Domination of Asia Pacific

Figure 1: Sino-American Conflict in Asia Pacific Eisenhower's speech of Military Industry of the United States: Today Cold War is over but the militarization and tension remain in Asia Pacific. The end of Cold War indeed slowed down the militarization of United States in Asia Pacific but it was quickly followed by the backlash of "Asia Pacific Rebalance Strategy" by Obama's government. "Asia Pacific Rebalance Strategy"[1], on the official website of U.S. Department of Defense, is described as "Defense leaders remain focused on efforts to strengthen relationships and modernize U.S. alliances in the Asia-Pacific region as a priority for 21st-century security interests and sustaining U.S. global leadership."[2] It sounds that the United States keeps its leadership by providing security to its allies in Asia Pacific and therefore it's win-win policy for the United States and its allies in Asia Pacific. However, the security pro...

Vietnam War is probably one of the most well-known warfare by Americans. It's a synonym of pain, tragedy, and reflection of war.   Vietnam War has been widely studied and discussed in the United States. It's not merely a diplomatic event for the United States but also related with Civil Rights movement. This post will not cover too much about historical details or Civil Rights movement since this whole project, "Domination of Aisa Pacific" aims to show some history that's absent in our textbook. Instead, this post will mainly focus on how Vietnamese concern about Vietnam War. In another word, this post focus on the structure of feelings of Vietnamese people. Feelings of Vietnam War has been integrated into Vietnamese Pop Music (VPOP). The song below is called "Cô Gái Mở Đường" and is an example VPOP related with the Communist girl in the age of Vietnam War. I am sorry that there's no English version or subtitle for this song but I managed to...

In this post we now focus on Southeast Asia instead of Korea or Japan. Indonesia became another victim of Cold War in 1965. In 1965, over fifty thousands of Indonesian communists and Chinese Indonesian were killed by Suharto's regime after his military coup. Suharto's military coup and prosecution were supported by Central Intelligence Agency and other western intelligence agencies. [1] Figure 1: General and President Suharto on the cover page of Time  Suharto's military coup successfully overthrew pro-Soviet Sukarno's regime in 1965[2]. Suharto quickly banned communism throughout Indonesia and demonizes communism as a threat to Islam, Catholic Christianity, and Indonesian culture and described himself as a hero protecting Indonesia from communism. Suharto successfully provoked hatred communism phobia of the Islamic and the Catholic group and later on the communism phobia throughout the whole Indonesia archipelago[3]. The hatred eventually developed into...

Have you ever think that a foreign nation occupies Manhattan of New York and tells you that they are protecting your country? Well, that's what happened on Korea after Korean War! First, let's have a look of Yong san (용산구) ) in the map Seoul [1]: Figure 1: Map of Seoul, the red shaded area is Yong san district As we all see, yong san is located in the downtown area of Seoul, the capital city of South Korea republic and yet it's a highly militarized area controlled by the US army.[2] Military bases often have associated infrastructure facilities including bar, shopping malls and brothels. Therefore, when historians use the word "camptown" instead of military base when talking about military deployment of United States in Korea. American camptown serves a similar role as RAA (Recreation of Amusement Associate) in Japan but also has its unique economic and political function. Therefore, US camptown in Korea is an intersectional issue with gender, politics and e...

"Comfort Women" [1] is a word used by Japanese Imperialist to euphemize military rape and prostitution. However, we tend to forget the institutionalized military prostitution by US army after WWII. United States occupied Japan for 6 years after World War II and during the occupation of Japan US army set up Recreation and Amusement Association (RAA) [2] to sexually exploit Japanese Women. The Japanese name of RAA is " 特殊慰安施設協会 ", which can be translated as "Association of special comfort" which is almost an exact copy of "comfort women" and "comfort place", the language used by Japanese Fascists in WWII. Figure 1: A photo of Recreation and Amusement Center: RAA at first plans on recruiting professional Japanese Prostitutes but quickly it was found that after the WWII the number of professional prostitutes could not satisfy the need of American soldiers occupying Japan. The US occupied Japanese government recruited prostitutes fr...

War torn Korean peninsula is another frontier of the tension between communism and capitalism. As e will see, the problem on Korean peninsula is not merely about classes but also intersected with gender and race. Korean War is probably the most bloody confrontation between communism and capitalism in the 20th century. Figure 1:Massive death in the battle of Triangle Hill To build fences against Soviet Union, Kim Il Sung's North Korea and Red China, United States sponsored Syngman Rhee to build up his dictatorship regime in South Korea rather than a democratic country. [1] Rhee's regime was known for its corruption, inefficiency and authoritarianism and there were numerous student and worker protest against Rhee's regime. [2] Kim Il Sung considered Syngman Rhee's regime was reactionary, capitalist and a puppey state built by Americans and decided to unify Korean peninsula on June 25th 1950. Rhee's defense collapsed in the first few hours and managed to ...

United States' foreign policy and military Asia began on 1945, the end of Pacific War. The United States defeated Japan after the nuclear strike on Hiroshima (広島市) and  Nagasaki (長崎市) . Figure 1: Left: Nuclear explosion in Hiroshima, photoed by Necessary Evil or plane #91 which participated the nuclear bombardment, photoed on 08/06/1945. Right: Nuclear Explosion in Nagasaki, photoed by Charles Levy on 08/09/1945 Figure 2: Kishi as a Class A War Criminal in Sugamo prison, photoed in 1946  Tokyo Trial (officially called as "International Military tribunal for the Far East") is not a trial about justice but about interest. Japanese Emperor Hirohito and many fascist military prisoners became free of charge after collaborating with US army. Kishi Nobusuke (岸信介) was the most famous collaborator with US army during Tokyo Trial. Kishi Nobusuke: America's favorite Japanese war criminal and prime minister (1960) Figure 3: Kishi as a prime ministe...

Domination of Asia Pacific "Domination of Asia Pacific" is a culture project that I am working on right now. It describes how gender, race, class and sexuality are involved in the military and diplomatic policies of United States of Asia Pacific area. When discussing those topics, we tend to focus on what happened within our country and forget about what's happening overseas. Today, Asia Pacific is probably the most important area in terms of geopolitics and economy. Generals and officers in pentagon claim that US military force and foreign policy is the cornerstone for the security and economic development of Asia Pacific area. This dominant ideology is partially correct but it cloaks many problems related with US army and policy in Asia Pacific such as racism, heteropatriarchy and capitalism. This project aims at using images, texts and sounds to unveil the another counter-hegemonic side of United States' domination on Asia Pacific. US foreign policies and milita...