Japanese occupation of Malaya, North Borneo and Sarawak

Japanese-occupied Malaya
Marai マライ
Military occupation by the Empire of Japan
1941–1945
National flag Imperial Japanese Army war flag
Japanese possessions in British Malaya on 1942.
Capital		Kuala Lumpur (de facto)
Government		Military occupation
Historical era		World War II
•	Pacific War begins	8 December 1941a
•	Japanese troops land on Kota Bharu	8 December 1941
•	British troops retreat to Singapore	31 January 1942
•	Surrender of Japan	15 August 1945
•	British Military Administration set up	12 September 1945
•	Formation of Malayan Union	1 April 1946
Currency		Japanese-issued dollar ("Banana money")
Preceded by Succeeded by Federated Malay States Straits Settlements Perlis Kedah Kelantan Terengganu Johor British Military Administration (Malaya)
Today part of		Malaysia
a.	The Pacific War started on 8 December 1941 in Asian time zones, but is often referred to as starting on 7 December, as that was the date in European and American time zones (such as for the attack on Pearl Harbor in the United States' Territory of Hawaii).

Malaya was gradually occupied by the Japanese between 8 December 1941 and the Allied surrender at Singapore on the 16 February 1942. The Japanese remained in occupation until their surrender to the Allies at Penang on 4 September 1945 aboard HMS Nelson.

The concept of a unified East Asia took form based on an Imperial Japanese Army concept that originated with General Hachirō Arita, an army ideologist who served as Minister for Foreign Affairs from 1936 to 1940. The Japanese Army said the new Japanese empire was an Asian equivalent of the Monroe Doctrine, especially with the Roosevelt Corollary. The regions of Asia, it was argued, were as essential to Japan as Latin America was to the U.S.

The Japanese Foreign Minister Yōsuke Matsuoka formally announced the idea of the Co-Prosperity Sphere on 1 August 1940, in a press interview, but it had existed in other forms for many years. Leaders in Japan had long had an interest in the idea. The outbreak of World War II fighting in Europe had given the Japanese an opportunity to demand the withdrawal of support from China in the name of "Asia for Asiatics", with the European powers unable to effectively retaliate. Many of the other nations within the boundaries of the sphere were under colonial rule and elements of their population were sympathetic to Japan (as in the case of Indonesia), occupied by Japan in the early phases of the war and reformed under puppet governments, or already under Japan's control at the outset (as in the case of Manchukuo). These factors helped make the formation of the sphere, while lacking any real authority or joint power, come together without much difficulty. The sphere would, according to imperial propaganda, establish a new international order seeking "co prosperity" for Asian countries which would share prosperity and peace, free from Western colonialism and domination under the umbrella of a benevolent Japan.

Japanese Military Affairs Bureau Unit 82 was formed in 1939 or 1940 and based in Taiwan to bring this about. In its final planning stages, the unit was under the then-Colonel Yoshihide Hayashi. Intelligence on Malaya was gathered through a network of agents which included Japanese embassy staff; disaffected Malayans (particularly members of the Japanese established Tortoise Society); and Japanese, Korean, and Taiwanese business people and tourists. Japanese spies, which included a British intelligence officer, Captain Patrick Stanley Vaughan Heenan and Lord Sempill also provided intelligence and assistance. Heenan's intelligence enabled the Japanese to destroy much of the Allied air forces on the ground.