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Notes -
I think people in southeast Asia care a lot more about their liberation from Japanese occupation then anything going on in Europe. WW2 wasn't just a European war.
tbh it’s just pathetic that the Japanese blew their potential goodwill with anti-colonial Southeast Asians as badly as they did. They had every opportunity to back “freedom fighters” a la Reagan inviting mujahideen to the White House; the stars were perfectly aligned for them to portray themselves as stalwart supporters of liberty and self-determination against the evil white oppressors, aaaand … they ended up being even more reviled than the Western colonial powers to this day 🤦♂️
At least the (non-KMT) Taiwanese still generally look back fondly on the Japanese colonial era.
With what resources? After FDR's sneak attack on Japan's oil supply, Japan could barely fight to end the chaos in China, let alone send aid abroad to rebels, which were considered the enemy of the European colonial powers (and in the Phillipines the US), but also the US which was allied with them.
As the US showed after it declared war on Japan, it considered any ship flying non-Allied colours to be legitimate target, which leads me to believe that ships carrying aid to rebels would be sunk.
After the Pacific War began, the aformentioned Unrestricted Submarine Warfare meant that supplies were lost to the sea, thus creating a general deficit of goods.
The equivalent of Reagen inviting the Mujahadeen did occur, but only in late 1943. Perhaps you don't consider that conference to be similar or perhaps you were ignorant of it.
Or maybe the US backed the most anti-Japanese faction which then portrayed the Japanese poorly as to make their (most often poor) governance seem reasonable.
This is certainly the case in South Korea, where the Allied influence was the strongest: Japan brought literacy and industry, but the South Korean narrative literally inverts facts that instead Japanese rule improving the Hangul, it attempted to stamp it out.
It is easy to convince a population to hate another country, if instead of seeking co-operation and cultural exchange, you enact as strict a censorship of foreign culture and punish even [professors](https://www.universityworldnews.com/post-mobile.php?story=20191009153231491 for underming the regimes narrative, while distorting history in textbooks.
South Koreans are apperently withheld the truth about Japan's contribution to public education in the Korean language and improvements to Hangul, instead they are taught that the Korean language suffered. Queer sentiment in light of English language infestation the American rule brought, yet for which the South Korean government alters history to defend.
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