Why are tankies and hyper-wokesters defensive of Imperial Japan?

[All Along The Watchtower]

the simple fact that Japanese are not white and were fighting against ‘white supremacy’.

Which is a sick joke, considering Japanese racial attitudes, specifically toward the other Asian ethnicities and nationalities that they conquered.

I also suspect that impugning American motives for fighting Japan is part of some attempt to argue the USA was ‘ignoring’ the Nazis or actively supportive of them, and focused only on their ‘imperial’ sphere in the pacific which Japan threatened.

The US maintained diplomatic relations with the USSR from 1933 until its collapse, and Lend-Lease helped both the UK and the USSR. FDR was always unequivocal in his defense of American democracy against fascism, and considering the prominence of Vice President Henry Wallace in his third term ie. during the War, and his own somewhat naïve attitudes toward the USSR and Stalin (for which he was forever condemned by conservatives and some anti-Communist liberals, of course), it's both inaccurate--and I'd argue, defamatory in the historical sense--to accuse FDR, and the US as a whole, of ignoring the Nazis or worse.

While we're on the subject, I have never seen any evidence that anywhere close to a majority of Americans ever sympathized with the Nazis or Fascists. Opposing American entry into another European war was a different matter, but that was not the same thing; isolationism/non-interventionism in most circumstances is and was the historical norm for most Americans. Contrast Americans' hostility toward fascism with the fortunes of the Left: the CPUSA was at its height during the 1930s, what with the Popular Front strategy. And of course, the New Deal was massively popular, as was FDR (see: 1936 presidential election). For anyone on the "Left" to claim otherwise is nothing less than an embarrassing act of historical self-negation, the kind that flatters the importance of the tiny minority of actual Nazis and fascist sympathizers in the US, along with the views of the wealthy reactionaries who were instrumental in bankrolling first the Old Right and the original "America First" movement, and later, much of the modern conservative movement and their "actually, the New Deal made the Depression worse, checkmate, libs!" propaganda.

It takes a special kind of self-defeating stupidity to disown the historical achievements of your own political side to the point that you arrive at essentially the same (wrong) conclusions as the people whom are ostensibly your greatest adversaries, but well, that's the New Left or the New New Left or whatever the hell for you.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I see some Brazilian Stalin fans in the Twitter. Nobody supports Imperial Japan.

This is largely an anglosphere thing:

1) White guilt in North America, the UK, and Australia
2) English-speaking Indians who hold favorable views of Imperial Japan because it fought the British Empire and supported Indian independence
2a) Weird misdirected anti-colonialism in other former British colonies

It doesn't surprise me that none of these would show up in the Portuguese-language Internet

No, even soft apologism for Imperial Japan is really not a thing here at all. Bad blood from the War was sufficient that it was quite common to hear expressions such as 'they're a cruel race' from quite liberal people as recently as the 1990s, while mainstream interest in Japanese culture is still quite a new thing here. The only thing I've seen is some silly stuff from one well-known university about captured Japanese flags from the War being imperialist booty or some such nonsense. Otherwise, nothing. I think that to the small amount it is a thing in North America it is mostly due to guilt at having put local Japanese populations in concentration camps leading to a rather catastrophic loss of perspective.

It would probably be relevant in this context that Japan and America drew quite close in the post-war era, while Anglo-Japanese friendship was something that has never been as strong as it was in the pre-1920s period (a very different time, obviously). Japan and Britain are not really very closely associated states in the modern age.

[AtorBoltox]

the simple fact that Japanese are not white and were fighting against ‘white supremacy’.

Which is a sick joke, considering Japanese racial attitudes, specifically toward the other Asian ethnicities and nationalities that they conquered.

I also suspect that impugning American motives for fighting Japan is part of some attempt to argue the USA was ‘ignoring’ the Nazis or actively supportive of them, and focused only on their ‘imperial’ sphere in the pacific which Japan threatened.

While we're on the subject, I have never seen any evidence that anywhere close to a majority of Americans ever sympathized with the Nazis or Fascists.

American support for isolationism is also dramatically overstated. While Gallup opinion polls do show that most Americans opposed joining the war, they also show Americans overwhelmingly favoured proving material support to Great Britain, even if this would increase the chances of America becoming involved

[Vice President Christian Man]

Horseshoe theory logic and there's a small percent of woke people who tend to think that whites are the cause of all evil.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Woodrow Wilson pissed off Japan by ignoring a vote in favor of racial equality after WW1. Of course it'd be extremely ironic if that's what resulted in Japan being a genocidal country allied with Nazi Germany.

[AtorBoltox]

I see some Brazilian Stalin fans in the Twitter. Nobody supports Imperial Japan.

This is largely an anglosphere thing:

1) White guilt in North America, the UK, and Australia
2) English-speaking Indians who hold favorable views of Imperial Japan because it fought the British Empire and supported Indian independence
2a) Weird misdirected anti-colonialism in other former British colonies

It doesn't surprise me that none of these would show up in the Portuguese-language Internet

I can also confirm this sentiment is nearly non-existent in Australia. It's largely disappeared now with the passing of the war generation but Australia was probably the least forgiving western ally. Our government pushed strongly for Hirohito to be put on trial and for a much harsher American occupation. As late as the 80s trade agreements and the closening of diplomatic relations with Japan was vociferously protested by veterans groups. Unlike America, Australia was not significantly  involved in the war in Europe (at least after 1941, we did fight in North Africa and Greece) so the collective memory of the conflict even still mostly focuses on the war against Japan. I remember being taught in school the (probably untrue) claim that Japan intended to invade and colonize Australia. As I said, anti-japanese sentiment today has mostly died out, but this is because most of us acknowledge the Japan of today is a very different country and not because of 'white guilt.' To the extent this sentiment exists it probably is found only in a handful of hyper-online tankies who copy wholesale the rhetoric of American woke twitter. 

[Del Tachi]

They're weebs.  It's always 100% about the aesthetics.

[HisGrace]

Because the Japanese aren't white and criticizing non white people (outside of maybe a black Republican every now and then) triggers their white guilt. Not sure why we need all these walls of text to explain this.

It's probably just as simple as defining the US as the aggressor in every situation. This is why I refuse to discuss the defeat of Imperial Japan in a vacuum. I will only discuss them as part of the Axis Powers.

They don't do that with the USA vs Germany though.

[buritobr]

As I told, I have never seen a person who defends Imperial Japan.

But I perceive in the left that many people remember more the victims of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs than the victims of the atrocities committed by the Imperial Japan. I think the use of nuclear weapons in the Japanese cities was a wrong decision, but I don't agree in focusing only these victims.