Pan-Pacific Economic Organization

Ever since Hideyoshi rose to power, It has always been Japan's desire to expand and dominate the Asian mainland. It was this very ambition that the Japanese modernized and  started participating in Imperialism along with the European Powers in the late 19th Century. Unfortunately for them, Japan wasn't the only with ambitions to become the dominant power in Asia.

The conflict between Panyupayana and Japan was seen by historians to be inevitable. Two expansionist powers with similar ambitions are bound to clash eventually over their spheres of influences, a clash that resulted in one of the bloodiest theaters of the Second Great War. Unfortunately for Japan, they would lose this conflict and be punished severely for it: Their monarchy and military was abolished and replaced by a fully pacified government that is essentially a proxy of the west. An even worse insult is that Japan had to concede most of their naval assets and overseas territories to their Tagalog rivals.

During the Cold War, the Japanese Government stayed relatively neutral and quietly sailed along the conflicts of other world powers. With the help of western aid Japan's economy would improve and return to pre-war levels by the 1970s. In the 1980s, the economy would start to inflate as Japan becomes more export oriented, with the Japanese Electronic and Automobile industries being the most profitable assets in the Japanese Economy. In 1985, Japan and Austronesia, for the first time since the Second Great War, would enter a trade agreement in an attempt to mitigate the growing trade imbalance between the two, now known as the Plaza Accord. Unfortunately for the two, the accord would do little in changing the status quo, and would result to the Asian Financial Crisis in the early 1990s. 

Japan's Economy was practically shattered by the crisis, with their interest rates and GDP reaching historic lows by 1992. Wages in Japan went down, Multiple companies became unprofitable and as a result exacerbated Japan's debt further. With living conditions becoming worse, the Japanese citizens started to distrust the current government for their failed attempts to revitalize the Japanese economy, an anger that was soon taken advantage of by Japanese Ultranationalist Political Parties to gain support. One particular party, the Nihon daiittō (Japan First Party), started spreading the narrative that the Financial Crisis was purposefully started by the Austronesians to impose their economic imperialism to Japan, and that the only way to restore Japan to its glory is the restoration of the Monarchy and the re-establishment of the Japanese Military. Fearing a potential uprising the Japanese Government started cracking down on Far-Right political parties, a move that only made the problems worse and directly resulted to the Nihon daiittō's successful coup of the government in September 2, 1993. In the first day of their regime, the party restored Emperor Akihito into the throne as well as announcing that the creation of the Japan Self-Defense Force for the purposes of "National Defense". 

In order to revitalize their stagnated economy the government looked at the Asian mainland for an opportunity: the newly independent states in the Soviet Union's and China's former Far-East territories. In 1995, Japan strikes a deal with the territories of Kamchatka and Sakhalin to least their territory to build naval and air bases, and granting Japanese corporations a most-favored-nation deal in the oil and gas industry in exchange for investments. While Sakhalin and Kamchatka were initially friendly to the Japanese, the sudden wave of Japanese immigrants and growing political influence in their governments attempted to pull out of the deal, only to be overthrown by the Japanese Self-Defense force who used the clashes between Japanese citizens and the locals as justification. As a result, Kamchatka and Sakhalin became Japan's "Extra Territorial Districts". During that time period, Japan used the same strategy on several far-east countries in Siberia from 1995 until the early 2000s, expanding further in China when its sovereignty was compromised in 2004 after a constitutional crisis and North America after the Great Recession of 2005. With almost full access to these territories as well as the industrial complexes of Manchuria and Cascadia, Japan's economy rose up once more and became one of the fastest growing economies in the Asia-Pacific Region. 

While the Japanese Government was aware that a full military buildup would prompt a response from both the United Nations and Austronesia, Japan found a loophole by producing smaller "Helicoptor carriers" and emphasizing the use and development of STOVL and VTOL aircraft that could more easily launch from them for the purpose of defense. In 2010, the Japanese Government would outright repeal Article 9, a constitutional condition placed by the United Nations that prevents Japan from using its military to settle international disputes. This controversial move would surprisingly face little protest from the rest of the world as most are focused in the ongoing crisis within the Russian Government, though Austronesia, China, and Mexico would protest the repeal greatly. By 2022, Japan's Military is one of the largest military in the region, Just below both India and Austronesia. There are also alleged rumors of Japan performing secret underground nuclear tests in Mongolia, which Japan neither confirms nor denies as part of their policy of deliberate ambiguity, prompting fears of a potential nuclear war in Asia.

Japan's rapid growth and militarization proved to be an existential threat to both Austronesia and China. Both still remembers the horrors Japan inflicted during the Second Great War (something that the current government continues to deny to these day) and fears that it would happen again if Japan is allowed to continue on. The reawakening of a century-old rivalry divided Asia once more between the two powers as more and more Japanese are engulfed in an almost nationalistic frenzy to reclaim whatever glory and honor they have lost in the Second Great War, sending Asia once again to the brink of Total War.