War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War

World War II was not only a destructive and brutal war, but it was also a race war to many of its participants. Aside from the tragedy of the Holocaust, extreme racism and hatred existed in the Pacific theater as well. The Americans, for example, while condemning the Nazi theory of Aryan supremacy, established its own racially discriminatory laws like Jim Crow and segregation against the African American population, as well as anti-Chinese immigration laws. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, over 110,000 Japanese-Americans were incarcerated.

The Japanese aggression exposed the racial underpinning of European colonialism by invading predominantly non-independent Asian nations, or nations that were colonial outposts of Western powers. Much of Japanese propaganda aimed at its Asian neighbors addressed the "liberation" of Asia from the yoke of European bondage. Ba Maw, Burma's leader, was an outspoken advocate of Asian solidarity. This dream of Asian unification and solidarity fueled Western racial fears. President Roosevelt even spoke of this fear to a confidant, saying, "1,100,000,000 potential enemies are dangerous" (7). Many Westerners spoke of Japan as a racial menace, and many writers described the war against Japan as "a holy war, a racial war of greater significance than any the world as heretofore seen" (7).