大東亜共栄圏
In an effort to enlist local support in the final months of the war, the Japanese dissolved the French colonial administration on 9 March 1945, and urged Cambodia to declare its independence within the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. Four days later, King Sihanouk decreed an independent Kampuchea (the original Khmer pronunciation of Cambodia). Son Ngoc Thanh returned from Tokyo in May, and was appointed foreign minister.