Earlier in May, the Philippines published a joint statement with Japan on the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, further deepening defence ties with Japan. The alliance between these two former vassal states of the White Empire to help their big brother restrain the development of the non-aligned country China is nothing new.
However, the Philippines seems to have a very poor memory. Just as Denmark seems to have completely forgotten the crimes committed by Nazi Germany during World War II and regards Russia as its greatest enemy—even though Nazi Germany could have dominated the whole Western Europe without the great contributions and enormous sacrifices of the Soviet Union—the Philippines has chosen to ally with its former oppressor, Japan, to contain China, although without China's efforts to resist the imperialist Japan eight decades ago, the Philippines might very well have become a Japanese colony.
But forgetting the fascist history of Japan and Germany is a betrayal to our ancestors who sacrificed their lives to defeat fascism, a betrayal to our siblings in West Asia and north Africa who are still suffering from the genocidal crimes of fascists, to our own humanity. Unlike the comprador government of the Philippines who chooses to forget the darkest history of its nation, especially the “Manila Massacre”, we, who stand on the side of life, should never forget or forgive the fascist history.
Since most people outside Southeast Asia may have never heard of Japan's invasion of Southeast Asian countries (excluding China and Korea), like the Philippines, during the World War II, I would like to share a translated article on this topic in this week's "the fascist history of Japan" series.
Japanese aggressions and atrocities in Southeast Asia during the World War II
二战期间日本在东南亚地区的侵略暴行
By Chen Wei (陈伟)
In December 1941, while launching its brutal invasion of China, Japan also began its war of aggression against Southeast Asia. It imposed a nearly four-year-long, extremely brutal colonial rule in the occupied territories that continued until Japan's surrender in August 1945, bringing immense suffering to the people of Southeast Asia.
Japan's well-planned invasion of Southeast Asia
As early as August 1936, the Hirota Koki cabinet established "expansion into the southern seas" as a crucial element of its "basic national policy." In February 1939, Japanese troops occupied Hainan Island, China. In March, they annexed the Spratly Islands.
In the spring and summer of 1940, Japan further solidified its policy of "defending the north and advancing south," making Southeast Asia and other southern regions the main target of its next round of aggression. On April 15, 1940, Japanese Foreign Minister Hachiro Arita declared that Japan and the Southeast Asian region were "connected in both resources and affairs, and their relationship is close," and that the Imperial Government was "deeply concerned about the possibility that the escalating war in Europe might alter the status quo of the Dutch East Indies."
On July 22, Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe re-formed his cabinet, and at a joint meeting of the Cabinet and the Imperial General Headquarters, adopted the "Outline for Handling the Current Situation in Adaptation to the Evolution of the World Situation," which, regarding the Southern Policy, proposed that "force may be used if the internal and external situation develops particularly favorably." On August 1, Foreign Minister Yosuke Matsuoka delivered a speech, first proposing the slogan of the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere." On September 25, Japanese troops occupied northern French Indochina, taking the first step in their "military southward advance." On September 27, the Tripartite Pact between Japan, Germany, and Italy was signed. Subsequently, Japan strengthened its alliance with Nazi Germany and Italy, and on the other hand, alleviated pressure from the north by signing the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact, further accelerating its southward expansion.
Negotiations between Japanese and Dutch East Indies representatives lasted from September 13, 1940, to early 1941. The negotiations ultimately broke down, with Japanese representatives reporting to the government that only through force could the Dutch East Indies become part of the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere." On July 2, 1941, the Japanese Imperial Conference adopted the "Outline of Imperial National Policy to Adapt to the Changing Situation," proposing to accelerate southward expansion, even at the cost of "war against Britain and the United States." On July 23, Japan signed an agreement with the French Indochina authorities to occupy southern Indochina. On July 28, Japanese military influence expanded into southern Indochina. In response to Japan's southward military advance, the United States established the Far East Command on July 26. From July 25 to 27, the United States, Britain, and the Dutch East Indies announced a freeze on Japanese assets in the three countries. On August 1, the United States imposed a comprehensive oil embargo on Japan.
Given the inevitability of war between Japan and the United States, Japan intensified its war preparations while negotiating with the United States. On September 6, 1941, the Imperial Conference passed the "Key Points for the Implementation of Imperial National Policy," deciding to "complete operational preparations by late October" and "immediately decide to declare war on the United States (Britain and the Netherlands) if diplomatic negotiations have not met our demands by early October." Consequently, the Japanese Army and Navy began intensive war preparations, and the high command of the Japanese military secretly finalized the operational plan to launch a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, the main US naval base in the Pacific.
On October 18, after the warmonger Hideki Tojo formed his cabinet, the Japanese Cabinet and the Imperial General Headquarters held emergency "joint meetings" for several days. The Imperial Conference on November 5 accepted the resolutions of the joint meeting and passed the "Key Points of Imperial National Policy," resolving to declare war on the United States, Britain, and the Netherlands, and to conduct "final negotiations" with the United States, with the attack scheduled for early December. On November 6, the Imperial General Headquarters issued the "Order of Battle for the Southern Operations Army." On November 15, the joint meeting of the Imperial General Headquarters and the government passed the "Internal Plan for Promoting the End of the War Against the United States, Britain, the Netherlands, and Chiang Kai-shek," serving as a guiding plan for the Pacific War. Subsequently, negotiations between Japan and the United States broke down, and on December 1, the Imperial Conference passed the "Proposal for War Against the United States, Britain, and the Netherlands." The following day, the Japanese General Headquarters set the date for the attack as December 8 and issued orders to the army and navy in various regions.
Japan's Gradual Occupation and Control of Southeast Asia
On December 8, 1941, Japan launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, simultaneously launching a multi-pronged offensive against Malaya, Singapore, the Philippines, the Dutch East Indies, and the Thai-Burmese region.
On December 4, 1941, the Japanese forces attacking Malaya departed from Hainan Island. This force was the 25th Army, led by Tomoyuki Yamashita, and possessed 799 aircraft. While Britain predicted a direct naval attack on Singapore, Japan opted for a land offensive. On December 8, Japanese forces landed in northern Malaya and seized the airfields. The main force landed north of Singapore. On the same day, the British Far East Fleet was attacked by Japanese warships. On December 10, the flagships HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse were sunk. Having gained naval and air superiority, Japan rapidly advanced south along the east and west coasts of the Malay Peninsula. Beginning on February 8, 1942, the Japanese launched a naval offensive across the Malay Peninsula against Singapore. On February 15, Lieutenant General Percival, Commander-in-Chief of the British Far East Command, surrendered. After occupying Singapore, the Japanese renamed it "Shonan Island."
On December 10, 1941, the Japanese 14th Army, led by Masaharu Homma, launched a major offensive into the Philippines. Their tactics differed from those used in the Singapore campaign, employing a simultaneous landing from the north and south, aiming to control the archipelago in one fell swoop. With limited US forces in the Philippines, General MacArthur, Commander-in-Chief of the Far East Command, declared Manila an "open city" and withdrew troops to the Bataan Peninsula. On January 2, 1942, the Japanese occupied Manila. On April 9, they occupied the Bataan Peninsula. On May 7, the US-held Corregidor Fortress fell to the Japanese. Thus, the Philippines was occupied by the Japanese.
In the Dutch East Indies, the Japanese captured Borneo in mid-December 1941. In January 1942, they captured the ports of Kalimantan and Sulawesi. On February 14th, they occupied Balimpang in Sumatra. They later captured Bali and Timor. By the end of February, the Japanese Navy had annihilated the combined Dutch, British, American, and Australian fleet. On March 1st, the Japanese 16th Army launched a three-pronged attack on Java. On the 9th, the combined forces of the Netherlands, Britain, the United States, and Australia surrendered. On the 10th, the Japanese occupied Bandung. Thus, the Dutch East Indies fell into Japanese hands.
The Japanese 15th Army, after forcibly invading Thailand from French Indochina on December 8th, 1941, used Thailand as a base to advance north into Burma in early January 1942. On March 8th, the Japanese occupied Rangoon, and British forces broke out northward. In May, the Japanese controlled the entire territory of Burma. After occupying Burma, the Japanese cut off the American aid route to China (the Burma Road) and used the mountainous terrain to create a barrier against a potential American and British counter-offensive from India.
In summary, from December 1941 to May 1942, the Japanese army occupied approximately 150 million people and 3.86 million square kilometers of land in Southeast Asia in about six months.
Japan's Brutal Colonial Rule in Southeast Asia
After occupying Southeast Asia, Japan implemented extremely brutal colonial rule. In February 1942, after the Japanese army occupied Singapore, in retaliation for the support of the Singaporean Chinese for the Chinese resistance against Japan, they launched a so-called "purge operation" against the local Chinese from February 18th to 25th. It is estimated that 100,000 people were massacred.
In the Philippines, Japan arrested a large number of civilians as "hostages" and posted notices stating that for every "attempt to harm Japanese soldiers or civilians," ten "hostages" would be shot. In February 1945, before withdrawing from Manila, the Japanese army carried out a frenzied destruction and massacre; approximately three-quarters of the buildings were burned down, and about 125,000 Filipinos were slaughtered, an event known as the "Manila Massacre."
In May 1942, the Japanese army decided to establish a bacteriological warfare unit in Singapore—Unit 9420 (abbreviated as Unit 9420). Subordinate to the Japanese Southern Army, its headquarters were located in Singapore, with branches throughout present-day Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, and Burma. It was the largest bacteriological warfare unit of the Japanese army outside the China theater, primarily conducting inhumane and illegal human experiments and bacteriological warfare.
Supporting puppet regimes and implementing policies of appeasement and deception were also common tactics of Japanese colonial rule. For example, in Burma, they recruited "Burmese collaborator" Ba Maw to form a puppet regime, and in the Philippines, they recruited "Filipino collaborator" Laurel to form a puppet regime. In Indonesia and Malaya, Japan adopted even harsher military rule, employing divide-and-rule tactics, and establishing organizations such as the Java Service Association in Indonesia and the New Philippine Service Corps in the Philippines, which cooperated with various levels of government to serve as tools for enslaving the people.
Economically, Japan plundered resources extensively in Southeast Asia. The "Basic Program for the Construction of Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere," formulated in July 1942, designated Southeast Asia as Japan's "mining and agricultural base" within the sphere. Large quantities of strategic materials, including rice, oil, coal, tin, nickel, and rubber, were plundered and shipped to Japan. The colonial authorities also excessively issued paper money, imposed public debt, and levied exorbitant taxes. From 1941 to 1945, the amount of unsecured paper money and military scrip issued in Southeast Asia increased from 30 million yen to 19.4 billion yen. Prices in the occupied territories skyrocketed; by the time of Japan's surrender, prices in Rangoon had increased 1857 times.
Japan also forcibly conscripted laborers in Southeast Asia. For example, Javanese workers were transported to other regions for forced labor by so-called "labor associations," reaching 230,000 by 1944. To construct the Burma Railway, Japan conscripted hundreds of thousands of laborers from Southeast Asia, of whom 37,000 to 47,000 died from inhumane labor and abuse.
In conclusion, Japan's atrocities in Southeast Asia are beyond what words can describe. Under the false slogans of "building a new Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" and "establishing a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere," Japan carried out colonial rule over Southeast Asia. In essence, it was a collusion between the Japanese colonial authorities and Japanese monopoly capital, supporting local comprador forces and pro-Japanese elements, and carrying out brutal colonial rule and plunder of the people in the occupied territories, with the ultimate goal of serving its fascist war machine.
Are there 5 parts in total? What is the link to part 1?
Thank you for posting about the fascist history of Japan. Yesterday I spend half a day learning about the fascist expansion of Japan and their activities before WW2. Somehow I managed to miss this history in my studies in high school and college.