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

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Of all the regimes in history you'd never expect to see defended by the left...that's only second to its ally Nazi Germany. But these people are fond of arguing that the US basically provoked Pearl Harbor and that Japan was victimized by the US' sanctions and embargo...which the US only implemented to try to stave off Japan's brutal genocidal imperialistic campaign in east Asia and the Pacific.

It's downright surreal.

[pikachu]

This isn’t a defense of imperial japan or people who stan it, but elements of anticolonial movements in asia did sympathize with japan in an “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” way during WW2 and some of these people (e.g. subhash chandra bose) are still well-regarded in their home countries.  If you look at the pre-1930s version of japan, a lot of asian countries saw that version of imperial japan emulating.

Also tbh the people who hate japan the most aren’t on the english-speaking internet.

[WalterWhite]

Of all the regimes in history you'd never expect to see defended by the left...that's only second to its ally Nazi Germany. But these people are fond of arguing that the US basically provoked Pearl Harbor and that Japan was victimized by the US' sanctions and embargo...which the US only implemented to try to stave off Japan's brutal genocidal imperialistic campaign in east Asia and the Pacific.

It's downright surreal.

I never seen anyone on the far left argue either of these positions. Usually the people who are sympathetic to Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan are neo-Nazis.

[buritobr]

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

[AtorBoltox]

For once I have to back up BTRD that this is actually a thing I’ve seen, although not on a large scale. I think there are a few reasons - the USSR was barely involved in the war against Japan, understating the evils of Japan makes the atomic bombings look worse and helps create the demonic image of the USA as a uniquely evil historical actor, and the simple fact that Japanese are not white and were fighting against ‘white supremacy’. 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.

[Sol]

Of all the regimes in history you'd never expect to see defended by the left...that's only second to its ally Nazi Germany. But these people are fond of arguing that the US basically provoked Pearl Harbor and that Japan was victimized by the US' sanctions and embargo...which the US only implemented to try to stave off Japan's brutal genocidal imperialistic campaign in east Asia and the Pacific.

It's downright surreal.

Tbh I mainly just don't see much discussion period of Imperial Japan, either defensive or dissecting its many nasty traits. I'm curious to see where you're seeing this point being made.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Of all the regimes in history you'd never expect to see defended by the left...that's only second to its ally Nazi Germany. But these people are fond of arguing that the US basically provoked Pearl Harbor and that Japan was victimized by the US' sanctions and embargo...which the US only implemented to try to stave off Japan's brutal genocidal imperialistic campaign in east Asia and the Pacific.

It's downright surreal.

Tbh I mainly just don't see much discussion period of Imperial Japan, either defensive or dissecting its many nasty traits. I'm curious to see where you're seeing this point being made.

With how a lot of people dislike the fact that the nuclear bombs were dropped on Japan, that alone could encourage some level of whitewashing of Imperial Japan if one pushed that far enough. "Japan was a victim" etc etc
(Not that it wasn't, but Imperial Japan's rough edges are just not universally known)

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

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.

[LAKISYLVANIA]

because a lot of tankies and especially "hype-wokesters" are weebs. And because Japan was one of the few underdeveloped nations that decided that the way to defend their country from colonialism was to go imperialist and colonialist theirselves and have some power projection, which arguably was the right strategy as any other nation in their surroundings were colonized or abused/laughed at (china) during their history.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Well hyper-wokesters are self-parodying morons, and as for tankies, it's entirely consistent for them to be defensive of the worst regimes in modern history.

Imperial Japan's rough edges

...seriously?!

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Well hyper-wokesters are self-parodying morons, and as for tankies, it's entirely consistent for them to be defensive of the worst regimes in modern history.

Imperial Japan's rough edges

...seriously?!

I needed very general phrasing since I was referring to something very general.
Take your silly outrage elsewhere.
EDIT: it seems you greatly misunderstood. I was using that in very broad terms to mean "roughest parts", because there was a lot of it and it would be hard to summarize it easily.
If you wanted to talk in-depth about all the most scarring things they did, it'd be pretty hard to do without getting voluminous.
I've never actually seen the phrase used by anyone.
I suggest "Supernova in the East" for more information on this time period.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Well hyper-wokesters are self-parodying morons, and as for tankies, it's entirely consistent for them to be defensive of the worst regimes in modern history.

Imperial Japan's rough edges

...seriously?!

I needed very general phrasing since I was referring to something very general.
Take your silly outrage elsewhere.
EDIT: it seems you greatly misunderstood. I was using that in very broad terms to mean "roughest parts", because there was a lot of it and it would be hard to summarize it easily.
If you wanted to talk in-depth about all the most scarring things they did, it'd be pretty hard to do without getting voluminous.
I've never actually seen the phrase used by anyone.
I suggest "Supernova in the East" for more information on this time period.

What kind of arrogant, condescending nonsense is this?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Well hyper-wokesters are self-parodying morons, and as for tankies, it's entirely consistent for them to be defensive of the worst regimes in modern history.

Imperial Japan's rough edges

...seriously?!

I needed very general phrasing since I was referring to something very general.
Take your silly outrage elsewhere.
EDIT: it seems you greatly misunderstood. I was using that in very broad terms to mean "roughest parts", because there was a lot of it and it would be hard to summarize it easily.
If you wanted to talk in-depth about all the most scarring things they did, it'd be pretty hard to do without getting voluminous.
I've never actually seen the phrase used by anyone.
I suggest "Supernova in the East" for more information on this time period.

What kind of arrogant, condescending nonsense is this?

I mean, I could talk for hours on this topic.
It'd be nice if you were more specific about what you were saying about what I was saying, though.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The Bataan Death March, at least, is surely very well known and 'Japanese Prisoner of War Camp' continues have certain connotations, at least in this country.

[All Along The Watchtower]

The Bataan Death March, at least, is surely very well known and 'Japanese Prisoner of War Camp' continues have certain connotations, at least in this country.

Yes. And when a country's military is known for things that are literally called the Bataan Death March and the Rape of Nanking (to pick two examples), "roughness" is a polite euphemism at best.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The Bataan Death March, at least, is surely very well known and 'Japanese Prisoner of War Camp' continues have certain connotations, at least in this country.

Yes. And when a country's military is known for things that are literally called the Bataan Death March and the Rape of Nanking (to pick two examples), "roughness" is a polite euphemism at best.

You are getting mad at someone who has (online and IRL) defended the nukes being dropped on Japan partially on grounds that (to oversimplify) "practically everything up until then that was done to Japan, it had already done to someone else". Please, for sake of my time and yours, let this up.

[Sol]

The Bataan Death March, at least, is surely very well known and 'Japanese Prisoner of War Camp' continues have certain connotations, at least in this country.

Yes. And when a country's military is known for things that are literally called the Bataan Death March and the Rape of Nanking (to pick two examples), "roughness" is a polite euphemism at best.

You are getting mad at someone who has (online and IRL) defended the nukes being dropped on Japan partially on grounds that (to oversimplify) "practically everything up until then that was done to Japan, it had already done to someone else". Please, for sake of my time and yours, let this up.

"Everyone's war crimes are perfectly excusable!"

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The Bataan Death March, at least, is surely very well known and 'Japanese Prisoner of War Camp' continues have certain connotations, at least in this country.

Yes. And when a country's military is known for things that are literally called the Bataan Death March and the Rape of Nanking (to pick two examples), "roughness" is a polite euphemism at best.

You are getting mad at someone who has (online and IRL) defended the nukes being dropped on Japan partially on grounds that (to oversimplify) "practically everything up until then that was done to Japan, it had already done to someone else". Please, for sake of my time and yours, let this up.

"Everyone's war crimes are perfectly excusable!"

So that's the angle you are going with? Hilarious. You won't engage what I'm saying, so you do ad hominem instead. Your arguments are now weaker than the Japanese navy's ability to  do an amphibious assault and invasion of the United States mainland in July 1945. At least the Japanese still had some ships then!

In any case, I've called Imperial Japan the bad guys of the Pacific War before and been quite harsh with my words when talking about them on some occasions, it is quite clear y'all are just being hysterical and silly. Concrete claims have been made and disproved. If you want to go on with this you may as well paint your faces white and red.

The Bataan Death March, at least, is surely very well known and 'Japanese Prisoner of War Camp' continues have certain connotations, at least in this country.

Remember the polling some time ago that showed awareness of the Holocaust not really at ideal levels? This is the passage of time speaking. I don't think the Bataan Death March is necessarily very well known in the youngest generation. The average 25-year-old would sooner have an opinion on, say, the War on Iraq than the Pacific War. And there's a lot of nasty but not-so-famous stuff (like American POWs being killed in big numbers in brutal ways in 1944, for example) that one cannot necessarily assume any awareness of whatsoever.

[Fuzzy Bear Loves Christian Missionaries]

Of all the regimes in history you'd never expect to see defended by the left...that's only second to its ally Nazi Germany. But these people are fond of arguing that the US basically provoked Pearl Harbor and that Japan was victimized by the US' sanctions and embargo...which the US only implemented to try to stave off Japan's brutal genocidal imperialistic campaign in east Asia and the Pacific.

It's downright surreal.

Most Americans, if asked to name the two (2) "dictators" that fought us in WWII, they would say "Hitler and Mussolini".  Mussolini was actually a rather secondary player in WWII; the other "dictator" that unleashed a sneak attack on our Navy at Pearl Harbor, the only direct attach on American soil since WWII by an actual country.  (I'm not minimizing 9/11, but that was something new and different.)  The leader who was responsible for that was Japanese Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, but it seems that few mention his name.  Nor do Americans, in general, consider Japan to be as evil as Nazi Germany (or the USSR, our war ally, for that matter), and it begs an explanation as to why this is so.

One reason is that Tojo was not Prime Minister for the entirety of WWII.  We date the beginning of WWII to September 1, 1939 when Hitler invaded Poland.  As a kid, watching history on documentaries, this seemed inaccurate.  Japan was one of the Axis Powers against us and they were fighting as early as July 20, 1937 in China.  The leader who started THAT war was Prime Minister Fuminaro Kenoe, whose name is virtually unknown to Americans now, and was fairly obscure back then.  Kenoe resigned in 1941 and committed suicide after Japan lost.  We don't date the beginning of WWII until 1939 because the writers of that history have been predominantly Euro-centric; and Asia-centric view of WWII would have reflected events differently. 

The reason Japan went to war was the same reason Germany went to war:  Living Space.  But the nations Germany annexed and attacked were nations with which Britain and/or France had War Guarantees with.  None of the Western Powers had any War Guarantees with either Japan or China (or Manchuria, which was an independent country once).  There were American citizens who were emotionally vested in what Germany did in Eastern Europe, but there was no such sympathy from Chinese-Americans that were relatively low in numbers and, sadly, whose views were pretty much not considered.   We made victory in Europe our first priority after Pearl Harbor, even though it was Japan, and not Germany, that attacked us. 

The atrocities committed by the Japanese were both civilian and military.  The military atrocities are well remembered by Americans, as there are many children of WWII vets still alive who heard the stories and were angered, but they were MILITARY atrocities.  Americans were, sadly, not as concerned about the atrocities in China by Japan as they were with the atrocities of Germany in Europe, and a good deal of that is racism.  And the atrocities, in general, were avenged by the Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  There is a view that the accounts with Japan were settled with the Atomic Bomb whereas the accounts with the European Axis powers are unsettled to this day.

After the war, General MacArthur (the REAL one) pushed for, and got Emperor Hirohito spared from facing War Crimes charges.  The monarchy was preserved, but it was a Constitutional Monarchy where Hirohito was allowed to be a figurehead.  The hope was that Hirohito would encourage liberal democracy in Japan.  That part has worked out well.  But what happened with this was a conscious minimization of Hirohito's role in starting the hostilities.   Most Americans of my generation and the next generation were told pretty much that Hirohito was this weak individual, propped up by warlord politicians, who was something of a bystander to their warmaking.  This fiction was created to make the scheme go down well with Americans, but the fact is that Hirohito had an active role in many of the hostilities of Japan during those years.  Now that he's dead, more of Hirohito's actual role in the hostilities of WWII are becoming known.  Whether or not that's a good thing depends on how well people can handle the truth.

Today, Imperial Japan is a shell of what it once was.  After WWII, the people that paid the price were the Japanese MILITARY, not the Japanese MONARCHY.  The German Military got off much easier than the Japanese Military because Generals such as Erich von Manstein were able to convince people that the German military was not responsible for the atrocities of the Holocaust.  (This was another fable that may, or may not, have served us well.) 

Anyway, these factors are why I suspect that Imperial Japan has, however undeservedly, been able to be more "defensible" in the eyes of some.  It's because of how the history of the whole of WWII has been written and the whole of how deals were made to restructure Germany and Japan after their destruction.

[Orser67]

For once I have to back up BTRD that this is actually a thing I’ve seen, although not on a large scale. I think there are a few reasons - the USSR was barely involved in the war against Japan, understating the evils of Japan makes the atomic bombings look worse and helps create the demonic image of the USA as a uniquely evil historical actor, and the simple fact that Japanese are not white and were fighting against ‘white supremacy’. 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.

Yeah, I agree that this is the primary reason. In more recent years, left-wing criticism of the U.S. has tended to focus on U.S. mistreatment of African-Americans in particular, but if you go back a few years, the atomic bombing of Japan was sort of the "exhibit A" of why American is terrible. Obviously the incident still holds a lot of weight today as the only example of a nuclear bombing of an inhabited region. People love nice, simple narratives of good guys and bad guys, and as you said, downplaying the atrocities of Imperial Japan allows for a narrative of evil America engaging in a uniquely terrible act against a defenseless Asian nation.

[Alben Barkley]

For once I have to back up BTRD that this is actually a thing I’ve seen, although not on a large scale. I think there are a few reasons - the USSR was barely involved in the war against Japan, understating the evils of Japan makes the atomic bombings look worse and helps create the demonic image of the USA as a uniquely evil historical actor, and the simple fact that Japanese are not white and were fighting against ‘white supremacy’. 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.

Of course that last part (like all of it) is especially ridiculous because we focused on the Nazis first and the vast majority of our troops and supplies went to Europe, including to directly help the USSR! Even before we entered the war! And which Stalin himself admitted the Soviets couldn't have won without!

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

This isn’t a defense of imperial japan or people who stan it, but elements of anticolonial movements in asia did sympathize with japan in an “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” way during WW2 and some of these people (e.g. subhash chandra bose) are still well-regarded in their home countries.  If you look at the pre-1930s version of japan, a lot of asian countries saw that version of imperial japan emulating.

Also tbh the people who hate japan the most aren’t on the english-speaking internet.

My dad is one of those people, he views the japanese parading defeated western troops as essential for colonized people realizing that they weren't unbeatable.

[Stranger in a strange land]

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

[Filuwaúrdjan]

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.

[HillGoose]

Japan - Territorial Expansion/Emperor Hirohito

China - US demands withdrawal of Japanese troops

US signs oil embargo to cut supply to Japan, Japan loses 90% oil supply due to embargo

Pearl Harbor attacked!

The national war production drive, military manufacturing. Aviation production, tanks and self-propelled grenades