Vietnam would be blank
Context : Vietnamese history students textbook show Japan colonized indochina, but no genocide was mentioned only France
Edit : I forgot to add students
Da fuck?
Vietnam book definitely mentioned the period of Japan colonialism even though it was brief, but its damage was severe.
Source: I am Vietnamese.
The Japanese committed a ton of atrocities in Vietnam. Just look up with the Three Alls in Vietnam. And that’s not even including the famine caused by the Japanese that killed 2 million Vietnamese.
Way more than that if you include Churchill starving millions of Indians to death.
> Mukerjee has presented evidence the cabinet was warned repeatedly that the exhaustive use of Indian resources for the war effort could result in famine, but it opted to continue exporting rice from India to elsewhere in the empire.
> Rice stocks continued to leave India even as London was denying urgent requests from India’s viceroy for more than 1m tonnes of emergency wheat supplies in 1942-43. Churchill has been quoted as blaming the famine on the fact Indians were “breeding like rabbits”, and asking how, if the shortages were so bad, Mahatma Gandhi was still alive.
> Mukerjee and others also point to Britain’s “denial policy” in the region, in which huge supplies of rice and thousands of boats were confiscated from coastal areas of Bengal in order to deny resources to the Japanese army in case of a future invasion.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/29/winston-churchill-policies-contributed-to-1943-bengal-famine-study
Thailand was technically allied to Japan (think Italy/Germany). The relationship wasn't great but the Japanese weren't committing mass atrocities on the local populace compared to other regions (unless you count the Allied prisoners at the River Kwai). Thailand and Japan probably had the best post-war relationship out of most Asian countries.
Yeah Ik but I specifically did Korea and Taiwan bc the peninsula of Korea and the island of Taiwan had the special administrative region status of a colony (and later got upgraded to prefecture I'm pretty sure)
Also I have a friend from China who doesn't really know/give a shit about Japan
1. We are in high school rn
2. He just knows that Japan was in the axis, they occupied parts of China that's it, he just doesn't give a shit about things like Nanking Rape or Siege of Shanghai
Not to be rude I think the only history he cares about is the history that has affected him
Such as the Civil War, Cultural Revolution, great leap forward, and events leading up to Chinese censorship
even then, he just knows the basics and most important parts that (according to you) everyone should know as if Japan gave a huge influence on, let's say the Beijing and Hebei region, but we can take it with a grain of salt
also he doesn't give a shit about history because it's not something he's passionate in or wants to strive for
The civil war, cultural revolution, GLF affected him, a high schooler, personally but not the largest invasion and genocide in Chinese history? One of the biggest precursors to everything mentioned above?
Again, he doesn't need to give a shit. But understand that it is the same as a Jewish person that knows nothing about the Holocaust. If your friend doesn't care then the Chinese education system truly has failed.
>we can take it with a grain of salt
What are we taking with a grain of salt?
We're not in a Chinese education system, never said it was, we're in an American curriculum which by the way barely even teaches about the USA until 10th grade, let alone East Asian history
I get where you're coming from and I don't really want to argue about something where the holocaust was brought up and especially not in my own post so yeah
The Japanese managed to kill that many civilians in Manila alone out of "frustration" and nobody even knows about it either
it's wild how much of the Japanese atrocities go under the radar
To paraphrase the apocryphal Stalin: one atrocity is a tragedy that will repeatedly pop up on r/HistoryMemes , 100 atrocities are a statistic.
Knowledge of even Unit-731 outside of the victim countries and history buffs is almost nonexistent, never mind any wider knowledge of the rest of the shit they did
I'm a taiwanese descendant, my grandparents lived through the end of japanese colonization and from what they have told me, it wasn't exactly all rainbow and sunshine; it was harsh times but japanese established schools, companies and better administration overall. It got much worse after the arrival of KMT tho (read White Terror)
I can confirm, my grandparents said that the Japanese executed native indigenous Taiwanese aborigines for not complying with them, however, the Japanese were very profitable for Taiwan and pretty much transformed them into the economy they are today, but also kind of led to their conflict with the PRC.
Sometimes I feel like the USA, UK and Japan (a bit of friendly fire don't kill me for saying this) are the countries that branched off on modern-day conflicts like Israel-Palestine and ROC-PRC
And I get what you mean from "not being rainbows and sunshine" I agree, not exactly that, but nowadays Taiwanese people treat Japan as their best friends so they usually see Japan as Japan in the 80s to present, whereas some Koreans are so racially aggravated that they treat Japanese as some subhuman filth despite most Japanese not feeling the exact way to them.
As a Taiwanese, I can tell you that one of the major reasons why Taiwanese people do not seem to mind Japanese colonialism all that much is because of KMT's martial law. Colonialism is only child play when compared with what KMT has done to Taiwanese people. Thus, in comparison, Taiwanese people don't really see Japanese colonization as that much of a big deal
Yeah I heard the Japanese established much of the crucial infrastructure like railways and sanitation, but the KMT quite undid all of that or something
Also I guess the nostalgia towards Japanese rule is that its a bit further before and the scars of the White Terror is more deep-rooted in the current generation.
My Korean friend acts like a South Park character when someone mentions Japan because he's so patriotic
We also live in Qatar as expats so recently as of now Japan and Korea's football teams played a friendly (I think) and Korea won 1-0 and my god was he happy
Honestly it fits the meme better, as it's potentially more accurate as to what is actually said, as it is, indeed, what has been actually said by the people mentioned, rather than being a full academic analysis that dilutes individual experiences.
A Taiwanese Korean guy once explained it to me like this: Well they do intend to keep Taiwan like a part of Japan so they put in real work,However when they comes to Korea…(shrug) .
Sounds like this has to do with the complicated history of Kuomintang Taiwan and Japan “allying” against Communist China. There has been initial massacres of Taiwanese in the initial colonization of Taiwan, but that part of history is not taught in Taiwan due to politics.
Japan initially supported the modernization of Korea so that it could plant a puppet government there, but it has met with resistance. After many failed attempts, Japan decided to straight up annex and colonize Korea instead.
It also has a complicated history with each dating all the way back to the invasion of Korea in 1592. Toyotomi Hideyoshi was furious that Korea would not join him to conquer China. There has been some talks of needing to “punish” Korea because of this. This also goes all the way back to the Mongol invasion in 1274, where they believe that Korea supported the Mongols to invade Japan. However this was a very long time ago so I’m not sure if that’s actually relevant.
East Asia has a bad history with each other because they all believe that they’re superior to each other. Korea was afraid that Japan would invade them again, but they believed that they were intellectually and morally superior to Japan. Japan thought that they were militarily more powerful, and that Korea and China were weak due to being ruled by the bureaucratic class. Japan after the invasion in 16th century acted as if Korea was their vassal. Also funnily enough they’ve told Korea that the Netherlands were their vassal state, and hence they needed to return the Dutch men that were stranded in Korea to Japan LOL. And China pretty much think that they’re the center of civilization, and all these Asian countries exist thanks to China.
I think this has more of a root in the fact that Japan treated Taiwan as a bit of a "model colony". They built a lot of infrastructure and tried to integrate Taiwan into Japan proper, while Korea got a lot more of an iron fist approach.
>And China pretty much think that they’re the center of civilization, and all these Asian countries exist thanks to China.
You mean like some sort of kingdom in the middle?
>However this was a very long time ago so I’m not sure if that’s actually relevant.
I don't think it is relevant... Korean-Japanese relation was normalized in 1607 as diplomatic missions resumed.
I do think that Western historians gas up the “East Asian cultural superiority” narrative too much. That was a primarily Japanese thing that kicked off AFTER they modernized. Chinese society up to (but not including the Qing Dynasty) was very much multicultural. During the Han Dynasty, they imported Buddhism from India. During the Tang and Song Dynasties, they imported Manichaeism, Nestorian Christianity, Zoroastrianism (because of trade and good relations with Persia), had Arabic traders, and accepted a whole swathe of other shit from nearby countries. That’s why contemporary academics like Hu Shih argued that Sun Wukong was inspired by Hanuman, a Hindu god. There are quite a number of gods in the holistic Chinese pantheon (that people still worship) that are based on historical figures or religious figures from other countries. Namely, Nezha.
Even during the Ming Dynasty, the government and locals’ attitudes towards missionaries and traders were very different than the Japanese government’s attitude was at the time. If you read about the entirety of Ming Dynasty history (including South Ming), we see that the last emperor of Ming and his empress were Catholic converts. The Portuguese stationed in China at the time were very eager to not let the Manchus conquer China, so they offered a lot of support (like delivering messages to the Pope for more aide and assistance.)
However, this changed during the Manchu Qing Dynasty. The Manchu’s primary focus was on consolidating government power so they could rule over China eternally. So they eviscerated books, knowledge and aspects of culture gladly so Han Chinese people could not rebel against them. Because Japan had adopted most of their sociopolitical and cultural elements from (what they considered the peak of Chinese culture) Tang and Song dynasties, post Meiji Revolution movements had nationalists spearheading ideas such as Japan being the true inheritors of Chinese culture ( 華夏文化). This is why in Japanese nationalist propaganda their invasion of China during WWII is sometimes called a liberation war.
>post Meiji Revolution movements had nationalists spearheading ideas such as Japan being the true inheritors of Chinese culture ( 華夏文化). This is why in Japanese nationalist propaganda their invasion of China during WWII is sometimes called a liberation war.
Not sure if I've ever heard of that. The nationalists were pretty much anti-China, whom were based on the proto-Japanese nationalism of "[national learning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kokugaku)" movement during the Edo period, where they tried to expunge any foreign influence, especially Chinese influence, so that they could "go back" to the days of "pure" Japan before there was any foreign influence.
[This is a good place to go down the rabbit hole](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinocentrism) if you scroll down to Japan. Architects such as Ito Chuta also helped to propel this idea too. [Here is a research paper about his political agenda.](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13602365.2015.1099115) He famously proclaimed that Tang Dynasty architecture only exists in Japan, and traces of Tang were nowhere to be found in China anymore.
I forgot to mention that the monikkers the four rulers went by: Meiji, Taisho, Showa, and Heisei were all directly taken from various classic Chinese literature. Meiji from the Yi Ching (圣人南面而听天下，向明而治), Taisho also from the Yi Ching (临，刚浸而长。说而顺，刚中而应，大亨以正，天之道也。) Showa is from the Book of Documents (百姓昭明，协和万邦), and Heisei is from the Grand Annals of History by Sima Qian.
Japan: Hey Korea, can we march this army through your territory to go beat up your Chinese buddies?
Korea: Ahaha! Good joke Japan, really good joke.
Japan: ...
Korea: ...That was a joke right?
Japan: I didn't hear a "no"...
Korea: Japan, are you fucking kidding me?!
Japan: WE'RE NOT ASKING ANYMORE!
[a wonderful video about Taiwan under Japan. ](https://youtu.be/3K__NuXscqA?si=BRYePQXPLigFvLt2)
In the case of Korea, it was mainly a resource exploitation colony and the Koreans were treated like slaves in many instances.
In Taiwan, though they were treated better, it nonetheless was still a colony, treated more like a British colony than a french African colony( both bad but one actually built infrastructure)
All colonialism and imperialism is bad and any attempt by colonisers to defend it is wrong.
Imperial Japan was trying to make Taiwan into a Japanese prefecture, they wanted to assimilate the Taiwanese into Japanese culture as they thought it would be easier to make Taiwan an extension of Japan, as for Korea they just saw them as colonial subjects to be exploited, although that view changed a little when WW2 started and they needed more manpower in Asia
Believe it or not, the Japanese period was Taiwan's "Golden Age" so to speak. Being the first colony and thus having the Japanese want to make your island an example of how they can also create a good colony to the other colonial powers have its perks. The brutality of the KMT after their defeat on the Mainland also helps keep this rosy memory alive.
That's one of the reasons why Taiwan is so friendly to Japan unlike the Mainland. The other Japanese colonies do not get this preferential treatment tho :v
["You were kind to the Japanese, you dropped the atom on them. You dropped the Chinese on us!"](https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,792979,00.html)
-- A Taiwanese to *The Time* journalist, 1946 after a year of "liberation" under ROC
“Locals are not very well educated” KMT after they kill off a generation of intellectuals and scholar then forced entire country to change their language.
After the first wave of “cleaning “ they fallow up with decades of White terror .
If you live in SEA, you'll know how much trauma has caused by the Japanese in the WW2. And that's not even mentioning the unit 731 or the Nanjing case.
The Japanese deserved those two bombs.
Nah, the military leadership and a lot of the military deserved it, not the civilian populations who felt the brunt of the bomb.
Saying it was necessary is different than saying random civilians deserved to die and suffer. One is pragmatic, the other is ghoulish.
The bombs were necessary though, obviously the civilians didn't deserve it only the military government deserved it and they weren't in hiroshima or nagazaki but the problem was that they were never gonna give up, which meant that the only other alternative was a land invasion that would've killed significantly more civilians than any atomic bomb would, according to the estimates at least millions would be killed as the military would revert to guerrilla tactics which coupled with Japan's mountainous terrain and their suicidal beliefs would've made the war last a lot longer and caused much more death and destruction with worse long term effects, so unfortunately it was a necessary sacrifice to end the war
Japanese Sailor: "Man thank goodness I got stationed here instead of getting sent to Okinawa or Rabaul or some shit, fuck tha-"
Funny looking ball weighing 10,300 pounds hurling towards the ground at 376 miles per hour:
The bombings isnt a matter of deserving a not only by actual military neccessity in which they were. Going by "Oh they deserved it" just opens up for not even war crime denial but support too. Japan could probably point to one really isolated incident in which some chinese guy did something one time and make the claim the deserved it its a dumb argument that doesnt end anywhere.
If your new boss is worse then your last employer,you would prefer the old guy too.
It’s really complicated but basically it’s down to this: Japanese are asshole too but at least they actually do some good work and build important things, unlike the KMT just came in and loot everything while killing people left and right.
The island of Formosa, now known as Taiwan, was incorporated as a colony after Japan conquered the short-lived Republic of Formosa which later became a prefecture.
The Korean peninsula was incorporated into Japan's sphere of influence, which came from assassinating the Korean queen, winning the Sino and Russo-Japanese war, and the siege of Port Arthur which led to assimilating Korea into a protectorate and later a colony.
Both were conquered and settled.
Well, Taiwan was colonized longer and none of the colonized Chinese people in the island still exist today, meanwhile Koreans colonized by Japan are still alive, even if barely.
Chiang had the official policy of "To defend against foreign invaders must quell internal issues (Communist uprisings) first" (攘外必先安內) before the Second Sino -Japanese war begun.
You would think said policy would be thrown out the window the moment he heard of the atrocities the Japs committed
Yet he still refused to change until he was practically forced to
I never really thought of that especially since Chiang was a representative of the ROC in the UN as a permanent member of the UNSC and opting for Korea to be an independent country
Chinese would have some words too.
The Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, and Papua New Guinea all have some words as well
Don't forget Singapore. Estimate of 3-4% dead during the occupation. Not the worst, but kinda up there.
Vietnam would be blank Context : Vietnamese history students textbook show Japan colonized indochina, but no genocide was mentioned only France Edit : I forgot to add students
Technically yes, but there was a famine that the Japanese had a hand in.
nope,Japan directly caused the deadliest famine in Vietnam history during 1945 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_famine_of_1945
If we took into consideration every famine and intentional spreading of disease/contamination, Hitler wouldn't look so bad in comparison.
they removed it,I think.Haven't seen that event for a long time since 6th grade
Da fuck? Vietnam book definitely mentioned the period of Japan colonialism even though it was brief, but its damage was severe. Source: I am Vietnamese.
It does mention that they do colonized but they don't give out deeper information about it like what they doing on it after they colonized us
It did? Even worse exploitation than the French, fhe famine caused by them forcing everyone to change crops and so on.
The French part did mention, the Japanese part didn't
The Japanese committed a ton of atrocities in Vietnam. Just look up with the Three Alls in Vietnam. And that’s not even including the famine caused by the Japanese that killed 2 million Vietnamese.
Yes but I'm talking about student history book which I'm missing word "student"
India who had over 1M dead during WW2:
Japan bombed the capital of the British Raj (Calcutta) when there was a famine in the area at the time
Way more than that if you include Churchill starving millions of Indians to death. > Mukerjee has presented evidence the cabinet was warned repeatedly that the exhaustive use of Indian resources for the war effort could result in famine, but it opted to continue exporting rice from India to elsewhere in the empire. > Rice stocks continued to leave India even as London was denying urgent requests from India’s viceroy for more than 1m tonnes of emergency wheat supplies in 1942-43. Churchill has been quoted as blaming the famine on the fact Indians were “breeding like rabbits”, and asking how, if the shortages were so bad, Mahatma Gandhi was still alive. > Mukerjee and others also point to Britain’s “denial policy” in the region, in which huge supplies of rice and thousands of boats were confiscated from coastal areas of Bengal in order to deny resources to the Japanese army in case of a future invasion. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/29/winston-churchill-policies-contributed-to-1943-bengal-famine-study
from my experience pinoys actually look somewhat admirably at Japan since it competed with western imperialism
What about Malaysia 🥲
Thailand was technically allied to Japan (think Italy/Germany). The relationship wasn't great but the Japanese weren't committing mass atrocities on the local populace compared to other regions (unless you count the Allied prisoners at the River Kwai). Thailand and Japan probably had the best post-war relationship out of most Asian countries.
And Malaysia
Singapore?
Yeah Ik but I specifically did Korea and Taiwan bc the peninsula of Korea and the island of Taiwan had the special administrative region status of a colony (and later got upgraded to prefecture I'm pretty sure) Also I have a friend from China who doesn't really know/give a shit about Japan
Also both were colonies for decades, not just years.
Did your friend not pass highschool?
1. We are in high school rn 2. He just knows that Japan was in the axis, they occupied parts of China that's it, he just doesn't give a shit about things like Nanking Rape or Siege of Shanghai
Doesn't matter if he gives a shit, but he needs to know his own history. The same way that a Jewish person needs to know about the Holocaust.
Not to be rude I think the only history he cares about is the history that has affected him Such as the Civil War, Cultural Revolution, great leap forward, and events leading up to Chinese censorship even then, he just knows the basics and most important parts that (according to you) everyone should know as if Japan gave a huge influence on, let's say the Beijing and Hebei region, but we can take it with a grain of salt also he doesn't give a shit about history because it's not something he's passionate in or wants to strive for
The civil war, cultural revolution, GLF affected him, a high schooler, personally but not the largest invasion and genocide in Chinese history? One of the biggest precursors to everything mentioned above? Again, he doesn't need to give a shit. But understand that it is the same as a Jewish person that knows nothing about the Holocaust. If your friend doesn't care then the Chinese education system truly has failed. >we can take it with a grain of salt What are we taking with a grain of salt?
We're not in a Chinese education system, never said it was, we're in an American curriculum which by the way barely even teaches about the USA until 10th grade, let alone East Asian history I get where you're coming from and I don't really want to argue about something where the holocaust was brought up and especially not in my own post so yeah
Burmese would say some something too, if they had access to reddit. 250,000 civilians died.
The Japanese managed to kill that many civilians in Manila alone out of "frustration" and nobody even knows about it either it's wild how much of the Japanese atrocities go under the radar
To paraphrase the apocryphal Stalin: one atrocity is a tragedy that will repeatedly pop up on r/HistoryMemes , 100 atrocities are a statistic. Knowledge of even Unit-731 outside of the victim countries and history buffs is almost nonexistent, never mind any wider knowledge of the rest of the shit they did
I'm a taiwanese descendant, my grandparents lived through the end of japanese colonization and from what they have told me, it wasn't exactly all rainbow and sunshine; it was harsh times but japanese established schools, companies and better administration overall. It got much worse after the arrival of KMT tho (read White Terror)
I can confirm, my grandparents said that the Japanese executed native indigenous Taiwanese aborigines for not complying with them, however, the Japanese were very profitable for Taiwan and pretty much transformed them into the economy they are today, but also kind of led to their conflict with the PRC. Sometimes I feel like the USA, UK and Japan (a bit of friendly fire don't kill me for saying this) are the countries that branched off on modern-day conflicts like Israel-Palestine and ROC-PRC And I get what you mean from "not being rainbows and sunshine" I agree, not exactly that, but nowadays Taiwanese people treat Japan as their best friends so they usually see Japan as Japan in the 80s to present, whereas some Koreans are so racially aggravated that they treat Japanese as some subhuman filth despite most Japanese not feeling the exact way to them.
As a Taiwanese, I can tell you that one of the major reasons why Taiwanese people do not seem to mind Japanese colonialism all that much is because of KMT's martial law. Colonialism is only child play when compared with what KMT has done to Taiwanese people. Thus, in comparison, Taiwanese people don't really see Japanese colonization as that much of a big deal
Yeah I heard the Japanese established much of the crucial infrastructure like railways and sanitation, but the KMT quite undid all of that or something Also I guess the nostalgia towards Japanese rule is that its a bit further before and the scars of the White Terror is more deep-rooted in the current generation.
I have a Taiwanese and Korean friend who had very different answers about their thoughts on Japan so it prompted me to make this meme
Why did you get downvoted? lol
probably because OP's friends are not a great historical source.
We all know everything on the internet is true! His friends are very credible along with the fact he has friends!
Meanwhile ancient historians sources are like "When I was a child, I heard my grandfather say..." and "a traveller once told me..."
Chad ancient historians versus virgin modern historians.
The Thad “It was revealed to me in a dream”
My Korean friend acts like a South Park character when someone mentions Japan because he's so patriotic We also live in Qatar as expats so recently as of now Japan and Korea's football teams played a friendly (I think) and Korea won 1-0 and my god was he happy
I would love to be at the lunch table with you guys. Sounds like some real entertainment.
Honestly it fits the meme better, as it's potentially more accurate as to what is actually said, as it is, indeed, what has been actually said by the people mentioned, rather than being a full academic analysis that dilutes individual experiences.
Good for memes tho
Do you know who else is a great historical source?
A Taiwanese Korean guy once explained it to me like this: Well they do intend to keep Taiwan like a part of Japan so they put in real work,However when they comes to Korea…(shrug) .
Sounds like this has to do with the complicated history of Kuomintang Taiwan and Japan “allying” against Communist China. There has been initial massacres of Taiwanese in the initial colonization of Taiwan, but that part of history is not taught in Taiwan due to politics. Japan initially supported the modernization of Korea so that it could plant a puppet government there, but it has met with resistance. After many failed attempts, Japan decided to straight up annex and colonize Korea instead. It also has a complicated history with each dating all the way back to the invasion of Korea in 1592. Toyotomi Hideyoshi was furious that Korea would not join him to conquer China. There has been some talks of needing to “punish” Korea because of this. This also goes all the way back to the Mongol invasion in 1274, where they believe that Korea supported the Mongols to invade Japan. However this was a very long time ago so I’m not sure if that’s actually relevant. East Asia has a bad history with each other because they all believe that they’re superior to each other. Korea was afraid that Japan would invade them again, but they believed that they were intellectually and morally superior to Japan. Japan thought that they were militarily more powerful, and that Korea and China were weak due to being ruled by the bureaucratic class. Japan after the invasion in 16th century acted as if Korea was their vassal. Also funnily enough they’ve told Korea that the Netherlands were their vassal state, and hence they needed to return the Dutch men that were stranded in Korea to Japan LOL. And China pretty much think that they’re the center of civilization, and all these Asian countries exist thanks to China.
I think this has more of a root in the fact that Japan treated Taiwan as a bit of a "model colony". They built a lot of infrastructure and tried to integrate Taiwan into Japan proper, while Korea got a lot more of an iron fist approach.
This is the best quick explanation
>And China pretty much think that they’re the center of civilization, and all these Asian countries exist thanks to China. You mean like some sort of kingdom in the middle?
maybe even all under haven
>However this was a very long time ago so I’m not sure if that’s actually relevant. I don't think it is relevant... Korean-Japanese relation was normalized in 1607 as diplomatic missions resumed.
I think it also has to do that the Taiwanese surrendered more easily so they weren’t treated as harshly.
"but that part of history is not taught in Taiwan due to politics." Nope, that not true. And I'm very curious about your sources.
> and all these Asian countries exist thanks to China. In the way that countries all over the globe today exist 'thanks' to Great Britain.
I do think that Western historians gas up the “East Asian cultural superiority” narrative too much. That was a primarily Japanese thing that kicked off AFTER they modernized. Chinese society up to (but not including the Qing Dynasty) was very much multicultural. During the Han Dynasty, they imported Buddhism from India. During the Tang and Song Dynasties, they imported Manichaeism, Nestorian Christianity, Zoroastrianism (because of trade and good relations with Persia), had Arabic traders, and accepted a whole swathe of other shit from nearby countries. That’s why contemporary academics like Hu Shih argued that Sun Wukong was inspired by Hanuman, a Hindu god. There are quite a number of gods in the holistic Chinese pantheon (that people still worship) that are based on historical figures or religious figures from other countries. Namely, Nezha. Even during the Ming Dynasty, the government and locals’ attitudes towards missionaries and traders were very different than the Japanese government’s attitude was at the time. If you read about the entirety of Ming Dynasty history (including South Ming), we see that the last emperor of Ming and his empress were Catholic converts. The Portuguese stationed in China at the time were very eager to not let the Manchus conquer China, so they offered a lot of support (like delivering messages to the Pope for more aide and assistance.) However, this changed during the Manchu Qing Dynasty. The Manchu’s primary focus was on consolidating government power so they could rule over China eternally. So they eviscerated books, knowledge and aspects of culture gladly so Han Chinese people could not rebel against them. Because Japan had adopted most of their sociopolitical and cultural elements from (what they considered the peak of Chinese culture) Tang and Song dynasties, post Meiji Revolution movements had nationalists spearheading ideas such as Japan being the true inheritors of Chinese culture ( 華夏文化). This is why in Japanese nationalist propaganda their invasion of China during WWII is sometimes called a liberation war.
>post Meiji Revolution movements had nationalists spearheading ideas such as Japan being the true inheritors of Chinese culture ( 華夏文化). This is why in Japanese nationalist propaganda their invasion of China during WWII is sometimes called a liberation war. Not sure if I've ever heard of that. The nationalists were pretty much anti-China, whom were based on the proto-Japanese nationalism of "[national learning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kokugaku)" movement during the Edo period, where they tried to expunge any foreign influence, especially Chinese influence, so that they could "go back" to the days of "pure" Japan before there was any foreign influence.
[This is a good place to go down the rabbit hole](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinocentrism) if you scroll down to Japan. Architects such as Ito Chuta also helped to propel this idea too. [Here is a research paper about his political agenda.](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13602365.2015.1099115) He famously proclaimed that Tang Dynasty architecture only exists in Japan, and traces of Tang were nowhere to be found in China anymore.
I forgot to mention that the monikkers the four rulers went by: Meiji, Taisho, Showa, and Heisei were all directly taken from various classic Chinese literature. Meiji from the Yi Ching (圣人南面而听天下，向明而治), Taisho also from the Yi Ching (临，刚浸而长。说而顺，刚中而应，大亨以正，天之道也。) Showa is from the Book of Documents (百姓昭明，协和万邦), and Heisei is from the Grand Annals of History by Sima Qian.
TF2 DETECTED!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT THE FUCK IS AN UPDATE?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
when gta gets a new game but tf2 doesn't
Yeah, Imperial Japan kind of bought into the racial supremacy thing hard, and it showed in hiw they treated the lands they conquered.
Japan: Hey Korea, can we march this army through your territory to go beat up your Chinese buddies? Korea: Ahaha! Good joke Japan, really good joke. Japan: ... Korea: ...That was a joke right? Japan: I didn't hear a "no"... Korea: Japan, are you fucking kidding me?! Japan: WE'RE NOT ASKING ANYMORE!
[a wonderful video about Taiwan under Japan. ](https://youtu.be/3K__NuXscqA?si=BRYePQXPLigFvLt2) In the case of Korea, it was mainly a resource exploitation colony and the Koreans were treated like slaves in many instances. In Taiwan, though they were treated better, it nonetheless was still a colony, treated more like a British colony than a french African colony( both bad but one actually built infrastructure) All colonialism and imperialism is bad and any attempt by colonisers to defend it is wrong.
Imperial Japan was trying to make Taiwan into a Japanese prefecture, they wanted to assimilate the Taiwanese into Japanese culture as they thought it would be easier to make Taiwan an extension of Japan, as for Korea they just saw them as colonial subjects to be exploited, although that view changed a little when WW2 started and they needed more manpower in Asia
Believe it or not, the Japanese period was Taiwan's "Golden Age" so to speak. Being the first colony and thus having the Japanese want to make your island an example of how they can also create a good colony to the other colonial powers have its perks. The brutality of the KMT after their defeat on the Mainland also helps keep this rosy memory alive. That's one of the reasons why Taiwan is so friendly to Japan unlike the Mainland. The other Japanese colonies do not get this preferential treatment tho :v
["You were kind to the Japanese, you dropped the atom on them. You dropped the Chinese on us!"](https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,792979,00.html) -- A Taiwanese to *The Time* journalist, 1946 after a year of "liberation" under ROC
Moral of story: You’re even more fucked if you get colonised by Chinese next.
Didn't the ROC in Exile do a bit of genocide of their own?
Yeah, the KMT did a bit of "cleaning up" to make room for their evacuated assets and exiles
“Locals are not very well educated” KMT after they kill off a generation of intellectuals and scholar then forced entire country to change their language. After the first wave of “cleaning “ they fallow up with decades of White terror .
I’m pretty sure that’s everyone who’s not Taiwan talking about being under japan.
Taiwan had a far more pleasant experience of Japanese colonisation then most did
Lmao. Nice template. I would like that
If you live in SEA, you'll know how much trauma has caused by the Japanese in the WW2. And that's not even mentioning the unit 731 or the Nanjing case. The Japanese deserved those two bombs.
Nah, the military leadership and a lot of the military deserved it, not the civilian populations who felt the brunt of the bomb. Saying it was necessary is different than saying random civilians deserved to die and suffer. One is pragmatic, the other is ghoulish.
[удалено]
The bombs were necessary though, obviously the civilians didn't deserve it only the military government deserved it and they weren't in hiroshima or nagazaki but the problem was that they were never gonna give up, which meant that the only other alternative was a land invasion that would've killed significantly more civilians than any atomic bomb would, according to the estimates at least millions would be killed as the military would revert to guerrilla tactics which coupled with Japan's mountainous terrain and their suicidal beliefs would've made the war last a lot longer and caused much more death and destruction with worse long term effects, so unfortunately it was a necessary sacrifice to end the war
can agree
I mean what did the civilians do to deserve that Your telling me a 1 month old baby deserved to get vaporized
A 14 year old boy: "My alarm clock didn't wake me up and my crush asked me out! Things are finally going my wa-" The atomic bomb:
Japanese Sailor: "Man thank goodness I got stationed here instead of getting sent to Okinawa or Rabaul or some shit, fuck tha-" Funny looking ball weighing 10,300 pounds hurling towards the ground at 376 miles per hour:
The bombings isnt a matter of deserving a not only by actual military neccessity in which they were. Going by "Oh they deserved it" just opens up for not even war crime denial but support too. Japan could probably point to one really isolated incident in which some chinese guy did something one time and make the claim the deserved it its a dumb argument that doesnt end anywhere.
[This video is my favorite representation ](https://www.instagram.com/reel/C5mWZLXPuoo/?igsh=ZXUzc3BlMHo5Z3Jt)
Most of East Asia would've probably described Imperial Japan as the second one.
hudda hudda huh
Janet, 1910, Japan attack Korea.
lol! Where’s the template from?
Japanese here. Shall we open the books on the rest of you?!
If your new boss is worse then your last employer,you would prefer the old guy too. It’s really complicated but basically it’s down to this: Japanese are asshole too but at least they actually do some good work and build important things, unlike the KMT just came in and loot everything while killing people left and right.
One was settled the other one conquered
The island of Formosa, now known as Taiwan, was incorporated as a colony after Japan conquered the short-lived Republic of Formosa which later became a prefecture. The Korean peninsula was incorporated into Japan's sphere of influence, which came from assassinating the Korean queen, winning the Sino and Russo-Japanese war, and the siege of Port Arthur which led to assimilating Korea into a protectorate and later a colony. Both were conquered and settled.
If you put it that way, yeah🤷🏻♂️
okey
Well, Taiwan was colonized longer and none of the colonized Chinese people in the island still exist today, meanwhile Koreans colonized by Japan are still alive, even if barely.
Omfg is this ever so true. I had a Taiwanese friend who would sing Imperial Japan's praises.
This is not true at all, maybe among the deep green constituency and those weird Lee Deng Hui fans who paid for their volunteer statue
I wonder if that half of Taiwan’s population being the descendants of KMT soldiers fleeing after the civil war is factored in there?
To be fair, the KMT and the CCP literally had to pause their civil war because they saw Japan as a common enemy
KMT almost didn’t even do that Like I’m surprised Chiang gave a bigger shit about killing communists then the Japs raping and murdering his people
Chiang had the official policy of "To defend against foreign invaders must quell internal issues (Communist uprisings) first" (攘外必先安內) before the Second Sino -Japanese war begun.
You would think said policy would be thrown out the window the moment he heard of the atrocities the Japs committed Yet he still refused to change until he was practically forced to
Literally forced to, since he was imprisoned and couldn’t really say no
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second\_United\_Front](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_United_Front) ? idk maybe im wrong but eh
I never really thought of that especially since Chiang was a representative of the ROC in the UN as a permanent member of the UNSC and opting for Korea to be an independent country
Japan: Father? Korea: Yes son? Japan: I want to kill you. Mothers? Mongolia and China: ... #Japan: I want to... 一晩中ファックユー