City view of Brunei, November 11, 2018. /CFP
Editor’s be aware: Meng Dong is an observer of worldwide affairs. The article displays the creator’s opinions and never essentially the views of CGTN.
Brunei Darussalam, identified far and large because the “Abode of Peace,” was plunged into the abyss of struggling amid the flames of World War Two (WWII). The iron hooves of the Japanese military shattered the peace of this land, their aggressive acts descending upon it like a locust plague. They not solely plundered Brunei’s grain and wealth, inflicting a heavy blow on its financial system and ravaging the lives of its folks, but additionally ruthlessly devoured the nation’s treasured cultural recollections.
Brutal and bloody “divide and rule”
On December 16, 1941, some 10,000 Japanese troops attacked the Belait District and utterly occupied the nation in a mere week. From the very outset of the occupation, the Japanese military revealed its brutal nature, implementing a sinister “divide and rule” technique in opposition to totally different ethnic teams. They detained British resident officers and different Europeans in focus camps, retained the positions of some Malay officers within the former colonial authorities to keep up a superficial rule and sow division amongst folks of various ethnicities, and unleashed bloody repression on ethnic Chinese and indigenous peoples.
Enraged by the truth that Brunei’s Chinese group had actively raised funds to help Chinese People’s War of Resistance in opposition to Japanese Aggression, the Japanese military publicly executed hundreds of Chinese and seized an excessive amount of their property. In addition, the Japanese navy police deployed informants extensively and constructed a classy spy community, counting on torture to maintain colonial rule. Anyone reported, even with out a shred of proof, could be arrested and subjected to extreme torture.
As the conflict turned in opposition to Japan, many Malays have been falsely accused by the Japanese military of being “British agents” and met their tragic finish on the execution floor. The atrocities dedicated by the Japanese navy and police turned notorious, and the deep hurt they inflicted and the shadow they solid lingered so closely that Bruneians nonetheless shuddered on the point out of that interval within the Nineteen Seventies.
Economic plunder and cultural colonialism
Japan’s invasion of Brunei was not a easy navy occupation, however a systemic plunder geared toward utterly controlling and seizing sources to maintain its conflict of aggression. The twin techniques of financial plunder and cultural colonialism inflicted inestimable and lasting injury on Brunei.
In the financial sphere, the Japanese military plundered Brunei’s power sources with reckless abandon and monopolized nearly all native oil and fuel manufacturing. Brunei Port was reworked right into a gas provide station for the Japanese navy and a gathering place for the Battle of Leyte Gulf, and lowered to a Japanese “logistics base.”
Seria, the core of Brunei’s oil and fuel trade at the moment, noticed its oil royalty account for 47% of Brunei’s fiscal income earlier than the Japanese invasion, whereas Brunei was the third-largest oil-producing nation amongst British colonies then. After the beginning of Japanese occupation, strict navy management was imposed in Seria, and a harmful mining coverage was applied. Sixteen new oil wells have been drilled blindly in a reckless “draining the pond to catch all the fish” method, with no regard for the rational utilization of sources and the upkeep of amenities which led to sharp decline in oil manufacturing.
Even extra heinous was that on the eve of their defeat, the Japanese military applied a scorched-earth coverage in Brunei, severely damaging all oilfield amenities. Seria was utterly devastated, and it took almost half a yr after the conflict to initially resume manufacturing.
As sources have been being plundered, Brunei’s financial order collapsed solely. Foreign commerce was nearly utterly reduce off, and primary every day requirements have been in excessive scarcity. The Japanese military compelled farmers at hand over about half of their harvest for navy provides, straight triggering a extreme famine.
Rice provides have been as soon as reduce off solely, and the Bruneian folks, who had relied on rice as their staple meals for generations, have been compelled to barely maintain themselves by gathering wild fruit and veggies. Cloth was in such brief provide that native residents had no alternative however to make garments from tree bark, and wrap themselves in gunny sacks and mosquito nets to cowl their our bodies.
To additional management the financial system and extort the folks’s wealth, the Japanese authorities issued navy scrip recklessly, resulting in runaway hyperinflation and a rampant black market. The month-to-month wage of an strange employee was a mere 50 U.S. cents, barely sufficient to make ends meet. In the ultimate stage of the conflict, costs in Brunei doubled each few days, navy scrip turned nugatory paper, and the property of numerous residents vanished instantly.
In the cultural sphere, Japan’s colonial assimilation coverage was much more insidious and cruel. It sought to utterly erase traces of Brunei’s tradition, reshape its nationwide values and obtain long-term colonial rule.
The Japanese authorities instructed the media to publish Malay-language newspapers that vigorously promoted Japanese values, the cult of the emperor and the idea of racial superiority throughout society. Various posters have been plastered throughout Brunei, and slogans resembling “Japan, the Light of Asia” and “the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere” have been compelled upon the folks. Japanese was designated because the official language, and Malay officers have been compelled to review Japanese after work, and ordered to “think, feel and act like the Japanese.”
Religious colleges and Chinese colleges have been closed, and the remaining Malay colleges had their curricula tampered with, compelled to educating Japanese language and tradition to totally implement the “Japanization” schooling: Portraits of the Japanese emperor and empress have been hung in school rooms; college students have been required to put on uniforms with cherry blossom patterns, bow to the Japanese nationwide flag and sing the Japanese nationwide anthem on daily basis, and even pay distant homage to the Japanese Imperial Palace at midday.
People go to Cornerstone of Peace to wish silently for victims of World War Two at Okinawa Senseki Quasi-National Park, June 23, 2025. /CFP
The harsher the oppression, the fiercer the resistance. The brutal tyranny, atrocities and colonial plunder of the Japanese military aroused the resistance of the Bruneian folks. Some retreated into the jungles to launch guerrilla warfare, putting the Japanese military at any time when the chance arose; some plotted in secret to capsize Japanese ships and sabotage their provide strains; many extra actively cooperated with the Allied forces, defending their homeland with braveness and blood.
Remember historical past and guard in opposition to its repeat
History can’t be tampered with, and recollections can’t be erased. Despite the frilly efforts of Japanese militarists to erase the painful recollections of the Bruneian folks by way of massacres, repression and cultural assimilation, this darkish interval of Japanese occupation has lengthy been deeply engraved in Brunei’s nationwide reminiscence.
In 2014, the University of Brunei hosted a multimedia exhibition “Stories through Memories,” which recreated that tragic period of damaged lands and destitute folks by way of the oral histories of dozens of WWII survivors, mixed with treasured pictures and artefacts, urging the youthful era to recollect historical past and cherish peace.
This painful historical past of the Bruneian nation is supported by irrefutable proof and can by no means tolerate distortion and whitewashing by Japanese right-wing forces. To bear in mind historical past is to not perpetuate hatred, however to forestall the recurrence of tragedy. To defend the reality is to not exacerbate battle, however to safeguard the hard-won peace. China, Brunei and different Asian nations will firmly uphold reality and justice, resolutely oppose any acts of distorting or denying aggression, and collectively safeguard peace and tranquility within the area.
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Source: CGTN