China-Japan

[Chard]

Not just invaded China, mind yiu. Imperial Japan committed some of the most horrific war crimes of World War II. They actually managed to outpace the Holocaust. Want some reading that'll scare the willies out of you go look up Unit 721.

[AiA in Atlanta]

Those pesky treaty obligations ...

(Reuters) - U.S. Vice President Joe Biden called on Japan and China to find ways to reduce tensions that spiked after Beijing proclaimed an air defense zone over disputed isles in the East China Sea, while repeating Washington was "deeply concerned" by the move.

The United States has made clear it will stand by treaty obligations that require it to defend the Japanese-controlled islands, but it is also reluctant to get dragged into any military clash between the Asian rivals.

[Neferti]

Not just invaded China, mind yiu. Imperial Japan committed some of the most horrific war crimes of World War II. They actually managed to outpace the Holocaust. Want some reading that'll scare the willies out of you go look up Unit 721.

"America" (USA) has done some dreadful things too. They dropped the bomb on Japan that (supposedly) ended WW2 ..... what were the "estimated" casualties again?

I predicted that China would over-power the USA as the Number 1 World Power, years ago.

[AiA in Atlanta]

China will get old before it gets rich. Japan is getting old but it has already gotten rich.

[Chard]

"America" (USA) has done some dreadful things too. They dropped the bomb on Japan that (supposedly) ended WW2 ..... what were the "estimated" casualties again?

Yes, we dropped two atomic bombs on an enemy that attacked us first and refused to surrender despite there being absolutely no hope at all of Japan winning the conflict.

Depending on whose estimates you go by, both bombings killed a minimum of 150k people. I prefer the US Strategic Bombing Survey (Go google it, this shit has been declassified longer than I've been alive) estimates, which placed the total dead for both raids around 250K-300K, mostly because those figures also include people that died afterwards of injuries, burns, and radiation poisoning well after the bombings happened.

Thing to bear in mind is that Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed less people than our previous attempts using conventional incendiary munitions. For example, Operation Meeting House (evening/early morning of March 9/10, 1945) killed 88,000 outright dead and a further 44,000 wounded from a single bombing raid. Yes, the Japanese endured raid after raid like this, as well as suffering defeat after defeat at the hands of the US Navy, and by the time the decision was made to go ahead with the Hiroshima and Nagasaki attacks, had been pushed all the way back to the home islands.

The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings forced Imperial Japan to the surrender table , which in turn prevented the only other alternative, an invasion of the Japanese home islands. Based on casualty reports from previous campaigns in the Pacific, we knew that a ground invasion of Japan would result in hundreds of thousands, if not millions of casualties for our forces. The estimated effects on the Japanese population would have been quite frankly catastrophic.

So instead we dropped two bombs and ended the war.

I predicted that China would over-power the USA as the Number 1 World Power, years ago.

Which is why China is doing absolutely dick about us and the Japanese going ahead with naval exercises in the East China Sea, despite China claiming to be defending the area?