Imperial Japan and Aung San (The Father of Independent Burma)

As someone with a deep interest in Southeast Asia, and with many connections there, I find this video extremely appalling.

What the video clip failed to pay attention to, was the reasoning behind why Aung San was willing to work with Imperial Japan. When I was an undergraduate taking classes in Southeast Asian politics, what struck me was the overwhelming theme of independence against colonization, and the great suspicion attached to ALL foreign powers. These national themes apply to virtually every Southeast Asian country (and in some ways Thailand). In their quest to obtain independence, many leaders were willing to work with seemingly unsavory powers, and were highly duplicitous in playing major powers against one another. Aung San, Ho Chi-minh, Sinhanouk (etc.), these people, as flawed as they are, represent how Southeast Asian countries often struggled to deal with foreign powers. Each of these individuals at one time or another paid lip-service to various countries (Imperial Japan, their colonizers, America, etc.), but were never truly loyal to them.

Aung San, (originally wanting assistance from the communist Chinese), met with Imperial Japanese forces and came to believe that he could use them to further his own independence agenda. He carefully played his cards so that he could obtain his goals, but began to work against Imperial Japan when he became suspicious of their promises. He became highly critical of the treatment of his people by the Japanese, and came to believe that Japan simply wanted to insert itself as the new colonial power. These feelings caused him to successfully join with the Allied powers and drive out Imperial Japan.

What I find more interesting about this video is not the obvious, that Imperial Japan aided native movements WHERE IT benefited Japanese power, but the lesson it gives us in Japanese right-wing revisionism. The video, much like the rightists, lacks much in terms of realpolitik analysis and insight into minds of Aung San and individuals like him. I find the self-congratulating tone extremely shallow and indicative of the type of mindset that continues to exist—one that simplifies and recasts the invasion of Asia as a war of Asian Liberation (which is prominently featured in the beginning of the clip).

Among Japanese rightists Aung San is touted as an example of Japan’s true quest to “liberate” Asia. When it is pointed out that he revolted against Japan, these same individuals will say it was simply because Aung San was power hungry. After all, he played the British against the Japanese, and then backstabbed the British. That shows that he is a treacherous opportunist. To these rightists, any insight into Aung San’s complex mindset seems impossible. Aung San, like many other independence leaders in the region, was inherently suspicious of all foreign countries, and sought to play them off against one another to achieve his true objective, independence. If cooperation with Imperial Japan allowed this dream to become a reality, than for many like Aung San, it was a temporary deal with the devil they were willing to make.

Liberating Asia was certainly part of the idea behind the “co-prosperity” sphere. However Japan’s idea of “Pan-Asian” was highly problematic. Despite many proclamations for Asian liberation and equality, Imperial Japan in reality fought to ensure that it, and only it, was at the top of Asia’s pecking order. The reality on the ground reflected not true “liberation,” but the replacement of European colonizers with Imperial Japanese colonizers.

I don’t see anything wrong with pretending to be loyal to one colonial power when in fact all you want is to get their help to fight another colonial power, that’s controlling your country. All the colonial powers wanted was to take over countries. The Japanese didn’t assist Aung San because they really cared about the Burmese people, they just wanted to strike at the British and take over Burma for themselves. The Japanese were just using the Burmese resistance as well. Therefore, it’s justified for resistance movements in colonized countries to play the imperialists against each other.

Siam (now Thailand) did it with Britain to their left (Burma and British India) and France to their right (French Indochina). Afghanistan did it with Russia to their north and Britain to the south. Persia (now Iran) did it with Russia to the north and Britain to the east and west. Even in Europe, Poland did it with Germany to the west and Russia to the east. As I always say, one imperialist is as good as another – they’re all bad.