Asian theatre of World War II





Preceding Events

In the Pacific, active fighting began in the early 1930s with Japan
expanding its Korean possessions and establishing a foothold in China. In
the 1920s, China had fragmented into warlordism with only a weak central
government. Japan was able to gain influence in China by imposing unequal
treaties. The situation was unstable, however, because if China dissolved
into total anarchy the agreements would be unenforceable, and if China was
able to stay strong, it would be able to abrogate the agreements.

In 1927, Chiang Kai-Shek and the National Revolutionary Army of the
Kuomintang led the Northern Expedition. Chiang was able to defeat the
warlords in southern and central China, and was in the process of securing
the nominal allegiance of the warlords in northern China. Fearing that Zhang
Xueliang (the warlord controlling Manchuria) was about to declare his
allegiance for Chiang, the Japanese intervened and set up the puppet state
of Manchukuo. The nominal Emperor of this puppet state is better known as
Henry Pu Yi of the Qing Dynasty.

There is no evidence that Japan ever intended to directly administer China
or that Japan's actions in China were part of a program of world domination.
Rather, Japan's goals in China were strongly influenced by 19th century
European colonialism and were to maintain a secure supply of natural
resources and to have friendly and pliable governments in China that would
not act against Japanese interests. Although Japanese actions would not have
seemed out of place among European colonial powers in the 19th century, by
1930, notions of Wilsonian self-determination meant that raw military force
in support of colonialism was no longer seen as appropriate behavior by the
international community. However, unlike Europeans, Japan slaughtered and
raped millions of people in Asia during and prior to World War II.

Japanese actions were therefore roundly criticized and led to Japan's
withdrawal from the League of Nations. During the 1930s, China and Japan
reached a stalemate with Chiang focusing his efforts at eliminating the
Communists whom Chiang considered to be a more fundamental danger than the
Japanese. The influence of Chinese nationalism on opinion both in the
political elite and the general population rendered this strategy
increasingly untenable.

Meanwhile in Japan, a policy of assassination by secret societies and the
effects of the Great Depression had caused the civilian government to lose
control of the military. In addition, the military high command had limited
control over the field armies who acted on their own interest, often in
contradiction to the overall national interest. There was also an upsurge in
nationalism and anti-European feeling and the belief that Japanese policies
in China could be justified by racial theories. One popular belief with
similarities to the Identity movement was that Japan and not China was the
true heir of classical Chinese civilization.

In 1937, Chiang was kidnapped by Zhang Xueliang in the Xian Incident. As
condition of his release, Chiang promised to unite with the Communists and
fight the Japanese. In response to this, officers of the Kwantung Army
without knowledge of the high command in Tokyo decided to manufacture the
Battle of Lugou Bridge, also known as the incident at the Marco Polo Bridge,
by which they succeeded in their intention of provoking a conflict between
the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan, the Sino-Japanese War).

In 1939 Japanese forces tried to push into the Soviet Far East from
Manchuria. They were soundly defeated by a mixed Soviet and Mongolian force
led by Georgi Zhukov. This stopped Japanese expansion to the North and Japan
and the Soviet Union kept uneasy peace until 1945.

Japan's policies in the 1930s are remarkable for their disastrously
self-defeating nature. Japan's grand strategy was based on the premise that
it could not survive a war against the European powers without secure
sources of natural resources, yet to secure those resources it decided to
undertake the war that it knew it could not win in the first place. Moreover
actions such as its brutality in China, and its practice of first setting
up, and then undermining, puppet governments in China were clearly
antithetical to Japan's overall goals, and yet it continued to persist in
them anyway. Finally, this march to self-destruction is remarkable in that
many individuals within the Japanese political and military elite realized
these self-destructive consequences, but were unable to do anything about
the situation. Also, there appears to have been no debate over policy
alternatives which might have enabled Japan to further its goals in China.

Outbreak of war in the east

By 1941, Japan had occupied much of north and central China. However, Japan
was faced with continued opposition from both the Kuomintang and the
Communist Party of China. Although it created several puppet governments,
its policies of brutality toward the Chinese population, of not yielding any
real power to the governments, and of support to several competing
governments failed to make any of them a popular alternative to Chiang
government. Japan was also unwilling to negotiate directly with Chiang, nor
was it willing to attempt to create splits in united front against it, by
offering concessions that would make it a more attractive alternative than
Chiang's government. Although Japan was deeply mired in a quagmire, Japan's
reaction to its situation was to turn to increasingly more brutal and
depraved actions in the hope that sheer terror would break the will of the
Chinese population.

This, however, only had the effect of turning world public opinion against
it. In an effort to discourage Japan's war efforts in China, the United
States, United Kingdom, and the government in exile of the Netherlands
(still in control of the oil-rich Dutch East Indies) stopped trading oil and
steel (both war staples) with Japan. Japan saw this as an act of aggression,
as without these resources Japan's military machine would grind to a halt,
and on December 7, 1941, Japanese forces invaded Siam, Malaya, and the
Philippines, and attacked the American fleet at Pearl Harbor. Although Japan
knew that it could not win a sustained and prolonged war against the United
States, it was the Japanese hope that, faced with this sudden and massive
defeat, the United States would agree to a negotiated settlement that would
allow Japan to have free reign in China. They were incorrect, and Japan was
faced with a war it knew it could not win.

Four days later, Germany declared war on the United States, drawing America
into a two-theater war. Until then, America had remained out of the
conflict, though it was providing military aid to Britain and Soviet Union
through the Lend-Lease program.

Allied forces in Asia, drained of men and materiel by the European conflict,
were unable to provide much more than token resistance to the
battle-hardened Japanese. Major units of the British fleet were sunk off
Malaya on December 10, 1941 and Hong Kong fell on the December 25, 1941.
United States bases on Guam and Wake Island were lost at around the same
time. January saw the invasions of Burma, the Solomons, the Dutch East
Indies and New Guinea, and the capture of Manila, Kuala Lumpur and Rabaul.
The pace of conquest was rapid: Bali and Timor fell in February, 1942,
Rangoon and Java in March, and Mandalay at the beginning of May. Meanwhile,
Japanese aircraft had all but eliminated British and American air power in
South-East Asia, made major raids on northern Australia, and driven the
British fleet out of Ceylon.

Allied resistance, at first shambolic, gradually began to stiffen. The
Doolittle Raid in April was a token but morale-boosting air attack on Japan,
and although the US Navy was narrowly defeated in tactical terms at the
Battle of the Coral Sea, it still managed to derail the Japanese plan to
invade Port Moresby. The crucial Battle of Midway followed in June: the
fortunes of war could easily have given either side the victory, but
Japanese naval aviation suffered a devastating defeat from which it never
recovered. Midway was the turning-point of the naval war in the Pacific theatre.

On land, the British/Indian retreat in Burma had slowed, Australian forces
in New Guinea successfully defended Port Moresby along the Kokada Track and
in August Japanese land forces suffered their first outright defeat of the
war at the Battle of Milne Bay. At the same time, US and Japanese soldiers
both attempted to occupy the island of Guadalcanal. Forces converged on
Guadalcanal over the following six months in an escalating battle of
attrition, with eventual victory going to the United States. From this time
on the Japanese fought a defensive war. The constant need to reinforce
Guadalcanal weakened the Japanese effort in other theatres, leading to the
recapture of Buna/Gona by Australian and US forces in early 1943, and
preparing the way for both MacArthur's land-based thrust through New Guinea
and Nimitz's island hopping campaign across the Pacific.

Hard-fought battles at Tarawa, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and others resulted in
horrific casualties on both sides, but finally produced a Japanese retreat.
Faced with the loss of most of their experienced pilots, the Japanese
resorted to kamikaze tactics in an attempt to slow the U.S. advance.
Meanwhile, Tokyo and other Japanese cities suffered greatly from attacks by
American bombers. On February 3, 1945, Japan's longtime enemy Russia agreed
to enter the Pacific Theatre conflict. With opportunistic timing, Stalin
formally declared war and invaded Japanese-occupied Manchuria with over a
million troops on August 8. This coincided with the destruction of Hiroshima
(on the 6th) and Nagasaki (on the 9th), both industrial and civilian
targets, by American nuclear weapons.

However, the invasion of Manchuria most worried Emperor Hirohito, who
pleaded with the war council to reconsider surrender. Imperial Japan then
surrendered on August 15 and the United States called this day V-J Day
(Victory in Japan). The Instrument of Surrender was signed September 2,
1945, on the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. The surrender was
accepted by General Douglas MacArthur and Admiral Chester Nimitz from a
delegation led by Mamoru Shigemitsu. But in Japan August 14 is well
recognized as the day that the Pacific War ended. Following this period,
General Douglas MacArthur established bases in Japan to oversee the postwar
development of the country. This period in Japanese history is known as the
occupation. President Harry Truman officially proclaimed an end of
hostilities in on December 31, 1946.