Download World War II in Asia

World War II in
Asia
But let’s first think of all the reasons we like
Japan before we zero on its one truly
psychopathic moment in history.
Mount Fuji, autumn
Shibuya girls and, well,
you know the other guy
History of Japan
• Founded on Confucian
beliefs, script from China,
Buddhism from India (6th c),
pottery, all via Korea.
• Indigenous Shinto religion,
Amaterasu sun goddess.
• First mythology written 700s.
• Oldest hereditary monarchy
in the world, Akihito is truly
The Last Emperor (#125!)
• Courtly medieval culture
based in Kyoto. First novel
written-- by a woman.
Buddhist Temple, Nara
Kyoto Imperial Shrine
Ritsurin Garden, Japan
Zen Buddhist garden
Pottery of Japan
Lacquerware
Raku-ware
The Shogunate, 1603- 1867
• The Tokugawa shoguns
consolidate power into
feudal dictatorship,
emperor as figurehead
• Samurai warrior class
only allowed to own
swords. Bushido code
of ethics values honor,
loyalty, self-control,
courage, kindness.
• Guns banned. Also
foreigners. Dutch,
confined to Nagasaki.
• Despite ‘police state’
ethos, peace and
trade promote lively,
urban commercial
culture w/ refined
crafts kabuki live
theatre, bunraki
puppetry, the
woodblock prints that
inspired van Gogh …
• And many courtisans,
up to 15,000 in Edo
(today’s Tokyo) alone.
The Samurai
Samurai mission to Paris
Samurai armor
The Meiji ‘Restoration’
• Revolution prompted by arrival of US Commodore
Perry’s ‘Black Ships’ in Edo Harbor in 1857, breaking 300year isolation. Impose unfair trade treaties w/ US
• Reform-minded samurai overthrow shogun 1867, restore
Emperor, embark on radical & rapid modernization by
learning Western technology, adopting institutions. Beer.
• Economically successful but psychologically
destabilizing. Citizens taught obedience, Constitution
gives power to Emperor, thus those who control him.
• 1920 and 1930s, moves toward social democracy and
liberalization falter as Depression, right-wing factions
pushes country to military dictatorship
Meiji Emperor moves
from Kyoto to Tokyo
Japanese adopt Western
clothes, habits
Meiji-era tramways
The Meiji Constitution
proclaimed 1889
Japan in 1912
• At the death of the Meiji emperor, Japan has a modern
constitution modeled on Germany’s
• Centralized modern administration, taxation, law courts
• An end to feudal privileges and class divisions
• Universal free schooling for boys and girls
• Powerful army and navy that had defeated China and
Russia, conquered Korea and Formosa
• Well developed internal transportation
• Equal terms with West in treaties despite West’s racism
• Near-worship cult of emperor and Shinto religion yet real
power with samurai-class advisors who traveled to West
Map of Asia, 1930
Japan covets China
• Begins with outrage when Japan defeats Germany
and seizes control of Shandong peninsula, seaport
of Tsingtao, but China gets it back in 1922
• Racial exclusion laws in US in 1920s and refusal of
racial equality clause in Treaty of Versailles stir anger
• Investments in Manchuria for transport, raw
materials (Japan has few natural resources) at risk in
unstable Chinese warlord era (or it’s just a good
excuse) so Japan takes over region in 1931 and
installs deposed Chinese emperor as puppet ruler
• Withdraws from League of Nations, 1933
Invasion of China
• Launch attack on
Beijing, then sweep
south, bombard and
occupy Shanghai
• Nationalists retreat,
fight on w/US help via
Burma, then by air
from India
• Communists lead
guerrilla resistance
from bases in north
The ‘Greater East Asia CoProsperity Sphere’, 1940
• Ideal of a pan-Asian
empire within a fascist
geo-political order
• 1940 colonial powers
France, Netherlands fall
to German ally. Japan
takes over Indochina
• Signs Triple Axis Pact w/
Italy, Germany 1940
• War of ‘liberation’initially welcomed in
Indonesia, for instance
8 a.m. Dec. 7, 1941
Pearl Harbor: Dec. 7, 1941
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US oil & gas sanctions, stalled
negotiations provoke Japan
to launch surprise attack on
Navy base in Hawaii.
2,400 killed, 188 planes
destroyed, 8 battleships sunk,
or damaged plus others
Simultaneous attacks
launched on Burma, Guam,
Philippines, Hong Kong,
Jan-Feb 1942: attack Burma,
Indonesia, Singapore
surrenders after siege, US
withdraws from Philippines,
10,000s POWs from both. Air
raids on Australia, California
May: Japan reaches India.
Peak of expansion.
World War II in Asia
• Fought at sea, naval technology critical. Japan can’t replace
trained pilots, sailors, access oil and gas yet ‘fights to last
man’. Just 15% of US war effort devoted to Pacific yet also
grueling campaign under torturous conditions.
• Philippines and Singapore surrender, tens of thousands of
POWs captured, many of whom will die in captivity.
• May 1942: Battle of Coral Sea halts Japan’s advance south.
June 1942: Having broken Japan’s code and thus gained
advance warning, US dive bombers at Battle of Midway sink all
four Japanese aircraft carriers.
• 1943: Dogged 3-year ‘island-hopping’ campaign to close in
on Japan starts with Battle of Guadalcanal.
• Incendiary bombing campaign masterminded by future
Secretary of Defense during Vietnam War, Robert McNamara.
Japan resorts to kamikaze suicide flights.
• Guerrilla resistance fighters such as Ho Chi Minh, Sukarno, will
put skills to use fighting returning colonial powers.
Japanese Empire, 1942
Accusations of Atrocities
• Fueled by racial
supremacist beliefs and
militarism, Japanese
commit atrocities:
Nanjing massacres, rapes,
Unit 731 lethal human
experiments, Bataan
Death March in the
Philippines, BurmaThailand railroad labor
• Refusal to ‘apologise’,
official visits to war shrine,
textbook gloss-overs
continue to infuriate
neighbors Korea, China.
• 250,000 victims of
biological warfare
experiments
• Estimated 5.4 million
civilians killed by
Japanese, about 2/3
Chinese. Up to 20
million Chinese die
• 540,000 POWs die,
incl.15,000 Westerners.
• 300,000 Nanjing alone
Nuclear War
• The Manhattan Project
informs new President
Harry Truman that bomb
is ready in July 1945.
• As Russia invades
Manchuria, Truman
orders nuclear bombs
dropped on Hiroshima &
Nagasaki.
• Japan surrenders.
• Did it save lives overall or
was it a war crime? First
and only use of nuclear
weapons in war.
• 9 nations now have them.
Postwar Asia
• Japan occupied by US for five years, given new constitution.
Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal but Emperor allowed to remain in
place. Incredible economic growth ends in 1990s. Still 3rd
largest economy in the world but rapidly aging population.
• China resumes civil war; Communists win 1949. Nationalists flee
to Taiwan which becomes de facto independent.
• 1950-53, liberated Korea becomes first proxy war in Cold War,
millions killed, peninsula divided as it remains today.
• French attempt to re-assert control over Indochina but driven
out after Dien Bien Phu disaster 1954. Their financers, the US,
take over and prolong war for two more decades, leads to
millions of Vietnamese deaths, mostly civilian.
• Indonesia gains independence from Dutch in 1949.
• British partition India, grant it and Burma independence 1948;
Malaysia, Singapore 1963 after ending communist insurgency.
Death toll from
Hiroshima & Nagasaki
Pacific War Casualties
• 50% of total of World War II, or about 36 million
• US military deaths: 111,6000 (casualty rates five
times as high as in Europe, illness rates very high)
• British (UK, Australia, India) military deaths: 28,000
• About 150,000 Allied prisoners of war
• China: 4 million
• Japan: 1.8 million plus c. 400,000 civilians to bombs
• Civilian deaths elsewhere: 1 million in Philippines, 4
million in Indonesia, up to 18 million in China, 1.5-3
million in Bengal famine.
1970s Japan’s come-back: technology
The Toyota Corolla, 1978
The Sony Walkman, 1979
1980s: technology meets pop culture
Totoro, 1988
Super Mario, 1985
Video Links
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Battle of Guadalcanal (History Channel)
Battle of Midway (History Channel)
Japan’s View of the Pacific War
Hiroshima (BBC)
Premier Hideki Tojo on trial (US gov. footage)
Controversy of Yasukuni shrine visits (UK Telegraph)
• Movies: Empire of the Sun, Bridge over River Kwai,
Iwo Jima, Pearl Harbor.