"Why Asia is still fighting over World War II" Topic

"The day had dawned clear and sunny on Aug. 6, 1945. Sunao Tsuboi, an engineering student at Hiroshima University, was hurrying to class after quickly downing a bowl of porridge and slurping some seaweed soup at a roadside breakfast shack.

Okinawa had fallen to American troops, but Mr. Tsuboi doubted that Japan's defeat was imminent. "I firmly believed the emperor was God, and I was ready to die for him," he says.

Suddenly the young man was swept off his feet and hurled 30 feet by a deafening blast – the fury from the first use of an atomic bomb in history…"
Full article here
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Amicalement
Armand

Having been to Nanjing and visited the museum I can see how the Chinese might be a touch unlikely to forgive – notably since the Japanese government is pretty slow to say sorry

I live in a country, if not the precise time zone, where we are in the midst of renewed sturm und drang over a war of secession that happened twice as many years ago. There are parts of Europe that are still angry about the Crusades!

When war happens on your soil, your descendants may never get over it.

In the shops and markets all over the Middle East you can still hear people talk about the Crusades as if it was just a couple of decades ago.

Sometimes it takes a long time for wounds to heal, and sometimes they never do heal.

Evoking past injustices is always a good way to gain popular support. Then these injustices are used to justify more injustices, retribution, etc.

England didn't get the 2022 world cup let's invade Russia type of scenario you mean? Wow past injustices are a harsh mama.

Evoking past injustices is always a good way to gain popular support. Then these injustices are used to justify more injustices, retribution, etc.

All to true but you also have to consider the fact that after the European war you had the Nurenberg Trials where a light was shone on Nazi war crimes and a line of sorts was drawn under the whole thing.

With the War in the Far East however, very few of the perpetrators of war crimes were ever brought to trial and many lived on comfortably in post-war Japan.
Most Japanese remained unaware to a large extent of what had gone on in China and The Far East and many still deny that the events that happened ever took place.

Zargon, I was more thinking we English should reclaim Calais.

It's hard for the Chinese, and others to accept how badly they were defeated by the Japanese.

I suspect it's equally hard for them to come to grips with the fact that the US defeated their enemy, when they could not protect themselves.

It has been estimated that by the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1950, half of all living mainland Chinese had lost a primary relative: a parent, sibling, spouse or child. The combined Sino-Japanese/Chinese Civil War left a mark.

Take a look at the film "Nanking, City of Like, City of Death".
It's quite well done and has a crackerjack combat scene early on before it turns to the rape of the city.

It might give some insight as to why folks are still perturbed.

I'm still miffed about the War of Jenkin's Ear!

'Ear 'Ear !

The general estimate of Chinese losses in ww2 is somewhere around 15-20 million, according to wiki.

That's a pretty big chunk of people. It's not surprising it would be imprinted on their national psyche, particularly since there's still plenty of squabbles between China and Japan.

..and Berwick should be returned to Scotland maybe.

As well as Calais, shouldn't the UK also have that nicer patch down in the south west of the French breakaway republic………….

Why is China still ed off about the first and second Sino-Japanese Wars?

Because for about 5000 years before them, China was the center of the world (at least in the minds of the Chinese people). Hell, the characters for the name of the country mean Middle/Central Kingdom.

Getting roflstomped by the Japanese, twice, was incredible damage to the national psyche.

Been here – done this. Trying to give up the trollslaying as they are more akin to AD&D trolls and just regenerate.

How long has America been fighting over the civil war?

About a quarter of the population of Singapore was murdered by the Japanese army and the Kempei-Tai and most of the criminals were let off through British and US collusion. No wonder people feel strongly about it.

City of Death is a brilliant but harrowing film. If you haven't seen it I urge you to do so, but don't expect to feel cheerful for the next day or so.

..and Berwick should be returned to Scotland maybe.

And throw in the whole of Cumbria.

'Getting roflstomped by the Japanese, twice, was incredible damage to the national psyche.'

That's true, and that was only the final act in 100 years of humiliation and military defeat at the hands of foreign powers. Hong Kong was ceded to Britain in 1842. (And contrary to popular opinion, it was ceded 'in perpetuity'. Nobody at the time could have predicted its eventual return.)

Beijing was occupied and looted by eight foreign powers at the end of the Boxer Rebellion and China was powerless to stop them.

There was also a ruinous civil war, rebellions so big that they may as well have been civil wars, and breakdown of authority complete enough to allow the rise of local warlordism.

China has not forgotten what can happen when a country lacks military and political strength.There is at least an element of 'never again' about China's current military expansion and modernisation.

Then of course, after the Japanese came Mao, who was just as damaging and deadly as any foreign army, albeit in different ways. But nobody in authority wants to talk about that.

I think it's not just being stomped by the Japanese.

Both the Chinese and Koreans somewhat dislike the ambivalent attitude of the Japanese subsequent to WW2 about what they did.

The Germans at least have unequivocally apologised, and did so in relatively short order.

70 years on and the Japanese PM still can't quite bring himself to do so….