I think it's more than that. The Marshall Plan rebuilt Germany and Japan so much, that they became superpowers in the 1980s.
At the time, a lot of people thought that Japan would overtake the US and become #1 in the world. Lots of Westerners started learning Japanese, because they thought it would become the language of the future. Blade Runner and other films of the time, showed all the signs in Japanese, and everyone eating Japanese/Chinese food, because of that.
Right, the US helped Japan get back on its feet and was made into an economic bulwalk against the Soviets. I wonder if you know about the Plaza Accords, this is the piece of legislative treaty that stifled Japan's economic rise and sent them into the Lost Decade. This was all orcestrated by the US, to stop Japan from overtaking them.
I see.
I heard/read about the Rape of Nanking.
I also get the impression that the Chinese hold the British, the Americans, and the West in general, responsible for China going through what they called the
Century of humiliation.
But I never heard that the Koreans were treated badly by the Japanese during WW2.
Ah yes, China is pretty vocal about the century of humiliation.
What Japan did to Korea though spans much further back than during the events of WW2. Their takeover of Korea begins in the late 1800s, not during the 1940s. The western world basically gave Japan a pass at Korea because they felt that Korea needed to come out of its savagery.
There were 3 powers that were vrying for power on the Korean peninsula at the time, which were Russia, America, and Britian. Japan over the course of several decades they were able to forge alliances or win wars over these powers so that no other power would challenge them in their ambition to take over Korea, and further, China. Japan made the Anglo-Japanese alliance pact in 1902, where the British empire and Japan promised each other to protect their respect interests in China and Korea, and in 1905, the Taft–Katsura agreement was made between Japan and the US, where US would respect Japan's ambition over Korea while Japan would respect US's interests over the Phillipines. Also in 1905 was the Russo-Japanese War, where Japan defeated Russia in a naval engagement in the Sea of Japan. This ended Russia's presence in the Far East and in East Asia, and this war finally removed the final obstacle that hindered Japan from engaging with Korea.
In 1910, Japan formally annexed Korea, stealing the King's seal to stamp the annexation papers. From then on, Japan radically changed Korean society, doing what colonialists do to their colonial subjects, oppressing them and siphoning resources. Japan's takeover of Korea set the stage for the Manchurian incident, where Japan sparked a minor conflict with China in 1931. Six years later, Japan sparked a bigger war, which lasted from 1937 to 1945. During this time, Japan had used Korean labor and Korean resources to fuel their war machine. They hunted down and killed any Korean independence activists during all this time, and mercilessly stomping out any uprisings in the peninsula. During one revolt, 7,500 Koreans were killed or executed. Eventually Japan ordered the end of Koreans teaching Korean and forced the Japanese language as the only language to be taught. Education of Korean history, language and literature were ended, and Korean cultural practices were banned. All but a select few Japan-aligned newspapers were banned. This is what we now call cultural genocide.
Korea was only liberated after the US had nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 15th, 1945. Japan had colonized Korea for a total of 35 years now. So in a way, Korea sort of went through an existential crisis, where we could have been erased from history and be totally absorbed into the Japanese way of life. Yet we were liberated, had a civil war (2~3 million deaths), and became one of the top 15 economies by the turn of the 21st century. We were at the bottom of the economic rankings after the civil war, comparable to the countries in Africa at the time.
Note, Japan had ambitions to takeover Korea since the 1860s. Emperor Meiji explictly wanted Japan to takeover Korea as he modernized Japan during the Meiji Restoration. There were lots of minor conflicts between the 1860s to 1910, when Korea was annexed.
