That’s right. In fact, it’s pretty common to hear right-wing racists argue that we coastal liberals Loooove Japan, and they’re more racistic! Hypocrites much? And they they list a parade of horribles about Japanese behavior during WWII. And, you know, they’re not wrong about that. But if you look at Japanese and German behavior after the war, while they each have their unreconstructed militarists and racists (AfD, for one… shudder), and Japan has an immigration policy that makes Republicans drool with envy (they are, after all, a small island ethno-state), they are models of good national behavior. If Southern slave-holding states had behaved that way after the Civil War, we’d have a wildly different country now.
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Not at all! It’s good to be corrected. Though I wouldn’t give European imperialism in Asia such a quick pass. In its more settled phase it was surely mostly less horrible than Japan in expansionist phase. But the actions of England in China in particular, and the systematic impoverishment of India including the sequences of famines they caused which killed tens of millions are second to nothing. Also the US did reinstate European colonial rulers back in many cases (see Vietnam, also Algeria by the by). As with WWI America’s committment to free determination of peoples was selective and strategic rather than actually principled.
As for Japan attacking of course it’s true and it’s to the USs credit that it actually attacked Germany. I’m not sure they really had to. They wanted to and after Japan there was a consensus available.
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When the US declared war on Japan, Germany declared war on the US, as they were allied with Japan.
America had been supporting Britain for 18 months by that point in war and a cynical reading of their actions against Germany might lead a person to the conclusion that America was protecting it’s investment.
I don’t actually believe that, but I have seen the argument.
Belgium, “Hold my Chocolate Beer”.
I remember being really shocked, as a teen, when I learned that the Opium Wars were about forcing China to accept our drug imports. Along with the USA and France, the UK really did a number on China.
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I guess I’m not aware of any Belgian colonies that Japan conquered during WWII. Could you be a little more specific?
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Sorry, I was thinking more generally of colonies worldwide. I’ll try to work on my reading comprehension skills.
Edit: Though, of course what Japan did during their invasion of China was beyond horrible; and it wasn’t the only terrible thing they did during the war.
When talking to Trompsters, I often inquire of their former branch of service. The usual response is, “Huh? Whazzat?” At that point I, a Viet-eta US Army volunteer, dismiss whatever they have to say. Their thoughts and words are meaningless. Folks I see laying flowers on graves on Veterans’ Day deserve much more respect than do moral cowards.
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To be fair that part isn’t that shocking really. The US “opened Japan” to trade by sending a gunboat. The British navy was always used to force countries to accept goods and to take the resources. India had a thriving textile industry and was wealthy. England needed markets for it’s mills.Trade is evil! What’s shocking about the opium wars is the conduct of them. The mass murder, rape, and looting was on a shocking, epic, scale. Honestly it’s why Chinese do not give two shits for lectures from the British government on rights and democracy.
Leopold’s Congo though as you say was the European colonial outrage that even Europeans felt was a step too far. Via gay Irish revolutionary and inspiration for Heart of Darkness, Roger Casement whose investigation and report (for the British Civil Service IIRC) laid the horror bare.
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Wow! I didn’t know Casement was involved. That guy managed to squeeze so much in to his life. It was a real crime what the Government did to him.
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Well he was completely, absolutely guilty of treason! Bang to rights with a ship full of guns intended to be fired at the British army so he knew what he was getting into.
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It would be funny if it wasn’t true. Instead it’s tragic.
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If the Oklahoma City bombing happened today, 1/3 of the country would be digging up the criminal histories of the victims to defend McVeigh’s actions.
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