As an ethnic Chinese, I can somewhat understand it if nothing else. There were some genuine “pan-Asianists” even by the time of WW2 Japan, and I suppose someone whose family wasn’t directly affected (mine was) might romanticize Japan’s actions- the actions of a non-white nation that had built itself up (granted through some very questionable means) and struck back against the world’s greatest ongoing perpetrator of genocide and imperialism (USA).
Hell, I myself see what imperial Japan became- or what it perhaps always was, but the potential that it held and that was wasted- as a utter tragedy. They weren’t communist, sure, but IMO- if they had acted genuinely in regards to their pan-Asian, allegedly anti-imperialist ideals, they could have liberated not only all of ASEAN and India, but even as far as the Arab peninsula and east Africa.
It could even be argued that- for all the terror Japan unleashed in China and Korea, and the terror inflicted on ethnic Chinese populations (like my great-grandparents) in southeast Asia- that by-and-large in southeast Asia and certainly south Asia, the Japanese came as liberators for much of the population, deeply flawed liberators, but liberators nonetheless. The independence movements of Indonesia and India certainly owe much to them, at least. I don’t think it’s apologia to say that much.
Something like that would have required some other kind of change of power from the Tokugawa Shogunate right? Instead of the Meiji Restoration happening and the Emperor being reinstated, if there was say a republic which became the basis of the reformation of the country, maybe that would have worked?
As an ethnic Chinese, I can somewhat understand it if nothing else. There were some genuine “pan-Asianists” even by the time of WW2 Japan, and I suppose someone whose family wasn’t directly affected (mine was) might romanticize Japan’s actions- the actions of a non-white nation that had built itself up (granted through some very questionable means) and struck back against the world’s greatest ongoing perpetrator of genocide and imperialism (USA).
Hell, I myself see what imperial Japan became- or what it perhaps always was, but the potential that it held and that was wasted- as a utter tragedy. They weren’t communist, sure, but IMO- if they had acted genuinely in regards to their pan-Asian, allegedly anti-imperialist ideals, they could have liberated not only all of ASEAN and India, but even as far as the Arab peninsula and east Africa.
It could even be argued that- for all the terror Japan unleashed in China and Korea, and the terror inflicted on ethnic Chinese populations (like my great-grandparents) in southeast Asia- that by-and-large in southeast Asia and certainly south Asia, the Japanese came as liberators for much of the population, deeply flawed liberators, but liberators nonetheless. The independence movements of Indonesia and India certainly owe much to them, at least. I don’t think it’s apologia to say that much.
Just imagine if the revolution happened in Japan and it became communist BEFORE WW2, they could have liberated whole Asia and Oceania!
Something like that would have required some other kind of change of power from the Tokugawa Shogunate right? Instead of the Meiji Restoration happening and the Emperor being reinstated, if there was say a republic which became the basis of the reformation of the country, maybe that would have worked?