Similar to how India was a part of the British Empire, till 1940, Indonesia, Myanmar, Cambodia, Vietnam, Eastern areas of China, North Korea, South Korea, Laos, were a part of the Japanese Empire. The Japanese colonizers talked of a Greater Asia. To build an Asia that’d be united. But that was just the front. In reality, just like other colonizers, they captured the land to exploit the resources. To benefit only themselves.
Their first major expansion was in 1931, capturing the Manchuria region in Northern China. They planned on going further, to capture the areas under the Soviet Union, in Mongolia. In the South, they planned on capturing the areas of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. The thing about the South was that the present-day countries of Vietnam and Cambodia, were a part of the French Empire back then. Known as the French Indo-China.
Since Japan wanted to capture them, they had to defeat the French Empire first. This happened in 1940. They declared a war on France and captured these areas. But doing so made Japan a participant in WWII. While Hitler was declaring wars and annexing territories in various countries, Japan was doing the same in Asia. America saw this, but they still didn’t want to interfere in the war, by using their military, But they had to do something to stop them. So they decided to opt for some economic actions.
