THE SECOND WORLD WAR IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC, AFRICA AND THE MIDDLE-EAST AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

MCHFC

LECTURE 9: THE SECOND WORLD WAR IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC, AFRICA AND THE MIDDLE-EAST AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.

Strategic Conflict at the Periphery. The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945), Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere (1940), Pacific Theater of the Second World War. The Chinese Civil War (esp. 1945-1950 phase), Korean War (1950-1953).

Sino-Japanese War, (1937–45), conflict that broke out when China began full-scale resistance to the expansion of Japanese influence in its territory (which had begun in 1931). In an effort to unseat the Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek, the Japanese occupied large areas of eastern China in 1937–38. A stalemate then ensued, and Japanese forces were diverted to Southeast Asia and to the Pacific theatre of World War II against the Western Powers and their allies beginning in late 1941. Japan’s defeat in that by the Allies in 1945 ended its occupation of China.

The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere was an imperial propaganda concept created and promulgated for occupied Asian populations during the first third of the Shwa era by the government and military of the Empire of Japan. It extended greater than East Asia and promoted the cultural and economic unity of Northeast Asians, Southeast Asians, and Oceanians. It also declared the intention to create a self-sufficient "bloc of Asian nations led by the Japanese and free of Western powers". It was announced in a radio address entitled "The International Situation and Japan's Position" by Foreign Minister Hachir Arita on June 29, 1940.

Pacific Theater of the Second World War. There were two major places where World War II took place. These places are sometimes called theaters of war. One theater of World War II was in Europe, the other was in the Pacific. The Pacific theater of war included Japan, China, Korea, the Philippines, and many more islands and countries in Southeast Asia.

Leading up to the War. Japan wanted to become a strong country and a world leader. However, because Japan was a small island country, they had to import many natural resources. Some Japanese leaders felt they needed to gain more land by conquering other countries. In 1937 Japan invaded China. They wanted to dominate all of Southeast Asia. They joined the Axis alliance with Germany and Italy in 1940 by signing the Tripartite Pact. In 1941 a former General of the Army, Hideki Tojo, became Prime Minister of Japan. He had been a strong supporter of Japan joining the Axis Powers. Now that he was Prime Minister, Tojo wanted Japan to attack the United States.

Pearl Harbor. Although the US was trying to avoid getting involved in World War II, Japan was worried that the US would try and stop them from taking over some countries in Southeast Asia. They decided to attack the US Navy hoping they could sink enough ships to keep the US from ever attacking Japan.

On December 7, 1941 Japan attacked the US Navy at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. They surprised the US and sunk many ships. However, this attack did not have the effect the Japanese had hoped. The US joined the Allies in World War II the next day. The attack at Pearl Harbor united the Americans with the goal of defeating the Axis powers, and especially Japan.

The War. The Japanese quickly took over much of Southeast Asia and were well on their way to dominance by 1942. However, the US won a critical battle called the Battle of Midway on June 4, 1942. Badly outnumbered, the US Navy sunk four Japanese aircraft carriers and forced the Japanese to retreat. Winning this battle gave the Americans cause for hope and was a turning point in the war in the Pacific.

After the Battle of Midway the United States began to fight back against the Japanese. They fought to take over strategic islands in the Pacific. One of the first major battles was over the island of Guadalcanal. After fierce fighting the US was able to take the island, but they learned that fighting the Japanese was not going to be easy. There were many battles over islands in the South Pacific, these included Tarawa, Saipan, and Iwo Jima. Iwo Jima took 36 days of fighting to take the island. Today a statue of marines raising a flag on the island of Iwo Jima serves as the Marine Corps Memorial in Washington DC.

The Atomic Bomb. Finally in 1945 the Japanese army had been pushed back to Japan. However, the Japanese would not surrender. American leaders felt that the only way to get Japan to surrender would be to invade the main island of Japan. However, they feared this would cost the lives of up to 1 million US soldiers.

Instead of invading, President Harry S. Truman decided to use a new weapon called the atomic bomb. The first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 1945. It completely destroyed the city and killed thousands and thousands of people. Japan did not surrender. Another atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan. This time the Japanese decided to surrender.

Japan Surrenders. On August 15, 1945 Japanese Emperor Hirohito announced that Japan would surrender. Later on September 2, 1945 the Japanese signed a surrender treaty with US General Douglas MacArthur aboard the battleship USS Missouri. This day was called V-J Day which means Victory in Japan.

Other Facts about World War II in the Pacific.

In order to attack Japan, Air Force Lieutenant Colonel James H. Doolittle demonstrated that large B-25 bomber planes could take off from air craft carriers.

Japanese fighter pilots would purposely crash their planes into US ships in what were called Kamikaze attacks.

The Soviet Union had been at peace with Japan during much of World War II. They agreed to attack Japanese forces in Manchuria on August 8, 1945. This also helped in forcing Japan to surrender.

The Japanese were guilty of many war crimes during World War II. This includes the killing of up to 20 million Chinese people. They had a policy called "Kill All, Burn All, and Loot All". They used biological weapons and tortured prisoners of war. As a result, many Japanese leaders were executed after the war including Prime Minister Hideki Tojo.

Chinese Civil War

The Chinese Civil war took place over a long period of time between 1927 and 1950. The war was interrupted when Japan invaded China in 1936 and by World War II. The war was fought between the nationalist government of China, also called the Kuomintang (KMT), and the Communist Party of China (CPC).

Leaders.

The Kuomintang was founded by Sun Yat-sen. The group was led by Chiang Kai-shek throughout the civil war. Important generals included Bai Chongxi and Chen Cheng. The Communist Party of China, or CPC, was led by Mao Zedong. Other important leaders included second in command Zhou Enlai and generals Zhu De and Peng Dehuai.

Before the War 

After the Qing Dynasty collapsed in 1911 there was a vacuum of power in China. Two major parties formed, the nationalist Kuomintang Party and the Communist Party (CPC). Some areas of the country were controlled by warlords. The Kuomintang and the CPC united for a time. They wanted to unify China. They both received help from the Soviet Union. Although they were somewhat united, they continued to have an internal rivalry between the two major parties. 

The Civil War Begins 

In 1927 the rivalry became a war. Chiang Kai-shek of the Kuomintang decided to get rid of the CPC. The Kuomintang killed and arrested many of the CPC leaders in what is today called the Shanghai Massacre. Mao Zedong of the CPC led an uprising against the Kuomintang called the Autumn Harvest Uprising. The uprising failed, but the civil war had begun. 

Ten Years Civil War 

Over the next ten years, from 1927 to 1936 the two sides fought. Mao Zedong led peasants and common people in uprisings against the Kuomintang. At the same time Chiang Kai-shek tried to put down the uprisings and eliminate Mao and the CPC Army. 

The Long March 

In 1934, Mao and the CPC army had to retreat from the Kuomintang. They went on a series of long marches that lasted an entire year, from October of 1934 to October of 1935. They traveled around 7,000 miles. They began the Long March at Jiangxi province in south China and finally stopped at the Shaanxi province of northern China. Out of around 80,000 soldiers that began the march, only 8,000 or so made it to the end. 

World War II 

When the Japanese invaded Japan in 1937, the two sides once again united in order to fight the Japanese. This continued throughout World War II. However, the two sides still hated each other. 

The Civil War Renewed 

After the end of World War II in 1945, the two sides resumed their civil war. With American support, Chiang Kai-shek moved his soldiers to the major cities of China. However, the CPC was heavily funded by the Soviet Union and quickly gained support in the rural areas. 

The CPC launched an assault in Northern China where the Soviets had control. The Soviets helped them by letting them have the weapons left by the Japanese. For the first few years the United States tried to broker a peace between the two sides where the country would be split. However, neither side was willing to give in. 

The End of the Fighting 

By 1948 the CPC was gaining momentum. They continued to take nationalist cities and, with each victory, they were gaining support within the population of China. In October of 1949, the CPC captured Beijing. They declared victory and said that China was now under the rule of the People's Republic of China. The nationalists fled to the island of Taiwan where they established their own government called the Republic of China. 

Facts About the Chinese Civil War

• Even today both governments lay claim to being the legal government of China. In some ways the civil war is not over, but there hasn't been fighting for many years.
• It was the third largest war in the history of the world after World War I and World War II.
• It was during the Long March that Mao Zedong gained total control of the CPC as its primary leader.
• Mao Zedong was a follower of Marxism. His version of communism is often referred to as Maoism today.

Korean War (1950-1953).

World War II divided Korea into a Communist, northern half and an American-occupied southern half, divided at the 38th parallel. The Korean War (1950-1953) began when the North Korean Communist army crossed the 38th Parallel and invaded non-Communist South Korea. As Kim Il-sung's North Korean army, armed with Soviet tanks, quickly overran South Korea, the United States came to South Korea's aid. General Douglas MacArthur, who had been overseeing the post-WWII occupation of Japan, commanded the US forces which now began to hold off the North Koreans at Pusan, at the southernmost tip of Korea. Although Korea was not strategically essential to the United States, the political environment at this stage of the Cold War was such that policymakers did not want to appear "soft on Communism." Nominally, the US intervened as part of a "police action" run by a UN (United Nations) international peace- keeping force; in actuality, the UN was simply being manipulated by US and NATO anti-Communist interests.

With the US, UN, and South Korean (ROK) forces pinned against the sea at Pusan, MacArthur orchestrated a daring amphibious assault on Inchon, a port on the western coast of Korea. Having made this landing, MacArthur crushed the North Korean army in a pincer movement and recaptured Seoul, the capital of South Korea. Instead of being satisfied with his rapid reconquest of South Korea, MacArthur crossed the 38TH Parallel and pursued the North Korean army all the way to the northernmost provinces of North Korea. Afraid that the US was interested in taking North Korea as a base for operations against Manchuria, the People's Republic of China secretly sent an army across the Yalu River. This Chinese army attacked the US/UN/ROK forces. Only after the appointment of Lt. General Matthew Ridgway as commander of ground forces did American morale improve and the initiative begin to swing against the Chinese Communists.

Although President Truman hoped to end the war quickly and pressed MacArthur to be more tactful, the brilliant strategist went against presidential orders and continued spouting incendiary lines about his hopes to reunify Korea. After gaining the support of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), Truman relieved MacArthur of command. The move was extremely unpopular in America; MacArthur was perceived as a popular war hero. Only the support of the JCS saved Truman from impeachment after the firing.

Ridgway took MacArthur's command and held off the Communists with strong fortifications and entrenchments just north of the 38TH Parallel, sending occasional offensives against the Iron Triangle, the Communists staging area for attacks into South Korea. Peace negotiations dragged on at Kaesong, then moved and continued to drag at Panmunjom through 1951 and 1952. The US tried using strategic bombing to intimidate the Communists into negotiating a peace treaty, but they wouldn't budge, particularly on the issue of POW (Prisoner of War) repatriation. Neither side wanted to appear weak, and so the talks went on, occasionally breaking down for months. Only after Eisenhower, who was a war hero and was unafraid of Republican criticism (since he himself was a Republican), became President, could the US make substantial concessions to the Communists. In 1953 a peace treaty was signed at Panmunjom that ended the Korean War, returning Korea to a divided status essentially the same as before the war. Neither the war nor its outcome did much to lessen the era's Cold War tension.

On June 25, 1950, the Korean War began when some 75,000 soldiers from the North Korean People’s Army poured across the 38th parallel, the boundary between the Soviet-backed Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to the north and the pro-Western Republic of Korea to the south. This invasion was the first military action of the Cold War. By July, American troops had entered the war on South Korea’s behalf. As far as American officials were concerned, it was a war against the forces of international communism itself. After some early back-and-forth across the 38th parallel, the fighting stalled and casualties mounted with nothing to show for them. Meanwhile, American officials worked anxiously to fashion some sort of armistice with the North Koreans. The alternative, they feared, would be a wider war with Russia and China–or even, as some warned, World War III. Finally, in July 1953, the Korean War came to an end. In all, some 5 million soldiers and civilians lost their lives during the war. The Korean peninsula is still divided today.

THE TWO KOREAS

“If the best minds in the world had set out to find us the worst possible location in the world to fight this damnable war,” U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson (1893-1971) once said, “the unanimous choice would have been Korea.” The peninsula had landed in America’s lap almost by accident. Since the beginning of the 20th century, Korea had been a part of the Japanese empire, and after World War II it fell to the Americans and the Soviets to decide what should be done with their enemy’s mperial possessions. In August 1945, two young aides at the State Department divided the Korean peninsula in half along the 38th parallel. The Russians occupied the area north of the line and the United States occupied the area to its south.

Did You Know?

Unlike World War II and Vietnam, the Korean War did not get much media attention in the United States. The most famous representation of the war in popular culture is the television series “M*A*S*H,” which was set in a field hospital in South Korea. The series ran from 1972 until 1983, and its final episode was the most-watched in television history.

By the end of the decade, two new states had formed on the peninsula. In the south, the anti-communist dictator Syngman Rhee (1875-1965) enjoyed the reluctant support of the American government; in the north, the communist dictator Kim Il Sung (1912-1994) enjoyed the slightly more enthusiastic support of the Soviets. Neither dictator was content to remain on his side of the 38th parallel, however, and border skirmishes were common. Nearly 10,000 North and South Korean soldiers were killed in battle before the war even began.

THE KOREAN WAR AND THE COLD WAR

Even so, the North Korean invasion came as an alarming surprise to American officials. As far as they were concerned, this was not simply a border dispute between two unstable dictatorships on the other side of the globe. Instead, many feared it was the first step in a communist campaign to take over the world. For this reason, nonintervention was not considered an option by many top decision makers. (In fact, in April 1950, a National Security Council report known as NSC-68 had recommended that the United States use military force to “contain” communist expansionism anywhere it seemed to be occurring, “regardless of the intrinsic strategic or economic value of the lands in question.”)

“If we let Korea down,” President Harry Truman (1884-1972) said, “the Soviet[s] will keep right on going and swallow up one [place] after another.” The fight on the Korean peninsula was a symbol of the global struggle between east and west, good and evil. As the North Korean army pushed into Seoul, the South Korean capital, the United States readied its troops for a war against communism itself.

At first, the war was a defensive one–a war to get the communists out of South Korea–and it went badly for the Allies. The North Korean army was well-disciplined, well-trained and well-equipped; Rhee’s forces, by contrast, were frightened, confused, and seemed inclined to flee the battlefield at any provocation. Also, it was one of the hottest and driest summers on record, and desperately thirsty American soldiers were often forced to drink water from rice paddies that had been fertilized with human waste. As a result, dangerous intestinal diseases and other illnesses were a constant threat.

By the end of the summer, President Truman and General Douglas MacArthur (1880-1964), the commander in charge of the Asian theater, had decided on a new set of war aims. Now, for the Allies, the Korean War was an offensive one: It was a war to “liberate” the North from the communists.

Initially, this new strategy was a success. An amphibious assault at Inchon pushed the North Koreans out of Seoul and back to their side of the 38th parallel. But as American troops crossed the boundary and headed north toward the Yalu River, the border between North Korea and Communist China, the Chinese started to worry about protecting themselves from what they called “armed aggression against Chinese territory.” Chinese leader Mao Zedong (1893-1976) sent troops to North Korea and warned the United States to keep away from the Yalu boundary unless it wanted full-scale war

“NO SUBSTITUTE FOR VICTORY”?

This was something that President Truman and his advisers decidedly did not want: They were sure that such a war would lead to Soviet aggression in Europe, the deployment of atomic weapons and millions of senseless deaths. To General MacArthur, however, anything short of this wider war represented “appeasement,” an unacceptable knuckling under to the communists.

As President Truman looked for a way to prevent war with the Chinese, MacArthur did all he could to provoke it. Finally, in March 1951, he sent a letter to Joseph Martin, a House Republican leader who shared MacArthur’s support for declaring all-out war on China–and who could be counted upon to leak the letter to the press. “There is,” MacArthur wrote, “no substitute for victory” against international communism.

For Truman, this letter was the last straw. On April 11, the president fired the general for insubordination.

THE KOREAN WAR REACHES A STALEMATE

In July 1951, President Truman and his new military commanders started peace talks at Panmunjom. Still, the fighting continued along the 38th parallel as negotiations stalled. Both sides were willing to accept a ceasefire that maintained the 38th parallel boundary, but they could not agree on whether prisoners of war should be forcibly “repatriated.” (The Chinese and the North Koreans said yes; the United States said no.) Finally, after more than two years of negotiations, the adversaries signed an armistice on July 27, 1953. The agreement allowed the POWs to stay where they liked; drew a new boundary near the 38th parallel that gave South Korea an extra 1,500 square miles of territory; and created a 2-mile-wide “demilitarized zone” that still exists today.

CASUALTIES OF THE KOREAN WAR

The Korean War was relatively short but exceptionally bloody. Nearly 5 million people died. More than half of these–about 10 percent of Korea’s prewar population–were civilians. (This rate of civilian casualties was higher than World War II’s and Vietnam’s.) Almost 40,000 Americans died in action in Korea, and more than 100,000 were wounded.

THE SECOND WORLD WAR IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC, AFRICA AND THE MIDDLE-EAST AND ITS CONSEQUENCES