Japan's colonial empire

Before 1945, Japan built a colonial empire with large non-Japanese populations. It annexed Taiwan (1895) and Korea (1910), established a client state in Manchuria (1932) and occupied parts of northern China (from 1933). Japan’s expansion drew on its initial success in persuading other Asians that would defend Asia against Western imperialism. War with China in 1937 led, in December 1941, to war against the West. Japan then occupied much of Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific, but could not stop the Allied counter-offensive and had to surrender in September 1945. New scholarship has emphasized both the complexity of Japan’s imperial rule and the engagement of Asian people in the imperial venture. Scholars have paid close attention to consequences of imperialism for domestic Japanese society and have shown a growing recognition that Japan’s colonial rule should be treated as part of mainstream Japanese history.