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Aim: What long-term effects did World War II have on Asia?. Pacific War: Key Events. 1931: Invasion of Manchuria 1937: Invasion of China 1939: Japan skirmishes with Soviet troops on Siberia/Manchuria border
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Pacific War: Key Events • 1931: Invasion of Manchuria • 1937: Invasion of China • 1939: Japan skirmishes with Soviet troops on Siberia/Manchuria border • 1940: Japanese troops enter Vietnam (French Indochina) to halt shipments of supplies to Nationalist Chinese government
Pacific War: Key Events • 1941: US embargoes all exports of scrap iron • 1941: Japan signs alliance treaty with Germany, Italy (the “Axis”) • 1941: US embargoes iron, steel, oil shipments, freezes Japanese assets in US (naval blockade) • 1941: Britain, Dutch embargo all oil shipments With only a two-year supply of petroleum, Japan either had to give up the war in China or secure its own sources of supply. - Encyclopedia of American Foreign Policy
Did the United States “provoke” war by denying Japan access to natural resources? Possible reasons for embargo: • Japan had simply been too aggressive - entry into Vietnam was “last straw” • US was fearful that Japanese imperialism would displace European imperialism and threaten US interests • President Roosevelt was looking for an excuse to enter WWII - needed to provoke an attack
1910: Japan occupies Korea 1931: Manchuria 1937: China
Japan in China: Communists and Nationalists fight the Japanese - and each other
1941-42: Japan attacks Pearl Harbor; seizes Malaya, Burma, Indonesia, Philippines, Indochina
From “Draft Plan for the Establishment of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere” “Western individualism and materialism shall be rejected and a moral worldview… established. The ultimate object to be achieved is not exploitation but co-prosperity and mutual help… not a formal view of equality but a view of order based on righteous classification, not an idea of rights but an idea of service…” Note the Confucian undertones; Japan as the “Big Brother”
Independence in Southeast Asia: Indonesians declare independence in 1945, win it from Dutch in 1949
Independence in Southeast Asia: Philippines - granted in 1946
Independence in Southeast Asia: Vietnamese declare independence in 1945, win it from French in 1954
How will western and local ideologies be reconciled in post-war Japan - and in all post-independence colonies?
Japan under American occupation (1945 - 52) • Beginning of the American “World Order” • Was the atom bomb dropped in order to prevent “sharing” Japanese occupation with the Soviets? • US occupiers allow the Emperor to remain, but write the Japanese constitution – a second attempt to reconcile “Japanese-ness” with “western-ness”