This week marks 80 years since the end of World War II. While Europe celebrated the end of the war in May, hostilities dragged on for several months in the Far East until Emperor Hirohito announced the surrender of Japan on 15 August 1945 and this declaration was formalised on 2 September.

One has to ask why there will not be more general observance in Australia of this important anniversary. It seems that the main events will be at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, which has an online photographic exhibition, and on 3 September will host a talk by author Michael Veitch about his book Borneo – the Last Campaign.

The Pacific War, also called the War against Japan, was more significant for Australia than the European war against German Fascism. The war came about because Imperial Japan intended to expand its Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere across Asia “for the development of the Japanese race” and threatened to incorporate British India and Australia. Darwin was attacked in 1941, and earlier the same year the US Navy was bombed in Pearl Harbor. This led to the US engaging in the war. The ANZUS treaty, signed later, on which so much of our foreign policy is based, originated from the co-operation of our forces from that point on to combat Japanese expansionist designs.

Many thousand Australians fought, perished, or were captured by Japanese forces in this war. An entire Australian army division was captured in Singapore. About 17,000 Australian soldiers died in the Pacific War and 8000 of them perished while they were prisoners of the Japanese forces. Eighty years ago, in September 1945, starved and brutalised prisoners of war were released from internment camps in Japan, Thailand, Singapore, Borneo and elsewhere. (Richard Flanagan’s moving account of his father’s internment and consequent psychological suffering in Question Seven is just one story describing the ongoing impact of the War in the Pacific.)

The Pacific War did not start in 1941 with the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the fall of Singapore. Japan’s invasion of Korea, China, Indochina and the Philippines had begun a decade earlier and everywhere had met with strong resistance. Australia’s suffering in the war pales into insignificance when compared with that of our neighbours in Northeast and Southeast Asia. From the invasion of China in 1937 (with some parts of the country being occupied from 1932) to the end of the War, Japan’s military regime killed between three and ten million Chinese, Indonesians, Koreans, Filipinos, Thais, Malaysians and others. Japan also suffered, with an estimated 2.5 million deaths, including 672,000 civilians killed in US air raids.

Koreans died. Many were conscripted to fight in the Japanese army. Chinese were press ganged from Manchuria from 1937 onwards. The worst atrocity during Japanese occupation of China was the Nanjing Massacre when possibly 200,000 died. There were Chinese and other forced labourers who died alongside British and Australians on the Burma-Thailand railway. More than 1000 French citizens resident in Indochina died. Philippine guerillas waged constant war against the Japanese invaders, leading to reprisals in which perhaps 90,000 civilians died. Singapore deaths have been counted as between 400,000 and 800,000, including Americans, Australians and other Europeans.

China was our ally in World War II and nowhere did Japan encounter stronger resistance than in China. By 1937, all political parties, including the Communists, came together under the leadership of the Nationalist Guomindang government of Chiang Kai-shek. The invasion of China was largely a land-based war, the small Chinese air force having been destroyed, but Chinese forces did not yield, and guerrilla bands came to control most rural areas outside the cities. As conflict dragged on, tying down the army, Japan had to delay its expansion into Southeast Asia. This was an important factor leading to the ability of the US and Australia to strengthen their resistance plans.

Japan will mark the 80th anniversary of the end of the war with various activities. In earlier years, on this significant date previous prime ministers issued apologetic statements, accepting some responsibility for the sufferings and atrocities of the war. A similar statement by current Prime Minister Ishiba had been keenly anticipated but will not be made, seemingly for domestic political reasons, reflecting his weak political position.  Instead of an apology, Ishiba observed the anniversaries of the bombing of Hiroshima on 6 August and Nagasaki on 9 August with calls for a world with no nuclear war or nuclear weapons, and, as noted by Singapore’s _Lianhe Zaobao_, his statements referred to Japan’s “defeat” rather than to the “end of the war”. Outside Japan, its diplomats and public intellectuals have downplayed the significance of this anniversary, hoping to deflect blame.

Chinese leaders have repeatedly called out Japan’s reluctance to apologise. Memories of wartime atrocities still smoulder, and the release this year of a new film about the Nanjing Massacre Dead to Rights (Nanjing Zhaoxiang guan 南京照相馆) has fostered new debates about relations with Japan. China will observe the 80th anniversary with a military parade to demonstrate to the world that they are a power to be reckoned with, not aggressive or expansionist as Japan or Germany once were, but ready to defend their homeland if required. Many heads of state will attend the ceremony. Former foreign minister Bob Carr will be there, but no current Australian Government minister. It seems odd that none has seen fit to honour the sacrifices made by our forces and by our allies during the war to resist Japanese aggression. It is even odder that the mainstream media has questioned the ethics of Carr’s travel.

After the end of World War II in Europe, nations determined never to allow repetition of the Holocaust or the resurgence of Nazism. Australia and its Asian neighbours surely have no problem in agreeing to preserve peace and harmony in our region and to resist imperialism in all its forms.

[Following photo from the Australian War Memorial Facebook site: “Recently released Australian servicemen, Osaka, Japan, 1945”]

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.