Defense News

(Written by Reporter Lin, Ching-Chieh from Military News Agency, Taoyuan, July 23rd)
National Defense University held “War and Peace-Conference Commemorating the 70th Anniversary of Victory in the War of Resistance Against Japan” today. In addition to domestic experts and scholars, the Conference also invited British Dr. Robert Ryman, Japanese Dr. Takita Kenji and Dr. Jie Jun from Canada to present their discourse on history of the War of Resistance Against Japan as well as interpret and position R.O.C. in the War of Resistance Against Japan from the international perspectives.
In the Conference, British Dr. Robert Ryman from The Royal Historical Society presented his discourse on “Collision of World: Exploring Military Experiences of the UK, U.S., and R.O.C. in the First Burma Campaign from January to May 1942 from the Western Perspective”. He stated that the Japanese army invaded Southeast Asia and declared a war against the UK and British Armed Forces, which caused the UK to ally with R.O.C. in 1941. The U.S. officially joined the alliance after the Pearl Harbor Incident. Since then, the result of WWII was fundamentally determined.
Dr. Robert Ryman pointed out that R.O.C., U.S. and UK gradually formed a specific and mutually supportive alliance when facing military threats from Japan. Especially, Nationalist government fought fearlessly against the Japanese army with advanced equipment in the battlefield of Myanmar and actively helped British and American allies complete the strategic goal. Such close interaction represented the military and political cooperation among three countries and laid a foundation of future victory.
Dr. Takita Kenji from Chuo University presented the paper of “Japan’s Policy toward China during Sino-Japan War in the context of Asia-pacific War” and emphasized that “Mukden Incident” paved the way for initiating a war of ethnocentrism against the U.S. and the UK. The Incident allowed the Japanese army stationed at Manchu to become legalized and accelerated the pace of war against Mainland China.
Dr. Takita Kenji thought that after the U.S. imposed an economic sanction against Japan, the Japanese army adopted “Imperial National Policy Implementation Guideline” , and raid Pearl Harbor on December 8, 1941, leading to Pacific War. This allowed East Asia to get involved in the war in Europe. In this phase, WWI began substantially and the opportunity for the national government of R.O.C. to cooperate with the UK and the U.S. was thus created, which ultimately led to Japan’s failure in strategies and unconditional surrender.
Dr. Jie Jun from University of Waterloo, Canada comprehensively inferred the process of the national government’s resistance against Japan and explained the sacrifice and contribution of our soldiers and civilians based on the strict chemical logical thinking when presenting the paper.
Dr. Jie Jun pointed out that due to the geographic location, politics, and complex international relations as well as conflicted and contradicted personality among leaders of higher ranks, R.O.C Air Forces faced more difficult situations both in and out of battlefields than other wars in China-Burma-India (CBI) during WWII. However, based on the cooperative principle of anti-aggression, Chinese Nationalist General Sun, Li-Jen and other generals led the Air Forces to CBI. The Air Forces not only rescued the American and British allies successfully, but also deterred the militarism of the Japanese army effectively. Such deed won a world-wide acclaim and contributed to the later victory.