With the striking exception of the Japanese program for educating Southeast Asian students in Japan, the occupying forces failed to make an impact on the region's culture. Finding themselves masters of a huge new empire, the Japanese were hampered by their lack of knowledge or respect for Southeast Asian languages and cultures, and consequently fell back on a policy of 'Japanization' of the subject populations. This book makes a major contribution to understanding both these policies and the failure of the many Japanese intellectuals drafted to create them.