Dai Li and the Liu Geqing Affair: Heroism in the Chinese Secret Service During the War of Resistance

1989 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 545-562 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wen-Hsin Yeh

The nationalist military intelligence service has long been a controversial topic in the history of the Chinese Republic (1912–49). This organization, known as the Military Bureau of Statistics and Investigation (Junshi Weiyuanhui Tongji Diaocha Ju, or Juntong), first impinged on civilian society in the 1930s, when it carried out violent deeds against urban-based intellectuals critical of the Nationalist party's rule. Newspaper writers and editors subsequently compared Juntong to the infamous Eastern Depot and Embroidered Guards of the despotic Ming emperors, denouncing the “feudal” and “fascist” nature of Nationalist rule in political tracts and assemblies. During the Pacific War the image of Juntong's chief, General Dai Li (1897–1946), was blackened when he was compared to the Nazi Heinrich Himmler by the Western press. In the bitter and protracted civil struggles between the Chinese Communist party (CCP) and the Guomindang (GMD) after 1941, the Communists focused sharply on the atrocities committed by Juntong and portrayed Dai Li as a monstrous instrument of Chiang Kai-shek's dictatorship.

2001 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 217-244
Author(s):  
XIXIAO GUO

Late 1946 was a time of anticlimax in the history of Sino-American relations. For four years since the outbreak of the Pacific War, thousands of American servicemen had been in China rubbing shoulders with the Chinese. When victory finally came, more United States troops (mainly the marines of the Third Amphibious Corps) poured in, and the Chinese hailed them as heroes. In less than a year, however, as hostilities between the Kuomintang (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) closed in, the Americans were caught in the crossfire. Along the communication lines in North China, armed clashes between US and CCP forces escalated; in the cities, anti-American rallies became daily occurrences. The Chinese now became hostile to its erstwhile allies; wherever US servicemen went, they received boos from the locals. The rupture seemed to be irreversible: US forces started to evacuated, George Marshall, the presidential envoy to China, also ended his yearlong mediation, thus bringing the extraordinary intercourse between the two nations to an anticlimactic conclusion.


2012 ◽  
Vol 111 (4) ◽  
pp. 827-838
Author(s):  
Christopher T. Nelson

In the aftermath of the Pacific War, the US military began an occupation of the Japanese prefecture of Okinawa that continues to this day. Although formal sovereignty of the islands was returned to Japan in 1972, the physical and social space of Okinawa remains dominated by a massive network of US military installations. For decades, soldiers and Marines trained in the northern jungles for wars in places like Indochina, Iraq, and Afghanistan; the military airfields and harbors have supported American interests and operations across the Pacific and Indian Oceans. While the Japanese state has been, at best, disinterested and, at worst, complicit in this occupation, there is a long history of Okinawan resistance. Most recently, a dynamic and complex network of groups and individuals has come together to contest plans by the Japanese and US authorities to relocate a Marine airfield to the northeast coast of Okinawa and create new training facilities in the nearby forests.


2021 ◽  
Vol 99 ◽  
pp. 122-146
Author(s):  
Anna Shnukal

AbstractThroughout its European history, Australia has solved recurrent labor shortages by importing workers from overseas. Situated on shipping lanes between the Pacific and Indian Oceans, the northern Australian pearlshelling industry became a significant locus of second-wave transnational labor flows (1870–1940) and by the 1880s was dependent on indentured workers from the Pacific and Southeast Asia. Exempted from the racially discriminatory Immigration Restriction Act of 1901, indentured Asian seamen, principally Japanese, maintained the industry until the outbreak of the Pacific War in 1941. The Torres Strait pearlshelling industry, centered on Thursday Island in Far North Queensland, resumed in 1946 amid general agreement that the Japanese must not return. Nevertheless, in 1958, 162 Okinawan pearling indents arrived on Thursday Island in a controversial attempt to restore the industry's declining fortunes. This article is intended as a contribution to the history of transnational labor movements. It consults a range of sources to document this “Okinawan experiment,” the last large-scale importation of indentured Asian labor into Australia. It examines Australian Commonwealth-state tensions in formulating and adopting national labor policy; disputes among Queensland policy makers; the social characteristics of the Okinawan cohort; and local Indigenous reactions. Also discussed are the economics of labor in the final years of the Torres Strait pearling industry. This study thus extends our knowledge of transnational labor movements and the intersection of early postwar Australian-Asian relations with Queensland Indigenous labor policy. It also foreshadows contemporary Indigenous demands for control of local marine resources.


Author(s):  
Steven Casey

From Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a group of highly courageous correspondents covered America’s war against Japan. Based on a wealth of previously untapped primary sources, War Beat, Pacific provides the first comprehensive account of what these reporters witnessed, what they were allowed to publish, and how their reports shaped the home front’s perception of some of the most pivotal battles in American history. In a dramatic and fast-paced narrative, the book takes us from MacArthur’s doomed defense on the Philippines and the navy’s overly strict censorship policy at the time of Midway through the bloody battles on Guadalcanal, New Guinea, Tarawa, Saipan, Leyte and Luzon, Iwo Jima and Okinawa, detailing the cooperation, as well as conflict, between the media and the military as they grappled with the enduring problem of limiting a free press during a period of extreme crisis. At the heart of this book are the brave, sometimes tragic stories of reporters like Clark Lee and Vern Haugland of the Associated Press, Byron Darnton and Tillman Durdin of the New York Times, Stanley Johnston and Al Noderer of the Chicago Tribune, George Weller of the Chicago Daily News, Keith Wheeler of the Chicago Times, and Robert Sherrod of Time magazine. Twenty-three correspondents died while reporting on the Pacific War. Many more sustained serious wounds. War Beat, Pacific shows how both the casualties and the survivors deserve to be remembered as America’s golden generation of journalists.


Author(s):  
Putut Widjanarko

The Japanese occupation of East Asia during World War II was accompanied by its propaganda targeted to the local population. In Indonesia, the military government, among other things, published Djawa Baroe, a fortnightly magazine published from January 1, 1943 to August 1, 1945.Compared to other magazines, this bilingual magazine (in Japanese and Bahasa Indonesia) Djawa Baroe was unique: it featured ample photographs and illustrations. Qualitative content analysis method enables this study to find the meaning of a theme in its holistic political, social, and cultural contexts beyond the number of its occurrences in the text offered by quantitative content analysis. All the issues of Djawa Baroe are examined in detail and reiteratively. Six themes can be found in Djawa Baroe, i.e., the friendship between Japanese and Indonesians, the description of Japanese military prowess, the exaltation of nationalism and the preparation for the war, the evil nature of Western power, the role of women in society, and entertainment. The study concludes that along with the development of the Pacific War that turned against the Japanese, Djawa Baroe moved its emphasis on long-range goals at the high psychological level to influence and win the hearts and minds of Indonesian people, to a more immediate result and practical guide in facing the imminent war. On the other hand, against the original intention of the Japanese propaganda, Djawa Baroe may have helped its educated readers to imagine their future nation-state, Indonesia. Keywords: Djawa Baroe; Wartime propaganda; Japanese occupation; nation-building


2010 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 406-423
Author(s):  
O. A. Gokov

AbstractIn the article the review of military secret service of Russia in Africa in the second half of XIX – beginning of XX centuries on the example of activity of officers of the General staff is given. It is showed that military secret service of Russia on the African continent did not carry system character. Russian officers of the General staff in the countries of Africa in the second half XIX – XX beginning of centuries collected the military and political information. They also came forward as researchers, collecting and analysing geographical information about of the probed regions, their population, fauna and flora.


Author(s):  
Dedi Arsa

Sawahlunto is a mining town that enjoyed the glory due to coal exploitation by the Dutch colonial government which began in the 1880s. But in the early 1930s to the end of the 1940s, triggered by successive world economic crises (malaise) and various political upheavals during and some time after the Pacific War, this city has experienced a number of long downturns. This paper looks at the effect of economic decline and political turmoil on a city, in this case the City of Sawahlunto as a mining city. Using modern historical methods (historiography, interpretation, interpretation and writing), with an approach to the history of the city, this article reveals several things: First, in the 1930s, due to the world's crisis, coal production was dimming, this caused no new development of the city. Second, in 1942 the Pacific War took place, Japan ruled over the mining company, and Sawahlunto became worse off. Third, after Indonesia gained its independence until the end of the 1960s, Sawalunto did not receive significant improvements, except for a few rebuilt infrastructures. Thus, economic sluggishness and political riot at the global [and national] level have had a direct influence on a city at the local level.


2014 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-33
Author(s):  
Mark E. Caprio

The first Americans to arrive in Korea following Japan’s surrender at the end of World War II brought with them a quartet of Korean soldiers that U.S. officials had recruited for the Eagle Project, the most ambitious American effort to use Koreans in the Pacific War that punctuated a long wartime effort to enlist Allied diplomatic and military support for overseas Koreans. In response, U.S. officials had insisted that Korean exiles in the United States unify their efforts. This condition referenced squabbles among Korean groups in general, with the most transparent being those between Syngman Rhee and Haan Kilsoo. While Korean combatants on the Asian mainland managed to gain some U.S. support for their cause, recognition of their potential came too late in the war for them to help liberate their country. Ultimately, the United States turned to the Japanese and Japanese-trained Koreans to assist in this occupation. Reviewing the history of both Korean lobbying and U.S. response to it provides the opportunity to ask whether better handling of the Korean issue during World War II could have provided U.S. occupation forces with better circumstances to prepare southern Korea for a swift, and unified, independence.


2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jukka Siikala

Looking at recent turmoil in political processes in the Pacific, the article discusses the relationship of socio-cosmic holism and hierarchy in Tonga, Samoa and Fiji to western ideologies of democracy and individualism. Incorporation of traditional chieftainship into colonial and postcolonial state structures has had different outcomes in each case. The structural arrangements, which according to Dumont are seen as intermediary forms, are looked at using material from the recent history of the societies. Thus the riots in Nukuʻalofa orchestrated by the Tongan democracy movement, the military coup in Fiji and the multiplication of chiefly titles in Samoa are seen as results of the interplay of local and western ideologies culminating in notions of holism and individualism.


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