The plight of the Koreans was, in its way, emblematic of the larger anomaly of victor’s justice as practiced in Tokyo. It called attention to the fact that the recent war in Asia had taken place not among free and independent nations, but rather on a map overwhelmingly demarcated by the colors of colonialism. Colonialism, and imperialism more generally, defined the twentieth-century Asian world in which Japan was accused of having conspired to wage aggressive war. Japan’s colonial and neocolonial domain (Formosa, Korea, and Manchuria) existed alongside the Asian overseas possessions of four of
...more
