Herbert Adams Gibbons
In the early 1930s, Gibbons argued that an American withdrawal from the Philippines would be futile, because Japan would immediately colonize the country if the United States were to pull out. In 1931, in a speech in Manila, Gibbons referred to the Philippine calls for independence as "claptrap." He said that if the United States were to withdraw, then it might as well negotiate with the League of Nations to hand the Philippines over to Japan as a mandate. The American business community roundly praised Gibbons' speech. However, Philippine nationalist leaders attacked Gibbons, saying that he was raising the "Japanese bogy" as a hurdle to Philippine independence. (Ultimately, the United States did not grant Philippine independence until 1946, after Japan was no longer a military threat to the former colony.)
Decolonisation of Asia
The Philippines subsequently underwent successive stages of rule under the United States, first as an unincorporated territory, then as a Commonwealth. It was then occupied by the Japanese during the Second World War. In 1943, Japan granted its short-lived independence to the Philippines and in 1944, the Allied invasion of the Philippines by combined U.S. and Filipino troops began, which resulted in America regaining full control of the nation. In 1946, the United States gave the Philippines its independence.