Remembering the Southeast Asian Chinese massacres of 1941-45

Abstract

This article examines a series of wartime massacres (sook chings) conducted at various Southeast Asian sites with a view to teasing out broader lessons about justice, compensation, apology and the uses of memory both on the side of the victims as well as the nation that perpetrated the crimes. Characteristically, the sook chings of Southeast Asia, occurring in ethnically complex societies with mostly Chinese as victims, displayed a planned character of strictly ethnic and political “cleansing” that meets broad definitions of genocide. This article also considers historical memory. Obviously, as with Japanese war crimes in China, the sook chings of Southeast Asia are remembered locally. But also, as in China, remembrance of the sook chings has been modulated by the state, mostly in the interest of good relations and business links with Japan (with some notable exceptions). But, alongside the Nanjing Massacre, much contested in Japanese historiography, the sook ching massacres remain virtually unknown to the Japanese public, and have not become an issue between Japan and the Southeast Asian countries where these events occurred.

Key words:

• Southeast Asia
• Japan
• Genocide Convention
• command responsibility
• justice
• memory

Notes

¹ The quotation comes from the account of Heah Wing Chew, 1942. See Public Record Office, London: CO 273 Great Britain. Colonial Office. Original correspondence between the Colonial Office and the Foreign Office relating to the Straits Settlements and the Federated Malay States, 1838‐1946 (PRO CO 273/669/5074417).

² See the website http://www/nhb.gov.sg/NAS/.

³ From “Attitudes of the local population up to May 1942” (PRO CO 273/669/50744/7).

⁴ See, for example, “Japanese Army starts purge in Singapore,” 4 March 1942 sourced to San Francisco English language broadcast. Document archived by the Japan Center for Historical Research (JACAR), National Archives of Japan (www.jacar.go.jp/asia_en/index_en.html (downloaded 5 February 2006)). JACAR, a searchable online database of Japanese wartime documents, is, in turn, a laudable initiative conceived in August 1994 by former Japanese Prime Minister Murayama Tomiichi “for squarely facing past history.”

⁵ See Australian War Memorial website (http://www.awm.au.gov/).

⁶ NAA A1838 3024/11/89, Part 1, P. J. Curtis to Department External Affairs, Canberra, 4 October 1963.