But you’re not “having to argue this”: you’ve chosen to. Japan’s relations with Korea, China, Manchuria, Mongolia and Russia had nothing whatsoever to do with the American embargo on trade with Japan which provoked the attack on Pearl Harbor, any more than China’s current mistreatment of the Uyghurs has anything to do with Trump’s imposition of trade sanctions on China today.
You accuse me of “painting the 1941 Japanese as poor victims of mean and arrogant US trade policy” which you see as “extraordinary historical revisionism.”
Of course I did nothing of the kind: that coloured language is yours, not mine. The Seppoes tried to control Japan by placing trade embargoes against her. When they extended their sanctions so far as to attempt to deprive Japan of the oil she needed for her heavy industry, the Japanese exploded. The Seppoes, if they’d been interested in Japan’s North-East Asian campaigns should have been prepared for the Japanese reaction, but in fact they had no idea of what was coming; the bombing of Pearl Harbor was completely unexpected. Indeed, their own inability to understand the mindset of their enemy was what saved them from an even bigger disaster. If their navy had been where it should have been — out at sea steaming towards the Japanese, they would have lost all their shkps, sunk to the bottom of the ocean. As it was they were able to repair most of the ships that were tied up in dock.
Indeed, your emotional post shows that you yourself are no stranger to “extraordinary historical revisionism.” Many of your claims are either misleading or historically inaccurate, while the manner of their presentation is reminiscent of our current Prime Minister’s marketing-derived style.
Take Korea, for example: Korea had already been invaded by the Chinese and also by the Russians before Japan took it over. The poor blooðy Koreans had to suffer one callous colonial master after another, Japan being just the last of them. The Seppoes saw no threat to their interests there, however, so they kept out of it.
Manchuria had been invaded (and raped and pillaged) by the Han Chinese well before Japan set about “liberating” it in the 1930s. Yes, the actions of the Japanese in Manchuria were pretty disgusting — you’ll find a stomach-churning account of one incident in Murakami’s Nejimakitori Kuronikuru (The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle), — but this had nothing to do with the USA’s attempt to destroy Japan by depriving her of oil supplies.
The Seppoes didn’t care about Japan’s bloodthirsty campaigns in North-East Asia, any more than they cared about the equally bloodthirsty campaigns waged by the Han Chinese and the Russians against the Japanese and also against the vassal states, Korea, Manchuria and Mongolia (without even getting into the battles between the old imperial Chinese and Mao’s Communist Chinese). Millions were slaughtered, and not just by the Japanese, but the Seppoes didn’t care about Asian lives.
All they cared about then and all they care about today is Business, and their control over it. They made the mistake back then of trying to enforce trade sactions against the Japanese; and today they are repeating the same errors vis-à-vis the Chinese.
And Iran is their nominated next target, God help us…