The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere was a concept, created and promulgated during the Sh wa era by the government and military of the Empire of Japan, to represent the desire to create a self-sufficient block of Asian nations led by the Japanese and free of Western powers. The Sphere was initiated by Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe, in an attempt to create a Great East Asia, comprising Japan, Manchukuo, China, and parts of Southeast Asia, that 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. Military goals of this expansion included naval operations in the Indian Ocean and the isolation of Australia. This was one of a number of slogans and concepts used in the justification of Japanese aggression in East Asia in the 1930s through the end of World War II, and the term Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere is remembered today largely as a front for the Japanese control of occupied countries during World War II, in which puppet governments manipulated local populations and economies for the benefit of Imperial Japan