I have suggested elsewhere that the Ba Maw government built up a framework of “Independent” Burma with the Japanese military in spite of repeated all-out conflicts. This research is based on the assumption that the government rose up together to face the Japanese military. However, cabinet members Thakin Tun Ok and Thakin Ba Sein are said to have trusted Japan to the extent that they were regarded as pro-Japanese. If this is the case, it is possible that they disrupted Burmese unity by bowing to Japanese military power. Therefore, focusing on Tun Ok and Ba Sein, this paper explores their relationships between Thakin party Kodaw Hmaing faction and Ba Maw. Whether the interpretation described above is correct is to be determined.
Section I suggests that the relationship between Tun Ok and his comrades and the Kodaw Hmaing faction was not restored during the Minami-Kikan reign. Backed by Shozo Kokubu (a former naval lieutenant), Tun Ok and Ba Sein had a strained relationship with Keiji Suzuki who assumed the head of Minami-Kikan. In Section II, it is suggested that they did not partner with the Kodaw Hmaing faction even during the Ba Maw Executive Administration. Ba Maw did not make Tun Ok and Ba Sein take the initiative to get the Kodaw Hmaing faction on his side. Section III discusses the sidelining of Tun Ok and Ba Sein and their move to Singapore. The reasons why a part of the Japanese military supported them is also discussed.
This analysis demonstrates that Tun Ok and Ba Sein occasionally lobbied more strongly for autonomy and independence from Japan than Ba Maw and his cohorts. Although it is true that they tried to compete against Ba Maw, this does not mean that they bowed to Japanese power. Anyway, a part of the Japanese military backed Tun Ok and Ba Sein. This section of the Japanese military supported Tun Ok and Ba Sein intending to secure one of confronting powers to use beyond the boundary between pro- and anti-Japan factions. Such measures had been used for years by Japanese troops on the Chinese continent.
