A Perspective on Pearl Harbor 81 Years Later

[lundbaek]

I'd like to share with a few people a couple of things that years ago helped convince me that the Japanese success in their successful attacks on Pearl Harbor and other U.S. military installations on Hawaii were facilitated by a carefully concealed conspiracy.

A published statement by WW2 Admiral William Halsey, who was serving under Admiral Kimmel as one of three senior commanders of the Pacific Fleet on 12/07/41:
"I did not know then of any of the pertinent Magic Messages …the mass of evidence made available to us pointed in another direction…Had we known of Japan's minute and continued interest in the exact location and movement of our ships in Pearl Harbor, as indicated in the Magic Messages , it is only logical that we would have concentrated our thought on meeting the practical certainty of an attack on Pearl Harbor…I have always considered Admiral Kimmel and General Short to be splendid officers who were thrown to the wolves as scapegoats for something over which they had no control." and "I did not feel that we were well informed on what the Japs were doing and I felt we were operating in the dark. I had the personal feeling, entirely personal, that they knew a lot more in Washington than we knew out there and that we should have been informed....I recall vaguely discussions along that line and damning them for not letting us in on the information." (My source: "The Final Secret or Pearl Harbor" by Rear Admiral Robert Theobald, who retired to Marblehead, Massachusetts, a town just a few miles from my home town)

In that connection with the above, I'd like to tell of a most interesting conversation I had over 21 years ago with a Mrs. Marie Briggs, who was living in Henderson, Nevada. I had sought her out because I had earlier learned that at about 8 a.m. on December 4th, 1941, her late husband, Ralph Briggs, then a senior radio operator at a US Navy shortwave monitoring station in Cheltenham, Maryland, heard a message he had been ordered to listen for. The words of the message were “East Wind - Rain”. Briggs immediately teletyped the message to Washington, D.C. in duplicate. He, alone among the radio operators at Cheltenham, knew what the three words meant. “East Wind, Rain" was one of three possible execute messages which Japanese diplomats around the world had been alerted to begin listening for on November 19th. They were told to monitor the regular news and weather broadcasts from Tokyo, just as they always did, but to pay especially careful attention to the phraseology employed to describe the weather.

If they heard the words North Wind, Cloudy, it meant Japan was going to war with the Soviet Union.
If they heard the words West Wind, Clear, it meant Japan was going to war with the British Empire.
And if they heard the words East Wind, Rain, it meant Japan was going to war with the United States.

During my conversation with Mrs. Briggs in 2001, she told me that near or after the end of WW2, her husband was ordered by a superior officer not to discuss his role in the incident. Only years later, after retiring from the U.S. Navy and from civilian employment with the Navy, did he write an affidavit testifying to the above, which his second wife showed to me in 2001. She told me that because his first wife was blind and needed a seeing-eye dog and the medical/health insurance the Navy provided, he dared not violate his orders to keep quiet about the "East Wind, Rain" message. His first wife died in later years, but his second wife supported his decision to write the affidavit after he retired from the Navy and later from civilian employment with the Navy.

The Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552, is a federal freedom of information law that requires the full or partial disclosure of previously unreleased information and documents controlled by the United States government upon request. Thanks to the Freedom of Information Act, a detailed 8-point plan referred to as “Lieutenant Commander Arthur McCollum’s Memorandum of October 7, 1940 ", was made public, (although not yet ever publicized by the mainstream media). This "plan" spelled out 8 specific actions to provoke Japan into attacking the United States. Every one of the recommended actions was taken by the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Lieutenant Commander had spent several years before WW2 in Japan as a naval attaché. He recommended the following course of action:
A. Make an arrangement with Britain for the use of British bases in the Pacific, particularly Singapore,

B. Make an arrangement with Holland for the use of base facilities and acquisition of supplies in the Dutch East Indies,

C. Give all possible aid to the Chinese Government of Chaing-Kai-Shek,

D. Send a division of long-range heavy bombers to the Orient, Philippines, or Singapore,

E. Send two divisions of submarines to the Orient,

F. Keep the main strength of the U.S. Fleet in the Pacific in the vicinity of the Hawaiian Islands,

G. Insist that the Dutch refuse to grant Japanese demands for undue economic concessions, Part 1-cularly oil,

H. Completely embargo all U.S. trade with Japan, in collaboration with a similar embargo imposed by the British Empire.

Commander McCollum concluded with "If by these means Japan could be led to commit an overt act of war, so much the better."

Lieutenant Commander Arthur McCollum's proposed eight actions, designed to provoke Japan into an overt act of war, were found in Box 6 of a special U.S. Navy collection in RG 38 in the Military Reference Branch of Archives II, January 24, 1993, by Robert B. Stinnett, who include a copy on Page 275 of his book "Day of Deceit - The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor".

I feel it is important that Americans become aware of this and earlier and subsequent treasonous actions by people who were in positions of trust from which they egregiously violated their oaths of office and sworn duties, and engaged in unpatriotic activities with the view of undermining and destroying our constitutional republican form of government.

[EmmaLee]

Christian Gomez interviews William F. Jasper, Senior Editor of The New American, to discuss the communist agent who precipitated the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and subsequently caused global economic havoc.

14-minute video on the attack - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPIhqJ66Xv4

~~~

Worth the read -

Full article here - https://thenewamerican.com/the-communis ... fc7fadfbd4

The Communist Agent Who Caused Pearl Harbor — and Global Economic Havoc

by William F. Jasper December 11, 2013

“More than seven decades ago, on a calm Sunday morning, our Nation was attacked without warning or provocation…. On National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, we honor the men and women who selflessly sacrificed for our country, and we show our enduring gratitude to all who fought to defend freedom against the forces of tyranny and oppression in the Second World War.”

— President Barack Obama, National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day Proclamation, December 07, 2013

President Obama’s Pearl Harbor remembrance proclamation is little different from those of his White House predecessors. Today, however, a great deal more is known than was known in previous years about the secret maneuverings and treasonous activities at the top levels of the Roosevelt administration that caused the Japanese attack on our naval forces at Pearl. Documents released from the decoded Venona Files, from the Soviet KGB archives, from our own National Archives, and memoirs of Soviet officials now confirm what noted anti-communist writers, Congressional investigations, Communist Party defectors, and FBI documents had stated for decades: Harry Dexter White (shown), assistant secretary of the treasury in the administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was a top Soviet spy and agent of influence who not only caused incalculable harm to the United States, but also materially assisted Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin’s spreading of terror and tyranny throughout the entire world.

Harry Dexter White, a top advisor to Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Jr. and President Franklin Roosevelt, is remembered chiefly as the architect of the Bretton Woods Conference that created the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, but he also played a key role in bringing about the “Day of Infamy,” by doing everything within his power to scuttle the peace efforts of the forces within the Japanese government that were striving to avoid war with the United States. White authored an ultimatum adopted as official policy by FDR that upped the ante of belligerent acts Roosevelt was directing at Japan.

White’s plan was calculated to inflame public opinion in Japan and undermine Emperor Hirohito and Prime Minister Prince Fumimaro Konoye, both of whom favored peace with the U.S. It was also aimed at guaranteeing the rise to power of Japan’s political forces that were beating the drums for war. This is precisely — and predictably — what happened. However, White did not undertake this move on his own initiative, it is important to note, but as a directive of the NKVD (an earlier name for the Soviet KGB). His Kremlin bosses were most anxious for assurance that Japan would not attack the Soviet Union; they thus expended great efforts through their spy and propaganda networks in Japan, Europe, and the United States to ensure that Japan would strike America, rather than the U.S.S.R.
~~~
That White was the author of the key ultimatum demands is beyond dispute. That the Japanese government made the decision to move forward with the Pearl Harbor strike after receiving the ultimatum is also beyond dispute.

Steil notes that “the Soviets, American allies in the European war, were anxious to ensure that such an attack did take place.” He quotes Soviet spymaster Vladimir Karpov in this regard:

“The war in the Pacific could have been avoided,” wrote retired GRU military intelligence colonel and World War II “Hero of the Soviet Union” Vladimir Karpov in 2000, nearly sixty years after Pearl Harbor. “Stalin was the real initiator of the ultimatum to Japan,” he insisted.
~~~
White’s infamous role in provoking the attack on Pearl Harbor is told in gripping detail in Operation Snow: How a Soviet Mole in FDR’s White House Triggered Pearl Harbor by military historian John Koster (published by Regnery History, September, 2012) sans the moral equivocation of Steil.

The Steil/CFR admissions concerning White’s treason on behalf of Stalin’s Russia don’t signal any truth-telling trend from the disinformation artists at the Pratt House brain trust. Rather, they have merely adopted a new fallback position dictated by circumstances. They are sophisticated enough to realize that with all of the corroborating evidence that has surfaced in recent years, they risk losing all credibility by sticking to the Boughton/Craig denialist position, which has been the main position of the CFR thought cartel for the past six decades. Back when it mattered most, in the 1940s and ’50s, when courageous civil servants, diplomats, military personnel, elected officials, and private citizens heroically fought to expose the Communist operatives in our government, the leading lights of the CFR did all within their considerable powers to squash any real investigations and exposure. Soviet agents such as Whittaker Chambers, Elizabeth Bentley, and Louis Budenz, who had defected from the Communist conspiracy and testified against their former comrades, were smeared far more effectively by the CFR-dominated press than by the communist press. Ditto for leading senators of the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee and the congressmen of the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

Now, at the safe remove of seven decades, the CFR has decided it can afford to acknowledge (partially) what it previously strove mightily to deny, cover up, suppress, and discredit, especially since it can now put its own spin on the perfidy. Soviet agent Alger Hiss, the top State Department adviser, is the most notorious of the Communist moles that were imbedded in the federal government. The lesser-known White, arguably, was more important than Hiss. Whittaker Chambers hinted at this in a December 29, 1953 article for Look magazine. “Harry Dexter White’s role as a Soviet agent,” Chambers wrote, “was second in importance only to that of Alger Hiss — if indeed it was second.”

The evidence that has come out since that time indicates that White was certainly of equal, if not greater importance, than Hiss. Of course, FDR’s advisor, friend, and confidante Harry Hopkins — another Soviet agent — is also in the running with them for most important traitor.

What Steil and his CFR colleagues are not in a hurry to bring up are the uncomfortable connections between their organization and the Soviet network of which Hiss, White, and Hopkins were prime exemplars. In addition to Hiss, Soviet agents Laughlin Currie (an FDR White House economic adviser) and Laurence Duggan (at the State Department) were CFR members. Far more important as an indictment of the CFR than the fact that their membership includes some very notorious traitors is the role played over the years by key CFR luminaries to aid and abet the traitors and to stop all efforts to expose them.

In addition to his perfidy in helping bring about the Pearl Harbor attack, White was also responsible for carrying out the following acts of treason to aid Stalin’s Communist regime:

— White was the primary author of what became known as the “Morgenthau Plan” to strip a defeated Germany of all industry and transform it into an agricultural society. The plan was leaked by Treasury (most likely by White) and was used by Nazi Germany to stiffen resistance of the German people and armed forces on the Western front. This undoubtedly prolonged the war and contributed more casualties to American and Allied forces, while also making many Germans more sympathetic to the Soviets.

— White brought other Communist agents into the U.S. government, got them promotions, and repeatedly scuttled investigative efforts and attempts to expose and remove them.

— White provided the Russians with the actual printing plates, colored inks, varnish, tint blocks and special paper to enable them to counterfeit the Allied occupational currency for Germany, allowing them to flood the country with currency that U.S. taxpayers were forced to redeem.

— Through the infamous Lend-Lease program, White helped facilitate the transfer of billions of dollars in aid to Stalin.

— When Stalin requested a $6-billion loan in January of 1945 White upped it to $10 billion, and at better terms. Russia’s request had been that it be for 30 years at an annual interest rate of 2.25 percent. White proposed the larger sum with a more generous 35-year payment period at only two percent. Plus, he proposed that the U.S. grant an additional $1 billion at no interest.

— While providing the Communists with every possible assistance, White was doing everything possible to cut off aid that had been appropriated by Congress to assist our ally Chiang Kai-shek’s anti-communist government in China. White was a key operative in treachery that pushed China into Communist hands.

— As the chief architect of the 1944 Bretton Woods monetary conference, he designed the IMF and World Bank, the economic instruments that have been used to destroy national sovereignty, encourage global inflation, and wreak monetary havoc. White was appointed American director of the IMF and his co-conspirator in the Silvermaster spy cell, Virginius Frank Coe, was named secretary of the IMF.

— In 1945 White joined Alger Hiss in San Francisco for the founding of the United Nations. Hiss was in charge as the secretary of the conference. Other Soviet agents whom he had named as American delegates included Noel Field, Harold Glasser, Irving Kaplan, Nathan Gregory Silvermaster, Victor Perlo, and Henry Julian Wadleigh. Decoded Venona messages show that while in San Francisco White transferred information to Vladimir Pravdin, a KGB officer who was posing as a correspondent for the Soviet news agency TASS.

In the coming year, 2014, as the IMF and World Bank celebrate their 70th anniversary, it will be important to remember their paternity. The ghosts of Harry Dexter White and his fellow conspirators who fashioned these institutions and the post-war global monetary system continue to haunt us, threatening the financial stability, prosperity, and liberty of every nation and person on this planet. As the articles listed below from The New American demonstrate, the Council on Foreign Relations continues to push for transforming the IMF with vast new powers, something Harry Dexter White, no doubt, would heartily approve of.

[EmmaLee]

This is long, and quite comprehensive. Definitely worth a read, IMO.

Full article here - https://thenewamerican.com/pearl-harbor ... fc7fadfbd4

Pearl Harbor: Hawaii Was Surprised; FDR Was Not

by James Perloff December 7, 2022

Comprehensive research has shown not only that Washington knew in advance of the attack on Pearl Harbor, but that it deliberately withheld its foreknowledge from our commanders in Hawaii in the hope that the “surprise” attack would catapult the U.S. into World War II.

[Letfreedumbring]

Never let a good crisis go to waste as they say but I guess if a crisis doesn't present itself never let the absence of a crisis get in the way of your plans.

[Craig Johnson]

I'd like to share with a few people a couple of things that years ago helped convince me that the Japanese success in their successful attacks on Pearl Harbor and other U.S. military installations on Hawaii were facilitated by a carefully concealed conspiracy.

A published statement by WW2 Admiral William Halsey, who was serving under Admiral Kimmel as one of three senior commanders of the Pacific Fleet on 12/07/41:
"I did not know then of any of the pertinent Magic Messages …the mass of evidence made available to us pointed in another direction…Had we known of Japan's minute and continued interest in the exact location and movement of our ships in Pearl Harbor, as indicated in the Magic Messages , it is only logical that we would have concentrated our thought on meeting the practical certainty of an attack on Pearl Harbor…I have always considered Admiral Kimmel and General Short to be splendid officers who were thrown to the wolves as scapegoats for something over which they had no control." and "I did not feel that we were well informed on what the Japs were doing and I felt we were operating in the dark. I had the personal feeling, entirely personal, that they knew a lot more in Washington than we knew out there and that we should have been informed....I recall vaguely discussions along that line and damning them for not letting us in on the information." (My source: "The Final Secret or Pearl Harbor" by Rear Admiral Robert Theobald, who retired to Marblehead, Massachusetts, a town just a few miles from my home town)

In that connection with the above, I'd like to tell of a most interesting conversation I had over 21 years ago with a Mrs. Marie Briggs, who was living in Henderson, Nevada. I had sought her out because I had earlier learned that at about 8 a.m. on December 4th, 1941, her late husband, Ralph Briggs, then a senior radio operator at a US Navy shortwave monitoring station in Cheltenham, Maryland, heard a message he had been ordered to listen for. The words of the message were “East Wind - Rain”. Briggs immediately teletyped the message to Washington, D.C. in duplicate. He, alone among the radio operators at Cheltenham, knew what the three words meant. “East Wind, Rain" was one of three possible execute messages which Japanese diplomats around the world had been alerted to begin listening for on November 19th. They were told to monitor the regular news and weather broadcasts from Tokyo, just as they always did, but to pay especially careful attention to the phraseology employed to describe the weather.

If they heard the words North Wind, Cloudy, it meant Japan was going to war with the Soviet Union.
If they heard the words West Wind, Clear, it meant Japan was going to war with the British Empire.
And if they heard the words East Wind, Rain, it meant Japan was going to war with the United States.

During my conversation with Mrs. Briggs in 2001, she told me that near or after the end of WW2, her husband was ordered by a superior officer not to discuss his role in the incident. Only years later, after retiring from the U.S. Navy and from civilian employment with the Navy, did he write an affidavit testifying to the above, which his second wife showed to me in 2001. She told me that because his first wife was blind and needed a seeing-eye dog and the medical/health insurance the Navy provided, he dared not violate his orders to keep quiet about the "East Wind, Rain" message. His first wife died in later years, but his second wife supported his decision to write the affidavit after he retired from the Navy and later from civilian employment with the Navy.

The Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552, is a federal freedom of information law that requires the full or partial disclosure of previously unreleased information and documents controlled by the United States government upon request. Thanks to the Freedom of Information Act, a detailed 8-point plan referred to as “Lieutenant Commander Arthur McCollum’s Memorandum of October 7, 1940 ", was made public, (although not yet ever publicized by the mainstream media). This "plan" spelled out 8 specific actions to provoke Japan into attacking the United States. Every one of the recommended actions was taken by the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Lieutenant Commander had spent several years before WW2 in Japan as a naval attaché. He recommended the following course of action:
A. Make an arrangement with Britain for the use of British bases in the Pacific, particularly Singapore,

B. Make an arrangement with Holland for the use of base facilities and acquisition of supplies in the Dutch East Indies,

C. Give all possible aid to the Chinese Government of Chaing-Kai-Shek,

D. Send a division of long-range heavy bombers to the Orient, Philippines, or Singapore,

E. Send two divisions of submarines to the Orient,

F. Keep the main strength of the U.S. Fleet in the Pacific in the vicinity of the Hawaiian Islands,

G. Insist that the Dutch refuse to grant Japanese demands for undue economic concessions, Part 1-cularly oil,

H. Completely embargo all U.S. trade with Japan, in collaboration with a similar embargo imposed by the British Empire.

Commander McCollum concluded with "If by these means Japan could be led to commit an overt act of war, so much the better."

Lieutenant Commander Arthur McCollum's proposed eight actions, designed to provoke Japan into an overt act of war, were found in Box 6 of a special U.S. Navy collection in RG 38 in the Military Reference Branch of Archives II, January 24, 1993, by Robert B. Stinnett, who include a copy on Page 275 of his book "Day of Deceit - The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor".

I feel it is important that Americans become aware of this and earlier and subsequent treasonous actions by people who were in positions of trust from which they egregiously violated their oaths of office and sworn duties, and engaged in unpatriotic activities with the view of undermining and destroying our constitutional republican form of government.

I took this picture several years ago in my Navy.

img046 (2).jpg (273.34 KiB) Viewed 363 times

[HeberC]

Secret combinations have been jerking us around for a long time. There are many layers in the onion.

My stepfather was on a patrol boat in Guam on Dec. 7, 1941. It was across the International Date line, so it was Dec. 8 when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. He was captured that day, by the Japanese. He was sent to Zentsuji POW camp in Japan. The official records show that only two died in captivity but Jack said many died. They were never fed once. A Jesuit priest collected seaweed and made a soup for the prisoners and that is the only thing they ate for the entire war, except for an occasional stolen pocketful of rice or a rat, if they were lucky.
Jack learned Japanese under extremely painful and brutal conditions of torture.
When my mother started dating Jack, he told her that the FBI had a file on her. My mother has never even had a parking ticket. She asked him why they had a file and he, apparently, didn't know but he said the FBI got the file from the KGB. So, there is another layer to the onion... the cold war was another con.
Anyway, the FBI used Jack as a 'consultant'. They flew him all over California to extract confessions from suspects. He bragged to me that he could get anyone to talk without leaving a mark on them.
One day, I found some evidence that Jack brought home. He probably shouldn't have had it. It was a shoebox full of several hundred photos of babies that had been beaten and starved to death. Jack was one of the few that had the stomach for torture. He was strong, tough and fearless. I never met anyone who wasn't afraid of him. He was a martial artist, an MP, a detective and bodyguard. He was scary when he was sober but when he was drunk, he became possessed.
So there is another level to the onion... police corruption. The pressure that is put on officers is great. The. pressure comes from different sources but it is applied until enough fear causes officers to "go along". Well, Jack was one who didn't go along. His level of PTSD was off the chart. There are a few things that he would not tolerate... illegal drugs, child abuse and crooked cops. Truthfully, I would rather have police corruption than 'hero' Jack. I couldn't protect my mother from him.

[TheDuke]

I have heard several times that FDR wanted to get at the war and set up Pearl for a first strike, likely not intended to be a surprise but a first strike to get US in the war and do it far from our own coast. It does seem like things intentionally or accidentally came together.

[Niemand]

The words of the message were “East Wind - Rain”. Briggs immediately teletyped the message to Washington, D.C. in duplicate. He, alone among the radio operators at Cheltenham, knew what the three words meant. “East Wind, Rain" was one of three possible execute messages which Japanese diplomats around the world had been alerted to begin listening for on November 19th. They were told to monitor the regular news and weather broadcasts from Tokyo, just as they always did, but to pay especially careful attention to the phraseology employed to describe the weather.

If they heard the words North Wind, Cloudy, it meant Japan was going to war with the Soviet Union.
If they heard the words West Wind, Clear, it meant Japan was going to war with the British Empire.
And if they heard the words East Wind, Rain, it meant Japan was going to war with the United States.

Interesting that the quotes above fail to recognise that:

* The Japanese had ALREADY gone to war against the Soviet Union in the 1930s, and LOST. (Partly where Marshall Zhukov earned his stripes) This experience is what deterred the Japanese heading north. The Japanese could probably have taken or surrounded the major cities in the Soviet Far East such as Vladivostok and Khabarovsk, but may have faced a Stalingrad scenario and would have had to use massive supply lines in harsh conditions to attack the remote interior of Siberia. (For obvious reasons, Japan was mostly a naval power.) Unlike Germany, Japan was poor at using non-Japanese support against the Bolsheviks.

* The Japanese DID go to war against the British Empire. It is dishonest to claim otherwise. If you expand overland through China, British Hong Kong is the next obvious step and the Japanese had already threatened western concessions in Shanghai, and unlike the USA the British Empire was fully at war. The Japanese took Hong Kong, Malaya, Singapore and treaty Borneo. I myself met one or two British colonials who had spent time in Japanese camps as a child. Japan was ALREADY going to war with the British Empire around the time of Pearl Harbour. Japan mounted attacks on Australia, Papua New Guinea, Burma and India as well... all within the British orbit.

So east wind, north wind, west wind... all of these were done in some way.

East Asians often make the very reasonable claim that WW2 started in the mid to late thirties with the Japanese attacks on China... which predate even the invasion of Poland in 1939 (which is when most Europeans consider WW2 to have begun.) It was not exactly a secret that Japan was friendly to the Axis in 1939 and 1940 either.

Japan's main grievance with the USA at the time was that it was already actively supporting the British Empire and European Allies at the time of Pearl Harbour. US federal lend lease began in March of 1941 around eight months before that event in early December of the same year. If the USA was wishing to telegraph hostile intentions it had already done so.

The USA did wish to use the war help undermine the European powers, but there was a great deal of sympathy to the British Empire in some quarters due to obvious commonalities including certain values and a common language.

So yes, the quotes above are very US-centric, but most powers wanted the US on their side, because of its strong economy and resources.

[Niemand]

I should probably mention the other powers involved. Britain was NOT the only European empire in the far east.

Firstly, Portugal, which controlled Macau near Hong Kong. They were of little account, and Portugal remained NEUTRAL during the war. Nonetheless Macau rapidlu filled up with refugees and Japan could have taken it more easily than almost anywhere else.
https://macaulifestyle.com/culture/heri ... world-war/

Secondly, the French. They controlled huge swathes of Indo-China including what later became Vietnam. France was in an odd position since it was invaded successfully by Germany in the summer of the previous year 1940. The south of France became the German puppet Vichy state, and the French abroad were divided in their loyalties. The resulting mess was what led to the Vietnam Wars in the 50s through 70s against the USA/Anzacs and Red China.

Thirdly, the Netherlands who were a busted flush by this stage. The Dutch were invaded and occupied in summer 1940. Since they had a long border with Germany, there was little they could do. They also had a smallish population.The Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) were effectively left to their own devices. There was a small Dutch population there, but Dutch culture has left extremely little mark on Indonesian culture (certainly not the language like neighbouring British Malaya). The Dutch East Indies were going to be easy pickings militarily and were right next to Australia.

So one European empire there was neutral, and the other two were compromised by Germany.

Lastly, the Axis itself which one would not associate much with East Asia. Germany had its former colonies in the east taken from it after WW1 (see map) but whether any local tribal leaders etc still favoured Germany in those areas after all those years is debatable. The Italians also had a concession at Tianjin/Tientsin in China which they kept up until 1943 when Japan occupied it (due to the fall of Mussolini)