Discussion UsefulNotes / ImperialJapan

I'm gonna take out the list of war crimes, as the page is getting to long. We are not The Other Wiki and don't need to list them all. Instead, I'm going to put the link to a list of japanese war crimes on Wikipedia. It's more complete/detailed anyway.

Taken out:

• Nanking Massacre/Rape of Nanking: The number is disputed (there are even Nanking-deniers in Japan, despite Japan admitting it), but it involved the massacre of at least 200,000 people, including mass rape. In Japan, it's called The Nanking Incident.
• Unit 731 - Use of human beings as live targets for weapons testing and medical experiments of ''beyond'' Mengele-level depravity. This troper has seen pictures.
• Bataan Death March: Involving the forcible transfer of 75,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war captured by the Japanese in the Philippines from the Bataan peninsula to prison camps, was characterized by wide-ranging physical abuse and murder, and resulted in very high fatalities inflicted upon the prisoners and civilians along the route by the armed forces of the Empire of Japan. All told, approximately 5,000-10,000 Filipino and 600-650 American prisoners died.
• The Japanese colonizing of Korea, which started with the assassination of Empress Myeongseong. Imperial Japan's attempted cultural genocide with its Culture Police, mass murder, and sex slavery. Even today, this poisons relations between both Koreas and Japan.
  • Also, The Japanese colonization of Taiwan. While the Japanese tried to make the island their "ideal colony" and invested a lot in its modernization, the Taiwanese were still second-class citizens and lots of females became sex slaves as well.
• The Battle of Manila where the city was destroyed and thousands of Filipino civilians were slaughtered as "collaborators", just the worst of many incidents poisoning relations between Japan and the Philippines.
  • Imperial Japanese Army General Tomoyuki Yamashita had ordered a complete withdrawal of Japanese troops from Manila. However, 10,000 marines under Vice Admiral Sanji Iwabuchi disobeyed Yamashita's orders and remained in Manila along with some IJA stragglers. The marines would brutally kill at least 100,000 civilians. Although General Yamashita had ordered all Japanese forces under his command to withdraw from Manila, and had no control over those who chose to disobey his orders, he was nonetheless judged to be responsible and executed by the Americans.
• The "Railway of Death" across Thailand. Tens of thousands of construction workers—local civilians as well as Allied prisoners or war—died as a result of overwork and inadequate food and medical care. Still poisons relations with Vietnam and Thailand.
• Sexual slavery forced upon women in many of the colonized areas in Asia is still a sore point in every nation it occurred in. Especially since the Japanese government has refused to officially recognize the fact that such sex slavery occurred.

Now if you excuse me, Starfleet is about to award the Christopher Pike Medal to my dick. — SF Debris Hide / Show Replies

blackcat Moved the following here, because it is only about the second half of the period mentioned and makes no effort at neutrality.

Most notable in many parts of the world for war crimes committed during the Second World War and the era of militarism that preceded it, when Japanese military officers under the grip of a messianic, racist, and expanionist philosophy known as "The four corners of the World under one roof" took control of the Japanese government and systematically indoctrinated and brutalized their own population until resistance became unthinkable and such atrocities all too possible.

For Japan and China the war started in 1937, with the Second Sino-Japanese War. ("The Manchurian Incident, an older and highly euphemistic Japanese name for the latter, is considered highly offensive by the Chinese and is subject to Kotobagari). It merged into the whole mess that was World War Two and involved Imperial Japan committing some truly barbaric acts (consider bringing that Brain Bleach if you feel like Googling these stuff):

• Nanking Massacre/Rape of Nanking: The number is disputed (there are even Nanking-deniers in Japan, despite Japan admitting it), but it involved the massacre of at least 200,000 people, including mass rape. In Japan, it's called The Nanking Incident.
• Unit 731 - Use of human beings as live targets for weapons testing and medical experiments of ''beyond'' Mengele-level depravity. This troper has seen pictures.
• Bataan Death March: Involving the forcible transfer of 75,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war captured by the Japanese in the Philippines from the Bataan peninsula to prison camps, was characterized by wide-ranging physical abuse and murder, and resulted in very high fatalities inflicted upon the prisoners and civilians along the route by the armed forces of the Empire of Japan. All told, approximately 5,000-10,000 Filipino and 600-650 American prisoners died.
• The Japanese colonizing of Korea, which started with the assassination of Empress Myeongseong. Imperial Japan's attempted cultural genocide with its Culture Police, mass murder, and sex slavery. Even today, this poisons relations between both Koreas and Japan.
  • Also, The Japanese colonization of Taiwan. While the Japanese tried to make the island their "ideal colony" and invested a lot in its modernization, the Taiwanese were still second-class citizens and lots of females became sex slaves as well.
• The Battle of Manila where the city was destroyed and thousands of Filipino civilians were slaughtered as "collaborators", just the worst of many incidents poisoning relations between Japan and the Philippines.
  • Imperial Japanese Army General Tomoyuki Yamashita had ordered a complete withdrawal of Japanese troops from Manila. However, 10,000 marines under Vice Admiral Sanji Iwabuchi disobeyed Yamashita's orders and remained in Manila along with some IJA stragglers. The marines would brutally kill at least 100,000 civilians. Although General Yamashita had ordered all Japanese forces under his command to withdraw from Manila, and had no control over those who chose to disobey his orders, he was nonetheless judged to be responsible and executed by the Americans.
• The "Railway of Death" across Thailand. Tens of thousands of construction workers—local civilians as well as Allied prisoners or war—died as a result of overwork and inadequate food and medical care. Still poisons relations with Vietnam and Thailand.
• Sexual slavery forced upon women in many of the colonized areas in Asia is still a sore point in every nation it occurred in. Especially since the Japanese government has refused to officially recognize the fact that such sex slavery occurred.

Ironically, Imperial Japan actually managed to achieve one of its major war aims as the war and its aftermath effectively ended European domination over Asia, though this neither excuses the atrocities or their true intention, which was to supplant European imperialism with their own. "Asia for Asians" may have been the slogan that Imperial Japan used throughout Asia but in practice it was more often interpreted as "Asia for Ourselves."

It should be noted while Germany as a nation apologized for the actions of the Nazis in Europe, Japan has never formally apologized to the Asian nations that were invaded by the Japanese armies. There has been "condolences" from a few prime ministers, but tend to be VERY vague (picture a German prime minister saying ".....and the economic recession will be resolved....oh yeah sorry about the past Israel!, moving along, housing problems seem..."), and actions from officials of the Japanese Government of visiting the Yasukuni Shrine (graveyard with convicted war criminals). It is unlikely this will ever happen, at least while anybody old enough to remember the war is still alive. As stated above, the Japanese are generally seen as unrepentant and distrusted by Asians that lived through Japanese occupation.

The Japanese are proud people, admitting such crimes against humanity would be a serious social sin of losing face, and as such, they tend to "whitewash" its past, with dubious education of Japan's mistakes in the past in schools (something non-existent in Germany, where a good chunk of schools get taught Nazi Germany a little too much) pretending little of interest happened, and this translates in the fact that many works of Anime or Japanese media rarely reference that past (which wouldn't be so nasty, if not for the fact that it happens even in many "historic" works). All this, of course, angers (with reason) Japan's neighbors to no end.

Note that Japan is still officially an Empire (the only one left on Earth).

Adding insult to injury is the fact that in the post-war period, Japan actually benefited greatly from America and other western allies' anti-Asian sentiments. The soft touch that was used on the country during the occupation is sometimes excused as an attempt to avoid a repeat of the Treaty Of Versailles fiasco, but a more cynical interpretation is that Japan was insufficiently punished for its war crimes because most were committed against people the Allies barely even considered human, as well as the fact that they didn't want to risk further damage to a future ally in the oncoming struggle against the emerging Communist regimes in Asia. And while the later excesses of said regimes may vindicate this somewhat, it's still a serious moral lapse and is largely responsible for the country's cavalier attitude toward its past evils. As some historian put it, "the effects of absolving Hirohito (think of him like Japan's symbolic Adolf Hitler in WWII) forever distorted the meaning of the loss at the war".

Unlike Germany, which was divided into four Allied zones, post war Japan was totally under America's control. Douglas MacArthur was given a free hand and never instituted the kinds of programs that Germans were forced attend to confront the evil of Nazism.

Much like the infamous Operation Paperclip, many scientists and others who had committed atrocities such as experimenting on humans were allowed to escape punishment because they were considered by the Americans less of a threat and less morally reprehensible than Chairman Mao and his ilk. Even today Japan exports pharmaceuticals that were first tested on Chinese prisoners.

While we would be loathe to say that all Japanese share the attitudes that lead to these tragedies, or that all of them are so dismissive of their impact, with Japanese products and culture becoming more and more mainstream throughout the globe it behooves us all to take a look back on this sad chapter in the nation's history and think about how it has affected the modern world...

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