Collaboration with Imperial Japan
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Before and during World War II, the Empire of Japan created a number of puppet states that played a noticeable role in the war by collaborating with Imperial Japan. With promises of "Asia for the Asiatics" cooperating in a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, Japan also sponsored or collaborated with parts of nationalist movements in several Asian countries colonised by European empires, the Soviet Union, and the United States.[1] The Japanese recruited volunteers from several occupied regions and also from among Allied prisoners-of-war.[2]
Some of the leaders in various Asian and Pacific territories cooperated with Japan as they wanted to gain independence from the European colonial overlords, as seen in Burma and Indonesia. Some other collaborators were already in power of various independent or semi-independent entities, such as
Like their German and Italian counterparts, the Japanese recruited many volunteers, sometimes at gunpoint, more often with promises that they later broke, or from among POWs trying to escape appalling and frequently lethal conditions in their detention camps. Other volunteers willingly enlisted because they shared fascist or pan-Asianist ideologies.
Japanese colonial empire
Korea
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Taiwan
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British Empire and Commonwealth
Burma
The Japanese invaded Burma because the British had been supplying China in the Second Sino-Japanese War along the Burma Road.[3][4] Burmese nationalists known as Burma Independence Army hoped for independence.[5][6] They were later transformed into the Burma National Army as the armed forces of the State of Burma. Minority groups were also armed by the Japanese, such as the Arakan Defense Army and the Chin Defense Army.[7]
Ceylon (Sri Lanka)
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Hong Kong
India
The Indian Legion (Legion Freies Indien, Indische Freiwilligen Infanterie Regiment 950 or Indische Freiwilligen-Legion der Waffen-SS) was created in August 1942, recruiting chiefly from disaffected British Indian Army prisoners of war captured by Axis forces in the North African campaign. Most were supporters of the exiled nationalist and former president of the Indian National Congress Subhas Chandra Bose. The Royal Italian Army formed a similar unit of Indian prisoners of war, the Battaglione Azad Hindoustan. A Japanese-supported puppet state Azad Hind was also established with the Indian National Army as its military force.[9][10]
Malaya
After occupying British Malaya, Japanese occupation authorities reorganized the disbanded British colonial police force and created a new auxiliary police. Later on, a 2,000-men strong Malayan Volunteer Army and a part-time Malayan Volunteer Corps were created. Local residents were also encouraged to join the Imperial Japanese Army as auxiliary Heiho. There was a Railway Protection Corps as well.[11]
Straits Settlements
The British territory of the
China
The Japanese had previously set up several puppet regimes in occupied Chinese territories. The first was Manchukuo in 1932, under former Chinese emperor Puyi,[13] then the East Hebei Autonomous Government in 1935. Similar to Manchukuo in its supposed ethnic identity, Mengjiang (Mengkukuo) was set up in late 1936. Wang Kemin's collaborationist Provisional Government was set up in Beijing in 1937 following the start of full-scale military operations between China and Japan, and another puppet regime, the Reformed Government of the Republic of China, in Nanjing in 1938.
The Wang Jingwei collaborationist government, established in 1940, "consolidated" these regimes, though in reality neither Wang's government nor the constituent governments had any autonomy, although the military of the Wang Jingwei regime was equipped by the Japanese with planes, cannons, tanks, boats, and German-style stahlhelm, which were already widely used by the National Revolutionary Army, the "official" army of the Republic of China.
The military forces of these puppet regimes, known collectively as the Collaborationist Chinese Army, numbered more than a million at their height, with some estimates that the number exceeded 2 million conscriptees. Many collaborationist troops originally served warlords of the National Revolutionary Army who had defected when facing both Communists and Japanese. Although the collaborationist army was very large, its soldiers were very ineffective compared to NRA soldiers, and had low morale because they were considered "Hanjian". Some collaborationist forces saw battlefields during the Second Sino-Japanese War, but most were relegated to behind-the-line duties.
The Wang Jingwei government was disbanded after the Japanese surrendered to Allies in 1945, and Manchukuo and Mengjiang were destroyed in the Soviet invasion of Manchuria.
Inner Mongolia
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Manchuria
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Xinjiang (Chinese Turkestan)
Japan attempted to create an Islamic state spanning from Xinjiang to Soviet Central Asia during the Kumul Rebellion.[14][15] During World War II, Japanese agents were again active in both Xinjiang and Soviet Central Asia, where the Japanese attempted to foster rebellions among Muslim population against both China and the Soviet Union.[16]
Dutch East Indies (Indonesia)
Following its swift victory in the Dutch East Indies campaign of 1941–1942, Imperial Japan was welcomed as a liberator by much of the native population of the Dutch East Indies (present-day Indonesia),[17][18] and especially by the Indonesian nationalists who since the early 20th century had begun developing a national consciousness.[19][20] In the wake of the Japanese advance, rebellious Indonesians across the archipelago killed scores of European and pro-Dutch civilians (in particular from the Chinese community)[21] and informed the invaders on the whereabouts of others,[22] 100,000 of whom would be imprisoned in Japanese-run internment camps alongside 80,000 American, British, Dutch, and Australian prisoners of war.[23] Unlike in occupied French Indochina, where Imperial Japan worked alongside the French colonizer, the Japanese supplanted the Dutch administration of the East Indies and elevated native elites willing to work with them to power,[24] fueling Indonesian hopes of future self-rule.[23] Imperial Japan imposed a strict occupation regime on the archipelago, however, as to them the value of the archipelago lay mostly in its ample resources for the war effort (specifically oil, tin, and bauxite) and their initial use for the nationalists only extended to the pacification and organization of the sizeable population of Java.[17]
During the occupation of the Dutch East Indies, Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta, respectively the inaugural president and vice president of the future Republic of Indonesia, became promoters of the Japanese rōmusha forced labor scheme through the Center of the People's Power (Pusat Tenaga Rakyat; Putera) and mobilized workers for Japanese production and construction projects across Southeast Asia, such as the strategic railways on Sumatra and West Java, and along the Burma–Thailand border.[25] In total, 4 to 10 million Indonesian laborers were recruited[26] and some 270,000 to 500,000 Javanese were sent abroad, of whom 70,000 to 135,000 returned after the war.[17][27] In November 1943, the Japanese flew Sukarno and Hatta to Tokyo to receive the Order of the Rising Sun from Emperor Hirohito for their services.[28] Similarly, Indonesia's second president Suharto and first commander of the Indonesian National Armed Forces Sudirman began their military careers in the Japanese-sponsored Defenders of the Homeland (Pembela Tanah Air; PETA), which alongside the auxiliaries of the Heiho (兵補) was to assist the Imperial Japanese military in fighting off the expected Allied return to the East Indies.[29] Hundreds of thousands served in Japanese organizations such as the propaganda institution Keimin Bunka Shidōsho (啓民文化指導所),[30] the youth movement Seinendan (青年団),[31] and the auxiliary police forces of the Keibōdan (警防団).[32]
As its fortunes turned, Imperial Japan became faced with growing resistance to its increasingly repressive occupation and began catering to the Indonesian desire for self-rule. Already in September 1943,
On 14 February 1945, a PETA battalion under Supriyadi launched a short-lived revolt against the Japanese in Blitar, East Java.[20] Although it was quickly put down and possibly misattributed to nationalist fervor,[40] it factored into the Japanese realization that their window on creating an Indonesian puppet state had closed.[41] Hoping to extend the occupation by redirecting nationalist energy towards harmless political squabbles, the military authority on Java announced the formation of the Investigating Committee for Preparatory Work for Independence (Badan Penyelidik Usaha-usaha Persiapan Kemerdekaan; BPUPK) on 1 March 1945.[42] Despite meeting only twice, the plenary sessions of the BPUPK would see the formulation of Pancasila and the Jakarta Charter that would later form the basis of the preamble to the Constitution of Indonesia.[43] On 7 August, the day after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japanese field marshal Hisaichi Terauchi approved the establishment of the Preparatory Committee for Indonesian Independence (Panitia Persiapan Kemerdekaan Indonesia; PPKI) and promised Indonesian independence would be granted on 24 August 1945.[42] As Imperial Japan surrendered to the Allies on 15 August, Sukarno instead proclaimed Indonesian independence on 17 August 1945.[23] In the Indonesian National Revolution that followed, 903 Japanese nationals volunteered for the Indonesian cause, of whom 531 wound up dead or missing.[44]
French Indochina (Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam)
Japanese soldiers primarily used Laos to stage attacks on Nationalist China.[45]
On 22 September 1940, Vichy France and the Empire of Japan signed an agreement allowing the Japanese to station no more than 6,000 troops in French Indochina, with no more than 25,000 troops transiting the colony. Rights were given for three airfields, with all other Japanese forces forbidden to enter Indochina without Vichy's consent, although in truth it was rarely enforced as Japanese troops were able to enter all of Indochina unchecked. Vichy signed the Joint Defense and Joint Military Cooperation treaty with Japan on 29 July 1941.[46] It granted the Japanese eight airfields, allowed them to have more troops present, and to use the Indochinese financial system, in return for a fragile French autonomy.
The French colonial government had largely stayed in place, as the Vichy government was on reasonably friendly terms with Japan. The Japanese permitted the French to put down nationalist rebellions in 1940.
The Japanese occupation forces kept French Indochina under nominal rule of Vichy France until March 1945, when the French colonial administration was overthrown, and the Japanese supported the establishment of the Empire of Vietnam, Kingdom of Kampuchea and Kingdom of Laos as Japanese puppet states. Vietnamese militia were used to assist the Japanese.[47] In Cambodia, the ex-colonial Cambodian constabulary was allowed to continue its existence, though it was reduced to ineffectuality. A plan to create a Cambodian volunteer force was not realized due to the Japanese surrender.[48] In Laos, the local administration and ex-colonial Garde Indigène (Indigenous Guard, a paramilitary police force) were re-formed by Prince Phetsarath, who replaced its Vietnamese members with Laotians.[45] The Hmong Lo clan supported the Japanese.[45]
Philippines
The
Portuguese Empire
East Timor
The
Macau
Portuguese Macau became a virtual protectorate of Imperial Japan as its governor Gabriel Maurício Teixeira and local elite Pedro José Lobo attempted to maintain a balance between the demands of the Japanese consul Yasumitsu Fukui and the needs of the Macanese population, which had doubled in number due to the influx of refugees from Mainland China and Hong Kong.[53]
Russia and the Soviet Union
Asano Brigade
A pro-Japanese brigade, the Asano Brigade, was formed by Russian anti-communists before and during World War II.[54]
Central Asia
Japanese agents were active in Central Asia during the Russo-Japanese War, which Russian reports warned about Japanese espionage among the Turkic Muslim population.[55]
During the Kumul Rebellion in 1932, the Japanese secretly set up a plan to create an Islamic state with the Ottoman Prince Şehzade Mehmed Abdülkerim to be the head of the new Islamic Caliphate that spanned from Soviet Central Asia to Chinese Turkestan, with support from pro-Japanese collaborationists drawn from the Kazakh, Uzbek, Uyghur and Kyrgyz population, aiming to undermine the Soviet influence.[14][15] Following the Second Sino-Japanese War and distrust between the Soviet Union and Japan amidst World War II, the Japanese again aimed to include collaborationists from Muslim territory in Russian and Chinese Turkestan to ignite rebellions to undermine China and the USSR's war efforts.[16]
Russian Far East
Soviet intelligence revealed that over 200 Japanese agents and an unknown number of collaborators were operating in the region with varied roles.[56][57][16]
Thailand
The
Foreign volunteers and supporters
See also
- Collaboration in wartime
- Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy
- Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere
- List of East Asian leaders in the Japanese sphere of influence (1931–1945)
- List of Allied traitors during World War II
- Resistance during World War II
- Gakutotai – Imperial Japanese Army regiments raised from high school students in Japanese occupied territories
- Heiho – auxiliary forces composed of pro-Japanese volunteers in the occupied Dutch East Indies, British Malaya, and elsewhere
- Collaboration: Japanese Agents and Local Elites in Wartime China
- Tokyo Rose – a collective name for female English-speaking Japanese radio propagandists, some former expatriates
References
- ISBN 0-14-021422-4, The War in Asia, chapter 9, pp. 683–685.
- ^ The Labour Recruitment of Local Inhabitants as Rōmusha in Japanese-Occupied South East Asia, Takuma Melber. Part of: Special Issue: Conquerors, Employers and Arbiters: States and Shifts in Labour Relations, 1500–2000, International Review of Social History, Volume 61, Special Issue S24: Published online by Cambridge University Press: 1 December 2016.
- ISBN 978-0-307-59588-1.)
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link - ^ Seagrave, Gordon S., Burma Surgeon, W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 1943
- ISBN 0-7864-1204-6. p. 556
- ISBN 978-0-7658-0352-8(Werner Gruhl is former chief of NASA's Cost and Economic Analysis Branch with a lifetime interest in the study of the First and Second World Wars.)
- ISBN 978-9971-69-283-4. Retrieved 17 February 2017.
- ISBN 978-0-7425-3422-3. pp. 123–125, 129.
- ISBN 978-1-4766-3337-4.
Imperial Japan in 1943 had established a puppet state known as the Provisional Government of Free India
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- ^ "Indonesia". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. 20 July 1998. Retrieved 2 May 2023.
- ^ "Indonesia: WORLD WAR II AND THE STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE, 1942-50; The Japanese Occupation, 1942-45". Library of Congress Country Studies. 1992. Archived from the original on 2013-08-21. Retrieved 2 May 2023.
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- ^ Antariksa; Hsu, Fang-tze (12 September 2018). "Cross-Cultural Counterparts: The Role of Keimin Bunka Shidosho in Indonesian Art, 1942 – 1945". heath.tw. Retrieved 2 May 2023.
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- ^ Herkusumo, Arniati Prasedyawati (1982). Chūō Sangi-in: dewan pertimbangan pusat pada masa pendudukan Jepang (in Indonesian). Jakarta: P.T. Rosda Jayaputra.
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- ^ "DJAWA HOKOKA". jakarta.go.id (in Indonesian). 2017. Archived from the original on 2021-06-13. Retrieved 7 May 2023.
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- ^ Eng, Pierre van der (1994). "Food Supply in Java during War and Decolonisation, 1940-1950". Munich Personal RePEc Archive. pp. 35–38. No. 8852. Retrieved 7 May 2023.
- ^ Seksi Sejarah Mutakhir, Volume 2 (in Indonesian). Jakarta: Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology. 1982.
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- ^ Anderson R.O'G., Benedict (1961). Some Aspects of Indonesian Politics under the Japanese occupation, 1944-1945. Interim Reports Series. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University.
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- ^ Prastiwi, Arie Mega (15 August 2016). "Kisah Rahmat Shigeru Ono, Tentara Jepang yang 'Membelot' ke NKRI" (in Indonesian). Liputan 6. Retrieved 8 May 2023.
- ^ a b c Sucheng Chan (27 April 1994). "The Japanese Occupation of Laos". Uniyatra.com. Archived from the original on 11 December 2015. Retrieved 16 January 2016.
- ^ The Japanese Period in Indochina and the Coup of 9 March 1945, Ralph B. Smith, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, Vol. 9, No. 2, Japan and the Western Powers in Southeast Asia (Sep., 1978), pp. 268-301 (34 pages) Published By: Cambridge University Press, https://www.jstor.org/stable/20062728
- ISBN 978-1-61234-010-4. Retrieved 17 February 2017.
- ^ "Cambodia – The Japanese Occupation, 1941–45". Country-data.com. December 1987. Retrieved 16 January 2016.
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- ^ ラウエル大統領付親衛隊 (in Japanese). Horae.dti.ne.jp. Retrieved 16 January 2016.
- ^ a b Japan's reluctant decision to occupy Portuguese Timor, 1 January 1942 ‐ 20 February 1942, Henry P. Frei. Australian Historical Studies Volume 27, 1996 - Issue 107, pages 281-302. Published online: 29 Sep 2008, https://doi.org/10.1080/10314619608596014
- ^ Frédéric Durand (6 November 2011). "Three centuries of violence and struggle in East Timor (1726–2008)". Online Encyclopedia of Mass Violence. Retrieved 16 January 2016.
1942, the Japanese army set up "black columns" (columnas negras). Largely comprising people from the western part of Timor under Dutch rule, these columns of militiamen sowed violence and destruction. Here again, the East Timorese were the main victims. In November 1942, the Japanese placed the bulk of the remaining Portuguese community (600 people) in camps.
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- ^ Nikolaev 2000, pp. 226–227.
- ^ Staff Writer 2014.
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- ^ Coox, Alvin D. (January 1968). "L'Affaire Lyushkov: Anatomy of a Defector". Soviet Studies. 19 (3): 418. doi:10.1080/09668136808410603. ISSN 0038-5859. JSTOR 149953.
- ^ Center. archive of the FSB of the Russian Federation. Consequence case N-18765 in relation to G. M. Semenov, K. V. Rodzaevsky and others.
- ^ Trevor-Roper, Hugh The Hermit of Peking, New York: Alfred Knopf, 1976 pages 295–296
- ^ Orlov-Astrebski, Ivan (1945-04-07). "Buddha Threatens the Japanese". Sydney Morning Herald. p. 9. Retrieved 2022-01-03.
- .
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- ^ Elphick, Peter; Smith, Michael (1994). Odd Man Out, the Story of the Singapore Traitor (2nd ed.). Trafalgar Square. ISBN 9780340617014
- ^ Farrell, Brian P. (2005). The Defence and Fall of Singapore 1940–1942. Stroud, Gloucs, UK: Tempus Publishing. p. 146. ISBN 9780752423111. Archived from the original on 28 March 2007. Retrieved 16 October 2015. Ch. 7, n.19: The paper trail [in relation to Heenan] in archival records is PRO, WO172/18, Malaya Command War Diary Appendix Z.1, 10 December 1941; WO172/33, III Indian Corps War Diary, 12, 19, 23–24 December 1941;CAB106/53, 11th Indian Division history, ch. 4; CAB106/86, Maltby Despatch; IWM, Wild Papers, 66/227/1, Wild notes
- ^ "Hong Kong's War Crimes Trials Collection". hkwctc.lib.hku.hk. Retrieved 2022-08-24.
- ^ Dillard Stokes, "Jap Agents Given Jail Terms, Lecture," Washington Post, June 6, 1942, 3.
- ^ "Velvalee Dickinson, the "Doll Woman"". Federal Bureau of Investigation. Retrieved 2019-11-11.
- ^ Townsend and the Ways That Are Dark," The China Weekly Review, 2 June 1934, 1–2.
- ^ "Toshio and Thompson". Time Magazine. July 6, 1936. Archived from the original on September 30, 2007. Retrieved 2007-01-07.
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Bibliography
- Nikolaev, S. (2000). Maki Mirazh iz istorii otechestvennykh spetssluzhb [Maki Mirage" from the History of the Domestic Special Services] (in Russian). Khabarovsk: Kharbarovskoe knizhnoe izdatel'stvo. ISBN 5766304064. Note that S. Nikolaev was simply the "pen name" for Nikolai S. Chumakov, a former Colonel in the KGB and historian of the KGB/FSB
- Staff Writer (June 28, 2014). "Velikaia Otechestvennaia Voina mogla nachatsia ran'she na tri goda" [The Great Fatherland War could have started three years earlier]. Komsomolskaia Pravda. Archived from the original on 2023-01-24.
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: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link) - Staff Writer (2018). "V razvedku-- na vsiu zhizn" [In Intelligence--For All of My Life]. Zabakailskii Informatsionnyi Zhurnal-online. Archived from the original on 2021-11-28.
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: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)