Although their investment in Asia is well ahead of the total put into Europe, it is way behind the amount poured into the US. Despite all the talk of focusing on South-East Asia, Japanese trade with the region is just over half the amount done with the US alone.South-East Asian countries often complain that Japanese investors are unwilling to transfer technology. Japanese consumer goods reign supreme in South-East Asian stores, and Japanese companies are among the biggest investors in the region. Japan has indirectly paid its dues to the previously occupied countries, however, in the form of a number of large-scale aid projects.Like the Germans in Europe, the Japanese have compensated for military defeat by throwing their energies into economic resurgence.

Yet when the Japanese armies departed in defeat, they did not leave the same residue of bitterness felt in occupied Europe or China.Japan was astute enough not to disturb traditional forms of rule. In Malaya, for example, the Japanese preserved the position of the royal families, while in Thailand they allowed a puppet government to do their dirty work, never declaring the country to be under Japanese rule.There is still bitterness over Japan’s failure to pay reparations or, until this week, even to apologise for its occupation of the region. Women in some countries in the region, notably the Philippines, were forced to become “comfort women”, or sex slaves for the occupying forces. In Indonesia, Sukarno was released from detention to mobilise support for the Japanese.These leaders were soon disillusioned by Japan’s promise of “Asia for the Asians”. By 1944 Aung San, for example, set about forming the Anti- Fascist People’s Freedom League and actively sought co-operation with the British forces.

Yet the nationalists were right in seeing the Japanese occupation as starting the process of decolonisation, because it destroyed for ever the authority of the European colonisers.Unlike in China, there was little initial resistance to the Japanese in South-East Asia, apart from that put up by Communist forces.The main victims were the Chinese Communities of South-East Asia, who were brutally treated. These feelings persist long after the end of the Japanese occupation.Nationalists in Burma, Indonesia, Malaya and the Philippines rushed to collaborate with the Japanese, seeing them as allies in the struggle against colonialism. The Burmese national hero, Aung San, father of the recently released opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, placed his Burma Independence Army at Japan’s disposal. The US government was unambiguous in its response to the Japanese attack, but the leaders of the nationalist movements in South-East Asia had decidedly mixed feelings about their new masters. Yesterday eight Greenpeace activists, including two photographers, were deported from China for unfurling an anti-nuclear banner in Tiananmen Square on Tuesday..

STEPHEN VINES

Hong Kong
Western countries often forget that when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, the Imperial Army also attacked Malaya, the Philippines and Hong Kong. any activity which is against China’s law will be forbidden.” Approval for demonstrations is rarely given. Security will be extraordinarily tight during the conference: a police official in the town said 5,400 security personnel, from the police, People’s Armed Police and State Security Bureau, will be on duty during the forum.And if any NGO groups plan to stage the sort of demonstrations that have been commonplace at previous NGO Forums, they should heed Mr Zhao’s warning.”Any person going abroad should respect the laws of the country he or she visits … To cater for women from the Third World, a large proportion of delegates will pay just $10 a night (pounds 6.50) for living quarters.But no amount of effort can remove the suspicion that Peking’s sudden announcement in early April that the NGO Forum was being shunted from central Peking to Huairou was an attempt to ring-fence NGO activities from ordinary Chinese people. Zhao Yuhe, governor of Huairou county, estimated that 250m yuan (pounds 20m) had been spent preparing the site. Hotels and apartment blocks will provide living accommodation for 16,000, leaving 19,000 to stay in Peking and commute daily.It has all cost a great deal of money. 1 Middle School has been concreted over and 1,000 tables and parasols will be set out to accommodate 10,000 people.