by Zhou Xin
During World War II (WWII), to sustain its wartime industrial system, Japan formulated the Southern Expansion Policy, aimed at invading Southeast Asia and plundering strategic resources such as oil and rubber. After capturing Burma (present-day Myanmar) in 1942, Japan committed numerous atrocities, inflicting catastrophic suffering on the local population.
RESOURCE PLUNDER
During its occupation, Japan conscripted young and middle-aged people for forced labor, seized large numbers of livestock for logistical purposes, and destroyed vast areas of rice paddies, causing a drastic decline in Myanmar's agricultural output. By 1944, Myanmar's total rice production had plummeted to just 3 million tons -- less than half of pre-war levels.
The Japanese military enforced a grain requisition system, forcibly seizing 100,000 tons of rice between 1942 and 1943, which triggered a devastating famine. It also extensively plundered oil reserves and ruthlessly exploited timber, minerals and other resources to fuel its war machine. Moreover, Japan recklessly issued invasion currency in Myanmar, leading to severe inflation and eradicating the wealth of countless civilians.
According to records such as the War Damages Claimed by Myanmar housed in the Diplomatic Archives of Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Myanmar suffered total losses amounting to 3.84 billion U.S. dollars during the Japanese invasion. This included 2.66 billion dollars in property and infrastructure damage and 1.18 billion dollars in losses from invalidated invasion currency.
MASSACRES OF CIVILIANS
On Dec. 23, 1941, the Japanese army launched its first large-scale air raid on Rangoon (now Yangon). Employing approximately 70 bombers and 30 fighter jets, the attack killed about 2,000 people and injured 1,500. Two days later, on Dec. 25, a second raid involving around 100 warplanes struck the city again.
In 1944, following a military defeat by the Chinese Expeditionary Force, the Japanese commander in Myanmar, Heitaro Kimura, was reported to have told his subordinates in anger, "For every Japanese soldier lost, we will kill twice as many Burmese civilians." He subsequently ordered the mass execution of numerous Burmese prisoners of war and civilians.
On Jul. 7, 1945, on the orders of Japanese Major Seigi Ichikawa, troops carried out a brutal massacre in Kalagon village. Villagers were divided into groups of four to ten, led to wells, blindfolded, bayoneted to death, and thrown into the wells. The entire village was razed, and women were raped during the atrocity. An estimated 600 to 1,000 villagers perished.
FORCED LABOR AND "COMFORT WOMEN"
In June 1942, Japan began constructing the Thailand-Burma Railway, mobilizing 62,000 Allied prisoners of war and forcibly conscripting over 350,000 laborers, including about 180,000 from Myanmar. Driven by ruthless coercion, a project that would normally have taken six years was completed in just 18 months.
Under extreme labor conditions, severe malnutrition, and rampant diseases, some 12,000 prisoners of war and more than 130,000 laborers perished, including about 40,000 Burmese (estimates range from 30,000 to 80,000). With nearly 150,000 deaths overall -- a mortality rate of 37.5 percent, equivalent to one life lost for every three meters of track -- the railway became infamously known as the Death Railway.
The 1958 Academy Award-winning film The Bridge on the River Kwai reflects this dark history. Lin Yong Dylan, author of A Personal Account of the Hard Labor on the Thailand-Burma Railway, witnessed Japanese abuse at the Thanbyuzayat concentration camp. He described an elderly laborer being beaten and kicked; when the man's son tried to intervene, he was shot dead by Japanese soldiers. Laborers subsisted on thin bean soup with no oil or vegetables. Prisoners of war and laborers were forced to toil from before dawn until after 10 p.m. using primitive tools, and were beaten for even a brief pause in work.
After occupying Myanmar, Japan stationed more than 100,000 troops there and established "comfort stations" in about 60 regions across the country. According to maps in Myanmar's National Archives, there were more than 100 such facilities. "Comfort women" included local Burmese women as well as women from China, Korea and Japan who were trafficked across borders. Many were coerced or deceived with false job offers, such as nursing positions.
IDEOLOGICAL CONTROL AND FALSE PROPAGANDA
Japan imposed a curriculum and teaching materials advocating fascist rule in Myanmar and enforced Japanese-language education. By the end of 1943, 25 Japanese-language institutes had been established. Japan also set up an Army Junior School and an Army Officer School in Rangoon, which had trained more than 100 graduates across three cohorts by the war's end. Some students were selected as government-funded "Southern Special Students" to study in Japan, a program designed to cultivate collaborators to assist Japanese military rule.
To strengthen ideological control, the Japanese military established a Broadcasting Control Bureau under the Rangoon Broadcasting Station to promote the so-called "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere." It translated and published books such as Bushido and Warriors and Troops, disseminating the false narrative that "Japan is the liberator of Myanmar." Japanese forces even claimed that "the Japanese Emperor is the reincarnation of the Buddha," exploiting Burmese Buddhist faith for propaganda purposes. The Japanese intelligence unit Minami Kikan fabricated stories of heroic figures who "saved Myanmar," deceiving people into providing information and intelligence.
THE LESSONS OF HISTORY MUST NEVER BE FORGOTTEN
Regarding Japanese war crimes in Myanmar, U Nu, Myanmar's first prime minister, wrote in his book Five Tumultuous Years in Myanmar: "For a nation like Japan, you would never believe how cruel and inhumane it could be until you have experienced it firsthand. Japan attempted to rule the whole world and implemented a genocidal policy of burning, killing, looting and raping in China. There are countless horrific stories that Burmese politicians are unwilling to read or dare to hear."
Thakin Chit, a member of the Dobama Asiayone (We Burmans Association), recalled, "The Japanese were extremely cruel. They would arbitrarily arrest people based on any accusation, and the fate of those arrested was uncertain. The Japanese tied people upside down with their hands and feet bound, whipped them with iron rods, poured boiling water down their throats, and pried out their fingernails with bamboo sticks."
More than 80 years ago, Japanese militarism wrought bloody devastation across Asia. Today, more than eight decades later, right-wing forces in Japan are making strenuous efforts to whitewash and revive militarism. Faced with irrefutable evidence of their crimes, they show neither remorse nor reflection, and are accelerating military expansion despite international opposition. All peace-loving people worldwide must remain vigilant, see through their true nature, and resolutely safeguard the outcomes of the World Anti-Fascist War and the post-WWII international order.
Editor's note: The author is an observer on international affairs.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Xinhua News Agency.
