The South Pacific
The formal annexation and incorporation of the Bonin Islands and Taiwan into the Japanese Empire can be viewed as first steps in implementation of the “Southern Expansion Doctrine” in concrete terms.
However, World War I had a profound impact on the “Southern Expansion Doctrine”. Japan was able to occupy the vast areas in the Pacific formerly controlled by the German Empire: i.e. the Caroline Islands, Mariana Islands, Marshall Islands and Palau. In 1919, these island groups officially became a League of Nations mandate of Japan and came under the administration of the Imperial Japanese Navy. The focus of the “Southern Expansion Doctrine” expanded to include these island groups (Nan'yo), the economic and military development of which came to be viewed as essential to Japan's security.
Read more about this topic: "Strike South" Group
Famous quotes containing the words south and/or pacific:
“Even when seen from near, the olive shows
A hue of far away. Perhaps for this
The dove brought olive back, a tree which grows
Unearthly pale, which ever dims and dries,
And whose great thirst, exceeding all excess,
Teaches the South it is not paradise.”
—Richard Wilbur (b. 1921)
“I need not tell you of the inadequacy of the American shipping marine on the Pacific Coast.... For this reason it seems to me that there is no subject to which Congress can better devote its attention in the coming session than the passage of a bill which shall encourage our merchant marine in such a way as to establish American lines directly between New York and the eastern ports and South American ports, and both our Pacific Coast ports and the Orient and the Philippines.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)