Wartime Atrocities and the Politics of Treason in the Ruins of the Japanese Empire, 1937-1953 The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Lawson, Konrad. 2012. Wartime Atrocities and the Politics of Treason in the Ruins of the Japanese Empire, 1937-1953. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:9795484 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA © 2012 – Konrad Mitchell Lawson Some Rights Reserved This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ iii Dissertation Advisor: Professor Andrew Gordon Konrad Mitchell Lawson Wartime Atrocities and the Politics of Treason in the Ruins of the Japanese Empire, 1937-1953 ABSTRACT This dissertation explores the relationship between violence and betrayal in retribution against military and police collaborators who helped maintain Japan’s wartime occupations up until its defeat in 1945. Looking at the approaches taken in the colonies of British Asia, postwar treason trials in the Philippines, and Chinese Communist approaches in wartime and postwar Shandong province, this study argues that the laws and rhetoric of treason were deeply flawed tools for confronting the atrocities of war. At the very moment that war crimes trials were defining a set of acts that constituted crimes against all humanity, around the world thousands of individuals who helped perpetrate them were treated as primarily guilty of crimes against the nation. Each of the chapters in this work examines the costs and consequences of this for postwar societies on the eve of decolonization and civil war. Throughout the territories under Japanese occupation, locally recruited military and police forces comprised the largest category of individuals to face accusations of treason in the aftermath of war, but were also those most likely to be complicit in atrocities. Among the ranks of the disloyal, they were both the most useful as well as the most dangerous to postwar regimes and almost always separated out from other accused collaborators. Their treason was often treated as a disease of the heart which, once cured, allowed them to be deployed once more. Attempts to try them for their betrayal often faced destabilizing political opposition, especially in cases where their wartime actions were carried out in the name of independence from colonial rule, and were almost always reduced in scale to focus on those accused both of treason and atrocities. Marred by the politics of betrayal, the resulting hybrid proceedings failed to achieve a reckoning with wartime massacres and torture. CONTENTS Acknowledgments v Notes and Abbreviations viii Introduction 1 Chapter 1: Collaboration, Treason, and War Crimes 15 Part I: Renegade Politics and Retribution in the British Empire Interlude 43 Chapter 2: Indian Renegades: From Patients to Prisoners, 1943-1946 46 Chapter 3: British Renegades Beyond the Subcontinent 95 Chapter 4: Confronting Treason and Atrocities in Burma, 1944-1946 128 Part II: Trying Atrocity as Treason in the Philippines Interlude 166 Chapter 5: Military Collaboration and the 1948 Amnesty 170 Chapter 6: Trials and Aftermath, 1947-1953 210 Part III: Winning Over Puppets and Reforming Traitors Interlude 271 Chapter 7: Winning Over the Puppet Armies of Shandong, 1937-1947 278 Epilogue: The Rise of Transitional Justice and the Long Decline of Treason 346 Maps and Appendixes Maps 1. The Philippines: Places Mentioned 360 2. The Philippines: Treason Cases by Province 361 3. Shandong Province, China, 1945 362 Appendixes A. The Philippine Amnesty Proclamation of 1948 363 B. Philippine Supreme Court Rulings on Treason Cases 1947-1954 366 C. List of Shandong ‘Puppet Armies’ Active in August, 1945 371 Bibliography 374 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Footnotes and bibliographies rarely reveal the most important intellectual debts and inspirations of a student. This moment of transition is a good time to reflect upon them and express my gratitude. My deep thanks to my parents, who never failed to encourage me in my studies, and supported me through years of study in far off lands. Thanks to my uncle Thomas Nilsen who, from a small white house in Norway, opened a window for me onto Asia. For first introducing me to his craft, I must thank the remarkable historian Gunnar Skadberg who, in his own white house on the fjord just down the hill, shared with me his many adventures into the past. Without the encouragement of my Chinese and Japanese language professors Kathleen Tomlonovic and Robert Campbell at Western Washington University, I would likely never have considered graduate school. I can trace the final decision to pursue a PhD in history to a single moment in 2001 while doing an almost practical masters degree in International Affairs at Columbia University. With her usual passion, Carol Gluck was explaining the role of historians in society, adding that they must be driven by, “big questions, deep empiricism, and fire in the belly.” I thank her for that, and for occasionally reminding me that the nation-state is not dead yet. At Columbia I must also thank Jai Kasturi, a truly remarkable intellectual who opened up many a world of ideas to me, as well as Sutaitai (C. P. Sobelman) for encouraging me to explore new ways of employing technology in teaching and learning. I began my graduate study of history with a strong interest in the history of Sino-Japanese interactions. My thanks to both Josh Fogel and Hirano Kenichiro, my advisor during my time at Waseda University as a Ministry of Education research student, for encouraging me in these studies. Hirano-sensei taught me many things, but more than his broad and deep knowledge I was constantly impressed at his leadership, his humility, and as a teacher, his remarkable ability to gently guide his vi seminar students to the seeming self-discovery of shortcomings in our arguments. Having found them, he would then always offer a few ways forward. In Japan, where I spent most of my time studying China and Taiwan, much of my free time was in the company of the inspiring Korean students around me. My interest in Korea grew much as a result, especially thanks to the friendship of my fellow student of Sino-Japanese relations Lim Jaehwan and Japan historian Kim Youngsoo. Moving to Harvard for the PhD, I could not have asked for a better advisor than Andrew Gordon. He never wavered in his support and has perfectly mastered that rare balance between allowing graduate students to explore and grow on the one hand, and guiding us gently towards completion on the other. Generous with his time, fair in his critique, and always constructive in his advice, it has been a true honor to be counted among his students. I am also deeply grateful to Henrietta Harrison, Charles Maier, and Carter Eckert for their guidance. I think Henrietta Harrison was probably right when she made a passing suggestion long ago: this project would have been a lot less overwhelming if I had just found myself a nice Chinese village or two to focus my study of the politics of retribution. Maybe next time. My research in China, Taiwan, and Korea was generously supported by an SSRC International Dissertation Research Fellowship, a Fulbright IIE grant, and summer grants of the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies and the Asia Center. The librarians and staff at the Harvard-Yenching Library were extremely helpful and I look forward to seeing them on many future visits. My materials from Korea and Taiwan will feature in a manuscript based on this dissertation and other projects in incubation, but here I want to thank those who helped me do the research that will make it possible. In Taipei, I owe much to the friendship and support of Lin Yung-chung, Daphné Liu, Samantha Wu, David Toman, Shadow Chen, Huang Yao Hsien, Jimmy Haver, Hardina Ohlendorf, Lin Chia-ying, and Vanessa Yang. In Seoul, I must thank Baek Young-seo and the vii Institute For Korean Studies at Yonsei University for hosting my research year there. Thanks also to Lee Sunkyoung for always being able to tell me exactly where and how to get pretty much anything done, and to the four language partners who also became dear friends, Hong Sookyeong, Lee Changnam, Park Sunyoung, and Yi Sangwook. Xu Chang at the School of History and Culture at Shandong University made my research in Jinan possible, and his student Cao Yuanqiang was incredibly helpful in helping me find materials. Arne Brasseur and his band of merry adventurers kept me sane. Thanks to the archivists and staff of the Shandong Provincial Archive who put up with my endless requests for documents. My friends and fellow students made almost every moment of this process a pleasure. Almost every memory of my first few years in the PhD program features my fellow musketeers Craig Colbeck and Nick Kapur. They were wonderful companions. Fabian Drixler has also been a truly wonderful mentor and friend. I learnt so much from our long conversations. Brendan Karch helped me develop as a teacher, writer, and a semi-civilized social animal. Thanks to Denise Ho for all the treason tidbits, and to Josh Hill, Pär Cassel, Matsutani Motokazu, and Danny Orbach for everything you taught me. Also, everyone should have a Jeremy Yellen around: thank you for your energy, your stories, and I look forward to our future collaborations.