Indonesian nationalists. The paper additionally argues that Japan's policies during the early years of the war emerged as a structural obstruction to the Japanese authorities themselves when, in order to mobilize Indonesian support, they decided to meet Indonesian nationalist aspirations. The paper demonstrates this by focusing on the actual Japanese policies implemented in Indonesia during World War II, and the ways these were amended in coherence with the war raging outside of Java and Indonesia.