Taiwan honours 56,000 WWII soldiers killed by Japanese in Myanmar

"the ceremony was the first to mark those killed in Myanmar"

56,000 killed, and why has this been ignored for so long? It seems Asian victims of the Japanese don't get a lot of respect.

Nonsense Jeff, they get plenty of acknowledgement as China and south Korea have been vocal about past decades.

Anyways good to memorialize them. This is Taiwan and there's no ulterior motives against Japan unlike other countries. Taiwan has always helped Japan in time of need.

56,000 soldiers who fought with Japan trying to defend the imperialist England with their 7000 snob soldiers....the reason why? because Myanmar hated the British so much that they aided the Japanese in everyway.

"Nonsense Jeff,"

No, it's not "nonsense." The routine way of reporting the death tolls for the Bataan Death March, the Burma Railway and other such Japanese atrocities is to put the relatively small number of Western deaths first....and then the much higher Asian death toll later, as an afterthought, or to omit them all together. It's a de-facto rule of Western publishing and journalism. I know, because I once worked as an editor.

China lost 15 million in the war, Japan only about 2.5 million. Yet Japan has managed to hijack the prevailing victim hood role in the world's imagination thru its assiduous promotion of Hiroshima.

If someone outside China does bother to elaborate on the Chinese victims' plight, like Iris Chang, they're bullied into submission, or even suicide in her case.

Nonsense Jeff.

Japan hasn't hijacked anything and is hardly assiduously 'promoting' Hiroshima. The citizens of Hiroshima have every right to commemorate what their fore fathers went through in 1945. The notion that Japan is somehow using Hiroshima to portray itself as a 'victim' is nonsense.

Japanese PM's and other politicians have repeatedly acknowledged its role in the suffering of victims of its Imperial war machine.

One of my great-uncles was in Burma working as an engineer on the Burma Road for the US Army. When he came back he barely said anything about it except that it was awful there.

On one of the few occasions when he did talk about what he'd seen, he said that people would just curl up in the doorways at night to sleep on streets and be dead the next day. A little later, flatbed trucks would drive along the streets to pick up the corpses, and the trucks were always piled full of corpses. Starvation was ever present.

Another time he talked about an old woman walking along the side of the road they used to get to their work destination. Every day the US trucks would drive by and soldiers would throw rations down to her. Each day she would be just a little further down the road, until one day she wasn't there anymore.

Burma must have been, as my great-uncle said, an awful place during those years.

Ironic, Chinese rescuing British soldiers after what the British did to the Chinese. I would not have sacrificed one Chinese life to save the British.

"The routine way of reporting the death tolls"

I agree with JeffLee in some respects. The British media and establishment tend to focus on the deaths of Europeans in Japanese prison and labour camps. However, I don't think that same routine is followed in Asia.

I'm still looking forward to a UK Daily Mail headline reading, "British troops saved by Chinese heroes." Fat chance.

Japan's misplaced ambitions over China is what allowed Communism to spread out of the Soviet Union in the first place, you can bet Dr Sun Yat-Sen's dreams for China would've been on track if it weren't for Japan.

Some figures hereunder for your reference:

Chinese soldiers sent to SE asia, majorly Myanmar, to help ally fighting against Japan: nearly 200,000. Total Chinese Nationalist soldiers killed during WWII: 3.3 million, including 200+ generals. Japanese soldiers killed during fighting Chinese: 1.5 million.

It's quite normal Chinese soldiers and ally soldiers help each other because they are ALLY during WWII. One more information: guess how many Communist generals killed during fighting Japanese? The answer is ZERO! Actually they didn't actually fight Japanses, the took the chance to defeated worn out Nationalist to take over China!

Some obvious facts here: The Chinese nationalists troops went to the aid of their British allies to keep their ONLY supply route from the West open. However, they were eventually defeated and the route closed off until the Americans managed to airlift supplies through the air in 1942

First Phase Chinese soldiers fighting Myanmar : Mar- Aug, 1942. ( Chinese + British);

Second Phase Chinese soldiers fighting Myanmar + India : Feb, 1943- Mar 1945. (Chinese + American).

At the time Taiwan belonged to Japan, many Taiwanese soldiers fought with Japanese soldiers, side by side, probably against Chinese Nationalist soldiers in Burma, killed some of them, or got killed by them. Thus those 50,000 killed were mainland Chinese, not Taiwanese.

Quite a history tragedy, everyone suffered for it, also Japanese surrendered/ hurted for what they did, hopefully it won't happen anymore.

In a way WWII was a great event, it helped wipe out almost all murderers, tyrants, dictators, except just a few still existing and thriving. R

Don't forget the Chinese Nationalist soldiers killed thousand of innocent Burmese peoples in during the WWII because Chinese Nationalist soldiers thought Burmese peoples are side with Japanese. Chinese Nationalist soldiers will kill anyone who caught with Japanese military's accessories.

I spoke with old man about during WWII times in Burma.

Burmese peoples were tortured and killed by Japanese kempeitai military police because Burmese Japanese language interpreter accused them as British's informer or spy. They hate and scare Burmese interpreter and they called them as Maggot. Beginning of Japanese invasion was seen as liberator and friend of Burmese by Burmese peoples. Burmese peoples see Japanese soldiers as enemy when they saw Japanese military police Kempeitai treatment on Burmese peoples. Burmese peoples don't understand why Japanese army torture and kill Burmese peoples because they thought Japan was friend of Burma. So they fought Japanese army for independent. Japanese Government had broken promised for to give Burma independent and Burmese peoples were oppressed, tortured and murdered by Japanese Military Police Kempeitai.

Burmese peoples were victim of British Colony, Japanese military and Chinese Nationalist army in during the WWII. They deserved apology from British, Japan and Taiwan Government.

what about the memorial for the 20,000 Native Taiwanese and indigenous population that served died for the Japanese Empire? no? treacherous idea? well too bad, those ppl were drafted or strongly persuaded since it was a colony of Imperial Japan.