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 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

Chinese Communists’ “Long March”

Japan in China: Communists and Nationalists fight the Japanese - and each other

1941-42: Japan attacks Pearl Harbor; seizes Malaya, Burma, Indonesia, Philippines, Indochina

Note the Confucian undertones; Japan as the “Big Brother” 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”

War in the Pacific: Japan gets pushed back

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

Hiroshima

How will western and local ideologies be reconciled in post-war Japan - and in all post-independence colonies? 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

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”