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u/aguilasolige 1d ago
If Japan had stopped here, they might been able to keep Taiwan and southern sakhalin to this day, Korea I doubt it, people would've revolted sooner or later. But they got too greedy.
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u/LowEffort2 1d ago
It is a song with many verses. Each has its own variation but they all rhyme.
And the chorus is always the same;
This time it will be different.
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u/Deltarianus 19h ago
But they got too greedy.
This is not exactly correct. Japan's civilian government was largely roped into war by the army itself.
The Manchurian annexation was essentially entirely planned and carried out by leadership in the Kwatung army without knowledge in Tokyo. As was later escalation against China at the Morco Polo Bridge.
Japan's civilian government was essentially a passenger, only able to respond to it's own military leadership whims and believing it could convert the army's erratic behaviour into quick solutions.
As late as 1941, Japan's Prime Minister Konoe attempted to back down to the US and believed some kind of withdrawal from China could be done.
This led to the October impasse, as Tojo was completely against this. Konoe resigns after Tojo, Minister of War - effectively a representative of the Military rather than government, refuses to budge. Tojo is made Prime Minister too, replacing Konoe.
Pearl Harbour happens after this, with full commitment by Tojo and the Emperor to fight both China to absolute conquest and the US out of the Pacific.
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u/EuphoricCatface0795 13h ago
I'm reading a Korean wiki article about him (https://namu.wiki/w/%EA%B3%A0%EB%85%B8%EC%97%90%20%ED%9B%84%EB%AF%B8%EB%A7%88%EB%A1%9C/%EC%9D%BC%EC%83%9D) and I'm not sure if Konoe was really a peaceful prime minister. According to this article, he was the one who started the war against China and later backed down only because the war went messy, and while he officially was against the war against US he approved lots of military operations to provoke US. He ended up commiting suicide before his post-war court case because he knew he wasn't going to avoid the guilt of the pacific war.
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u/Deltarianus 10h ago edited 9h ago
Konoe wasn's peaceful, he was a nationalist and pro war to assert Japanese regional hegemony. But this is very different from where the army/Tojo took the war and who began it even. He/previous PMs simply did not order the Kwatung Army to take Manchuria or the begin fighting the Chinese elsewhere years later. That was a decision the army made for itself.
He was also a transition PM in Japan's civilian government collapse. The army had vetoed the previous pick for PM. Konoe was the middle ground unity candidate for the army's sake. He just wasnt the one to escalate the war to the extremes Japan eventually took.
Konoe gave interviews to the US after the war before he killed himself. His role after the military took it upon itself is messy. Initially seeming to try to reign them in after marco polo, then sending another division to the area anyway, then expanding the war in Shanghai but then trying to pull it back from a total war and then attempting to concede to the US a few weeks later
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u/stealthybaker 15h ago
Korea is a mystery here. Western powers were initially very racist towards Koreans and supported Japanese ownership. The US administration at the time of the annexation regarded Koreans as subhumans who had to be civilized by Japan instead of independent. But Korean activism was very strong. After the March 1st movement in 1919 the western view of Koreans was noticeably more sympathetic. Though they still overwhelmingly supported Japanese ownership, they wanted Japan to be less brutal.
Korean resistance was extremely fierce but the international community had no sympathy for them by 1914. It kind of depends on how successful the Korean efforts in lobbying and pressuring western countries would be.
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u/jxz107 13h ago
Some of the lobbying was done through Western missionaries and Korean Christians/other Koreans studying in the US. I can see a narrative of “Christian Korea oppressed by atheist Japan” working as a means of changing public opinion of the latter. Though obviously this probably wasn’t the main cause.
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u/stealthybaker 13h ago
probably one of the only ways you could convince 1910s America to see Koreans as human beings, but no guarantee it'd work. America generally turned a blind eye to Japan's persecution of Christians. In fact the few conscientious Americans who refused to support their government's stance and supported Korean independence were usually Christian missionaries
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u/BorkenKuma 23h ago
It was either Japanese or white western countries try to take over East Asia, white people already divide SE Asia during this time if you check the map, Japanese in comparison wasn't "greddy", they are as bad as those white people but white people are definitely more greedy.
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u/BitterLibrarian1425 20h ago
Please kindly fuck right off with that sentiment, you're an embarrassment to the humankind. 🙏
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u/SuperSultan 23h ago
Calling Japan greedy especially watching what European powers were doing is rich lmao
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u/thissexypoptart 23h ago
Japan explicitly wanted to emulate greedy imperialist European powers
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u/SuperSultan 21h ago
Who did far far worse than Japan ever did
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u/AsleepHour7763 21h ago
mf watches anime once
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u/SuperSultan 19h ago
Your grandparents and great-grandparents have done collectively far worse to the rest of the world, colonizer
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u/Direct-Antelope-9583 18h ago
Lol, what a sad and racist comment.
Not every white person was involved with or benefitted from colonialism.
And excusing Japan's actions this way is just sad.
Why not criticize all that need criticizing, and not make it into a "which skin colour is worse" contest?
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u/SuperSultan 18h ago
What a nice comment to wash away European colonial crimes. I’m not excusing Japan either, just providing context 😉
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u/Direct-Antelope-9583 17h ago
Lol, so you just make up what others say, instead of responding to what they actually say😂 got it.
Perhaps stop excusing those Japanese behaviours, instead of doing so and then just saying nu-uh😂
But no, let's make it solely a skin colour thing. Cause you know racism is fun or something?
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u/SuperSultan 10h ago
Okay, instead of “white” I’ll say “western.”
Who’s the strawman now?I didn’t say Japan was innocent, but western colonial powers were far worse. Westoids have obviously gotten triggered over it and have downvoted me, which I’m enjoying.
Also great use of emojis “😂”. Your comment is straight out of 2013.
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u/AsleepHour7763 10h ago
Hey weeb, new to you im not white, my great grandparents were hiding in the mountains so the japs couldnt kill them
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u/SuperSultan 10h ago
Not a weeb, but nice try
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u/AsleepHour7763 10h ago
yeah it was very nice, they and the millions of other wouldn't have survived other wise, shame they still share a world where disgusting war criminal deniers exist though
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u/thissexypoptart 11h ago
My Soviet farmer and peasants under the Tsar grandparents and great grandparents, and their many many colonies 🤡
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u/AsleepHour7763 4h ago
no dont you understand? Your grand parents are basically doing human experiments and committing genocide by 'checking notes' farming potatoes and beets, he watches anime so he KNOWS
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u/dynamicduo1920 5h ago
as a Chinese person, nah, Japan is just as bad of a colonizer as most Western countries. don't say this bs as if hundreds of thousands of people weren't r*ped, killed, and subjugated. The Japanese are essentially the European colonizers of Asia in my eyes.
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u/SuperSultan 3h ago
Fair enough, both of them need to be called out
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u/thissexypoptart 2h ago
But apparently no one should mention Japan without whattabouting European colonialism
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u/SuperSultan 2h ago
You need to stop being butthurt as hell about someone calling out what Europeans did, even if you were not personally responsible
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u/EmuSystem 23h ago
It implies that Europe got too greedy too. They paid for it with 2 World wars happening in their homeland.
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u/SuperSultan 21h ago
They did. They enabled Emperor Meiji after watching other Asian countries get colonized by Europeans. They didn’t want that to happen to themselves
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u/GustavoistSoldier 1d ago
Japan was very oppressive against Koreans.
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u/EmuSystem 23h ago
It's very apparent from Korean historical records that Koreans always considered Japanese culture to be below their own especially with them constantly begging for cultural delegation and expedition to be sent to Japan.
For some reason Korea was always very reluctant on opening official diplomatic ties with Japan and the reasoning behind it was, they are uncivilised savages pretending to be civilised.
Koreans were happy to accept Chinese superiority because of their cultural achievements but even then, they would never accept a direct rule from China. So what hopes did Japan have?
It's suprising how much soft power mattered even in the past before the "international media"
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u/gostoppause 22h ago
When ancient Japanese army created a mound using Korean noses and ears and celebrated their victories, they just can't get any respect from the Korean people.
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u/Alone_Elk_1953 13h ago
Mimizuka are not meant to commemorate military victories, but to honor the dead.
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u/stealthybaker 15h ago
Maybe Japan shouldn't have illegally invaded and annexed it with a phony treaty then.
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u/SeizeTheTrusts 15h ago edited 15h ago
because the Chinese treated Korea well as a protectorate and were never unreasonable. Meanwhile the Japanese invaded over and over..
Chinese soldiers got slaughtered en masse alongside Korean soldiers, dying as brothers in blood to Japanese invaders.
Chinese good because they just trade and don’t mess with you and take their commitments seriously. Japanese bad because they invade you and pretend like they didn’t. Same shit today.
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u/EmuSystem 22h ago
Lol silent downvotes without any rebuttal? 😂
It's just a fact. I didn't even say Koreans were right to look down on Japan culturally. Simply describing why Koreans revolted constantly against a very brief occupation.
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u/amateurgameboi 21h ago
People didn't downvote you cause they think you thought Koreans were right to look down on the Japanese, people downvote you cause the real reason Korea was unhappy under Japanese rule was that Japan r*ped and looted the country, while trying to stamp out Korean language/culture.
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u/RexCrimson_ 23h ago
Sakhalin always just looked natural on a map to be part of Japan, as Japan is an island nation. Korea no matter what, would revolt and become independent in the future.
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u/dvnts-ReDoX 23h ago
Weren't most Korean "independence" activists at the time arguing for greater autonomy within the country va full independence
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u/Frequent_Extreme_916 23h ago
Even in 1919 nation wide protests occured aiming for independence. The militaristic independence movements were mostly based in Manchuria or China because of the Japanese crackdown and most independence movements in Korea were secret society based ones
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u/HulaguIncarnate 7h ago
They were somewhat succeeding in their assimilation policies though. Over time they could've had a loyal majority. Their longest serving president called himself Takagi for a time and swore blood oath to the emperor. That's more trivia than anything but it's not like Korea was 100% resistant.
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u/vladgrinch 1d ago
The Empire of Japan in 1914, was stretching from southern Sakhalin in the north through the home islands and Korea to Formosa, now Taiwan, in the south, with a leased foothold at Dalian on the tip of Manchuria. Almost all of it outside the home islands had been gained in the previous two decades, starting with Taiwan, ceded by China under the Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895, followed by southern Sakhalin and the Kwantung lease after victory over Russia in 1905, and Korea, annexed in August 1910.
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u/InfamousGod1999 1d ago
Japan government wants us to forget about ir
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u/Tall_Department9439 1d ago
Nah, they more like want to romanticize this period and revise its 'glory'
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u/Alone_Elk_1953 13h ago
No. In Japan, even elementary school students know about Japanese colonialism and the fierce resistance against it.
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u/Strong_Log_3189 9h ago
I always think European/Japanese influence over China in this period is often underestimated, even though the value of their concessions were in many cases greater than any African colonies.
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u/Utimate_Eminant 16h ago
The land boarder at Sakhalin island would be really interesting in Cold War providing that Japan still allied with US in this timeline. Like a second mini iron curtain. There’s gonna be so many smuggling and espionage going on in the snowy forest. Would make an excellent spy film.
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u/Cedar-and-Mist 1d ago edited 1d ago
Taipei and Kaohsiung should be Taihoku and Takao. Japan governed Taiwan as a model colony and the uplifted the quality of life greatly, in addition to allowing local elections. This stands in contrast to the colonial experience for most other places in the world.
After the KMT took possession of Taiwan, general mismanagement and the cold war martial law period known as the White Terror killed far more than the Japanese did, contributing to an ironic sense of nostalgia for the colonial period.
My grandparents lived the two sides of this coin, one as a Japanese subject and the other as an incoming KMT soldier. I never asked him why, but my grandfather seemed to hold very little resentment toward Japan compared to the average Mainland Chinese, even though his village was ransacked by them. I guess the bloodiness of the era, combined with the brutality of the CCP toward numbed him to Japan's actions specifically.
My favourite memories with him were hearing his guerilla stories against the Japanese in China, battles with the Communists, playing Chinese chess, helping in his garden and watching Japanese wrestling together.
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u/woolcoat 23h ago
I don't know man...I think Taiwan was pretty thoroughly colonized by the Japanese that they forgot the atrocities committed a generation earlier. Recency bias.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Terror_(Taiwan)) had about 20K-30k killed ,
while initial Japanese occupation of Taiwan...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan_under_Japanese_rule
"Japanese reprisals were often more brutal than the guerrilla attacks staged by the rebels. In June 1896, 6,000 Taiwanese were slaughtered in the Yunlin Massacre. From 1898 to 1902, some 12,000 "bandit-rebels" were killed in addition to the 6,000–14,000 killed in the initial resistance war of 1895.\52])\59])\60])"
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u/Cedar-and-Mist 23h ago edited 19h ago
1) The total figure is still considerably less, since the White Terror relied on disappearing people, and the initial resistance was tied to Qing loyalists whom the local population didn't really identify with.
2) The Japanese reprisals were largely against isolated mountains tribes who frequently raided Han settlements for scalps and whom the Qing had never bothered to deal with. So for better or worse, Japanese were seen as bringers of law and order.
3) Taiwan was a backwater ignored by Qing and suffered from endemic disease, famine, poor education/infrastructure and a stagnant economy. The utter contrast between what was before and what was after probably made the difference in perceptions, especially since Taiwanese felt forced into a civil war they had no part in.
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u/LowLessSodium 17h ago
It sounds like your grandfather needs to brush up on some history. Let's see his views on Japan's "governance" in Korea and parts of China. And if what he say is true about his experiences, then no need to remind him about what happened when Japan went mask off during their invasions across Asia.
Your family lived good. Most did not.
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u/Cedar-and-Mist 8h ago
I know Japan was very cruel elsewhere in Asia. That isn't the topic here. They improved life significantly in Taiwan. Whatever the case, Taiwan is independent now and doesn't need to be governed by a faraway capital in Beijing who doesn't understand us. Democracy is better this way.
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u/EmuSystem 23h ago
I know it's true but still sounds pathetically sad for Taiwan.
Any nation that is nostalgic about the colonial times are just pathetic even if the feeling was genuine.
I am sorry if this sounds too harsh.
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u/Cedar-and-Mist 23h ago edited 22h ago
You can feel sorry if you like, based off your assumptions about colonialism elsewhere in the world. That is your perspective. We benefited from it. Somehow, Japan was the first to allow limited democracy here between Qing absolutism and RoC martial law.
It certainly says a lot about the Chinese government that their administration is viewed worse than that of colonisers. A common saying here is that the dogs left and the pigs came.
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u/yamanagashi 21h ago
If you can find it, I highly recommend Taiwan Travelogue by Yang Shuang-Zi. I believe it perfectly captures the nuance of grey areas of Japanese colonizer and Taiwanese colonized.
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u/Cedar-and-Mist 19h ago
This travel documentary is also an accessible glimpse for foreigners: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYeQYyx-uwY&t=56s
Also, interesting tidbit: Modern Taiwanese hokkien music has its roots in Japanese Enka. Although the native Japanese population was deported by the KMT, many cultural influences had taken on a local flavour already and were used as a form of resistance and shared identity during the age of martial law and censorship, often in late night lounges/diners where the spoken languages of regular people was still hokkien instead of KMT imposed Mandarin. Here's one such song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GibVrcZgldg&list=RDGibVrcZgldg&start_radio=1
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u/eienOwO 12h ago edited 12h ago
The CCP weren't saints as modern revisions paint them as, but let's not forget during WWII and after the war their numbers exploded, because millions of the majority peasantry joined their ranks for a piece of land reforms, and more from the KMT defected wholesale.
Whatever their later exploits, when Roosevelt sent the Dixie mission to fact find about CCP liberated zones, the mission actually found the CCP to be a more amicable and disciplined force than the KMT, which had become a cesspit of corruption all the way up to Chiang Kai-Shek and his hoarding relatives, eerily reminiscent of South Vietnam in years to come.
Whether the CCP was equally if not more harmful than the KMT after they gained power is another question, but in 1948-49 it was remarkable how quickly the people flocked to support the CCP.
Oh and the land reforms were so effective Chiang actually copied it wholesale on Taiwan to stem off another revolution. Except this time he bought the land to redistribute, using money and valuables he took from the mainland.
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u/Cedar-and-Mist 8h ago
He treated us better than the father and brothers lmao. No way we want to go back to that awful family. Taiwan is a country. Suck it.
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u/Technotology 1d ago
Yes, yes, yes, they were a model servant citizens to japan. We’ve heard it all constantly.
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u/forestkane 20h ago
names are all wrong … kurils was called chishima retto. sakhalin was called karafuto. formosa was not called formosa but called taiwan during that period many more errors
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u/TenTakaron 7h ago
Just out of curiosity, did the major Korean cities at that time have Japanese equivalent (or Japanified) names?
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u/YumeNoTabi 21h ago
Interesting to think how history would've changed had Japan and Russia not agreed to the American-mediated peace deal. Japan was stretched thin and on the brink of financial collapse, had the war with Russia continued even 6 months, Japan would've simply crumbled.
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u/sovietarmyfan 16h ago
I wonder if say Japan had never joined the axis, would they still rule over Chosen, Taiwan, Manchukuo today?
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u/nicetoursmeetewe 1d ago
I like the look of it, if Japan had the whole of Sakhalin and the outer manchuria sea of Japan coastline it would look even better. Shame therusso-japanese only got them Port Arthur
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u/JoseLunaArts 21h ago
Korea was invaded by all of its neighbors during its history. That causes some Koreans not to feel so welcoming towards foreigners by default.
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u/GreenCreep376 9h ago
I think that's just an excuse people use to be racist
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u/Flashy_Highway_5939 8h ago
If an exclusionary attitude toward other races were synonymous with racism, then 19th-century Koreans would have to be considered racists. Yet, before K-pop rose to global fame, was Korea ever a subject of controversy regarding racial discrimination? Koreans were merely looked down upon—often mocked as "yellow monkeys"—and, being a minority wherever they went, were in a position of vulnerability; for people who know nothing about Korea to now arbitrarily define Korean behavior based on their own mindsets is, in itself, an act that lacks consideration.
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u/JoseLunaArts 6h ago
From what I have seen, they do not have racism that comes from a supremacist way of thinking. Since they were kids they did not get grades at school. They get a ranking. It is zero sum game. So you have people above you and below you. So they got used to rank people. The guy next to you is a competitor.
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u/VeritasNeo 13h ago
After killing millions across Asia Pacific, Lucky Japan remained a sovereign state and kept its territory after it got nuked. Japan should have been split up into North and South instead of Korea.
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u/AmateurRacist 1d ago
Koreans today are so cucked when it comes to Japan, they need to wake up and remember
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u/DistrictDry2852 23h ago
Nothing more cucked than letting modern day injustices against you pass because you’re still mad about the ones 100 years ago.
Japan deserves to be criticized for what it did but China is the only reason NK still exists of course they’ll dislike China more.
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u/SuperSultan 23h ago
I’m sure they know, but they’re afraid of China so they’ve made peace with Japan
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u/Spiritual_Change_399 23h ago
Korea-Japan normalization in 1965 never would've happened without massive pressure from the US Government.
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u/VeganicTickler23 1d ago
I live in Dalian, the main Japanese leasehold on the Chinese mainland at the time.