In recent Asian history (lets say the last 2,000 years?) would Japan’s abhorant actions during WWII be considered as the most barbaric within the region.
Using Japan as the marker, have there been other colonial expansions/ invasions equally or more brutal?
I guess this would mean destruction of nations/ culture/ property/murder/rape and ethnic cleansing. This would not include political slaughter ordered by a dictator (I am thinking of Stalin on this one).
Wikpedia link doesn’t work but I’m assuming you mean east asia.
Gengis Khan and his decendants were the most brutal of all, but basically didn’t touch SE Asia, so not sure if that counts. It was also long before the modern age.
In modern times, only Japan has militarily invaded all of East Asia (Korea, China, HK, Malaysia, Burma, Indonesia, IndoChina, Singapore, etc). Japan had well documented and systemically brutal rule that targeted civilians and/or collateral damage that resulted in mass civilian starvation in the later years of WW2.
China has a brutal history in Manchuria, Mongolia, Tibet and Xinjiang, but again nothing really in SE Asia. Exception was the 1979 border wars with Viet Nam and various border skirmishes with India.
All of the Western colonialists such as the US (Philippines), Holland (Indonesia), Britan (Malaysia, Burma, India, china), French (IndoChina, China), Germans (China and ??) had some brutality. That said, nothing that comes close to the Japanese record.
One should also compare the good versus evil. What was the positive side of the Japanese equation? The Western colonialists on the plus side very broadly speaking at least established legal and political systems, and generally reduced the tribal warfare and often despotic brutality by the original rulers.
Maybe Tammerlane can weigh in here as the SDMB Mongolian authority.
Search for Mongolian Empire Map and get links like this. Although it seems like the Mongols did some raiding into SE Asia as one can see from a map on this link
IIRC and the above links would bear out that SE Asia was not part of the Mongolian empire.
Actually CG, my original link that you were not able to see showed the map of Asia…the continent, including Russia, Arabia, and India etc. I know its a broad area, but still…
This map http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/core9/phalsall/images/mongmap.jpg
shows Vietnam within the Mongol Empire. I think that’s what I was thinking of. It’s shown in a different color from China. I don’t know if that’s to show it was another province of the empire, or a vassal state. Southern Vietnam is not shown under Mongol control on this map, because the Cham fought them and kept them out.