New Articles at Japan Focus...there's nothing on Taiwan this week, but there are two interesting articles on WWII in the Pacific, a topic I have an abiding interest in. The article on the USSR butchery of Japanese after WWII is especially interesting, for it brings to light a dark period and little known fact -- that WWII did not end when the Japanese surrendered on Aug 15, but continued another three weeks.
Kinue Tokudome, Troubling Legacy: World War II Forced Labor by American POWs of the Japanese (March 9, 2006)
Walter LaFeber, The Flawed Rice Doctrine of ‘Transformational Diplomacy’ and American Global Policy (March 2, 2006)
J. Sean Curtin, Japan’s Imperial Succession Debate and Women’s Rights (March 1, 2006)
David McNeill, Still Angry After All These Years: Imelda Marcos responds to critics of the Marcos dictatorship (February 27, 2006)
Tai Wei Lim, Women with AIDS: Lessons from Indonesia and Singapore (February 26, 2006)
Mark Ealey, An August Storm: the Soviet-Japan Endgame in the Pacific War (February 24, 2006)
Yumi Wijers-Hasegawa, Korean Forced Laborers: Redress movement presses Japanese government (February 23, 2006)
[Asia] [Japan] [WWII] [US Foreign Policy]
2 comments:
actually, the war could have ended sooner if the americans had accepted japan's offer of surrender. growing up, my father, who knew of this first-hand, always said "we didn't let them surrender" and went on to relate how japan offered to surrender on at least 2 occasions (if memory serves - i may be wrong on this point) and the US refused to accept. it was only after many years had passed and my father and i were watching television one evening where someone on a talk show echoed my father's statements, that i realized that he was right all along. it was then that i learned the reason behind the refusals: the US wanted to test its lastest invention, the atomic bomb. after 2 successful tests, the US then accepted their surrender.
That's a right-wing Japanese canard that got picked up by US Left. I've written a series of articles detailing why this claim that Japan was going to surrender is nonsense. It's Hiroshima time again.
Michael
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