Through the terminology of “Pacific War” and “Greater East Asia War,” this essay examines how the GHQ’s War Guilt Information Program influenced Japan’s historical consciousness and language in the postwar era.

Many people may have felt a sense of discomfort when I used the term “Greater East Asia War” earlier.
2018-01-25
The following is a continuation of the previous chapter.
Many people may have felt a sense of discomfort when I used the term “Greater East Asia War” earlier.
They might think, “No, it should be called the Pacific War.”
In fact, that itself is part of the GHQ’s WGIP.
Until the end of the war, Japanese people did not use the term “Pacific War.”
Japan was fighting across an extremely vast range of land and sea — the Chinese mainland, the East China Sea, the South China Sea, the Philippines, the Indochinese Peninsula, the Indian subcontinent, Indonesia, and more — and the naval battles between Japan and the United States in the Pacific were only one part of the Greater East Asia War that Japan fought with the aim of establishing the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.
GHQ believed it had to completely deny that Japan’s war had any legitimate cause.
In other words, it wanted people to believe that the concept of the “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere” was mere fantasy and that Japan fought the United States and Britain solely to seize Southeast Asian colonies for its own benefit.
For this reason, the use of the term “Greater East Asia War” was prohibited in the media, and they were made to use “Pacific War” instead.
Japanese media still rigidly follow this GHQ directive even today.
Even the Sankei Shimbun, which can be called representative of conservative media, usually uses the term Pacific War.
However, the spirits enshrined at Yasukuni Shrine may not recognize the term “Pacific War,” so please keep that in mind when you visit to pay your respects.
To be continued.