Resolute struggle against US imperialism and its Pivot to Asia policy is necessary to defend peace and sovereignty of countries
70 years ago, Japan signed the treaty of surrender on September 2, 1945. This marked the end of the Second World War. Earlier, in May 1945, Nazi Germany had surrendered following the Red Army entering Germany’s capital, Berlin.
Resolute struggle against US imperialism and its Pivot to Asia policy is necessary to defend peace and sovereignty of countries
70 years ago, Japan signed the treaty of surrender on September 2, 1945. This marked the end of the Second World War. Earlier, in May 1945, Nazi Germany had surrendered following the Red Army entering Germany’s capital, Berlin.
On September 3, 2015, China marked the 70th anniversary of the end of its long war of resistance to Japanese imperialist aggression with a huge parade led by veterans of the war in the historic Tiananmen Square. The heroic and decisive role played by the Chinese people in the final defeat of Japanese militarism in Asia can never be forgotten. Over 35 million Chinese people, both civilian and military, lost their lives in the war, which began when Japan occupied Manchuria in September 1931.
During WW II, wherever the rampaging fascist and militarist armies of Germany, Italy, Japan and their collaborators went in different parts of the world, countless people lost their lives and suffered enormous hardship. In Asia, the Japanese militarists had occupied Korea, Indo China, Malaya, Indonesia, Burma and Philippines apart from many regions of China. The peoples of different occupied countries, led by communists, waged epic battles against the fascist occupation forces. This was the case in China, in Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Kampuchea, Malaya, Burma, Indonesia and the Philippines. In the course of these heroic anti fascist national liberation struggles, the people saw that it was the communists who were the most steadfast fighters for freedom and national independence. All the anti fascist peoples were inspired by the glorious struggle being waged by the Soviet Union during the Second World War, which led to the liberation of Europe from the jackboots of Nazi fascism.
China was one of the five allied powers in the Second World War, the others being the Soviet Union, the US, Britain and France. However, during the commemoration activities held in China to mark the 70th anniversary of the defeat of Japanese militarism, only Russian President Vladimir Putin was present, while the leaders of US, Britain and France pointedly boycotted them. Earlier, these leaders had boycotted the events marking the 70th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany which were organized in Russia in May 2015.
The US considers Russia and China as obstacles in the path of establishing its complete domination over Asia. By boycotting the commemorative events in China and Russia, the US is sending a clear message that it will stop at nothing, including the launching of aggressive wars, to establish its complete domination over Asia.
In Europe, it has organised the destruction of Yugoslavia, installed fascist puppet regimes in Ukraine and some other countries, and is encircling Russia from the West. Its brutal invasions of Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya have led to devastation and destruction of these nations. It is destroying Syria and various countries of North Africa at this time. It has unleashed fascist and terrorist groups in Europe, West Asia and North Africa to act as its front paw against sovereign countries. Millions of people have been turned into refugees, as the US continues with its policy of redrawing maps of entire regions to establish its control and domination.
For the people of Asia, the decision of the US to “pivot towards Asia” is ominous. It is deploying the bulk of its military forces to East and South East Asia. Its intention is clearly to encircle China, threaten North Korea and prevent the peaceful reunification of Korea by all means, and ensure, by carrying out regime changes in various countries, the complete domination of US imperialism in this region.
Towards this end, it has been actively encouraging forces in Japan which want to militarize Japan and undo the constitutional and other safeguards that were put into place at the end of WWII to ensure that Japan could never again commit aggression against other peoples. The increasingly militarist and confrontationist stance of the present Abe government of Japan has stoked anger and anxiety among the people in China, Korea and other parts of Asia which had suffered from Japanese aggression in WWII. In addition, the US has been actively luring the Indian state to join a quadrilateral military alliance of US, Japan and Australia aimed at encircling China. Naval and military exercises involving these countries have been taking place. All these developments have created a situation of growing tension and uneasiness in the region, not unlike what had been there just prior to the outbreak of WWII.
When Japan began its policy of aggression and occupation of other countries in Asia in the early 20th century, most of South East Asia had already fallen into the colonial clutches of the imperialist powers of Western Europe and the United States. Philippines was a US colony, Indo-China including Vietnam were French colonies; Indonesia was a Dutch colony, while Burma and Malaya were British colonies. After occupying Korea and Taiwan, the militarist forces in Japan looked to establishing their hold, first over resource-rich Manchuria in north-east China, and then over the Chinese mainland as a whole. Initially, when Manchuria and then most of eastern and central China were occupied by Japan in the 1930s, the Western imperialist powers did very little to assist China. Only the Soviet Union gave significant aid to China at that time. It was only when Japan attacked the US in December 1941, and took over the colonies of the US, Britain, France and Holland in South East Asia and threatened the British empire in India from 1942, that these powers began to assist China’s war of resistance. In the different countries of South East Asia which came under Japanese occupation, the peoples there also fought heroically, not only against the Japanese aggressors, but for their independence and freedom from colonial rule altogether.
After the defeat of Japan, US imperialism led its imperialist allies to try to restore the old colonial order in the region. US forces occupied South Korea and launched a war against the Korean peoples, who had established their own independent republic after a heroic struggle. The French imperialists invaded South Vietnam and launched a war against the Vietnamese people who had liberated their homeland from the Japanese occupation forces. When the French imperialists were defeated by the Vietnamese liberation forces, US imperialism marched in to take its place to occupy South Vietnam. The heroic struggle of the Vietnamese people and other peoples of Indo- China was finally crowned in victory in 1975 with the defeat of the US occupation forces.
US imperialism reoccupied Philippines and set up a fascist military dictatorship that tried to drown in blood the heroic liberation struggle of peoples. In Indonesia, the people liberated from Dutch colonial rule, established a popular regime. US imperialism organised a bloody military coup that overthrew the Sukarno regime, in which millions of communists and progressive people were butchered to death. Under the signboard of “containment of communism”, US imperialism established in the nineteen fifties, the SEATO and CENTO military alliances and stationed its military forces in many countries. It was only after the liberation of Vietnam and the triumph of the Iranian revolution in the nineteen seventies that these alliances were disbanded.
Today, the US “pivot towards Asia” and the militarization of Japan are together creating a climate of tension in Asia. US imperialism is also trying to weaken and undercut the influence of Russia, which has come out in opposition to many of America’s aggressive moves in different parts of the globe. The threat of more direct US imperialist intervention in Asia looms like a dagger over the heads of the peoples of this region, who can see very clearly what has happened to the region of the Middle East and North Africa as a result of US-led aggression and intervention.
Today, when the peoples of Asia are commemorating the 70th anniversary of the end of a war that brought so much colossal damage to this region, they must keep in mind the lessons of history. US imperialism is the main source of conflict and tension in the region. To defend the peace and freedom that the peoples of Asia have fought so long and hard for, it is necessary to oppose US imperialism and its presence here tooth and nail.