A CONTINENT ERUPTS: Decolonization, Civil War, and Massacre in Postwar Asia, 1945-1955, by Ronald H. Spector

Early on the morning of Sept. 2, 1945, Gen. Douglas MacArthur boarded the battleship U.S.S. Missouri to preside over the ceremony marking the Japanese surrender in World War II. Among the representatives of the nine Allied nations was a group of defeated colonial officials. Lt. Gen. Arthur Percival, who had surrendered Malaya to the Japanese, was there. So was General Philippe Leclerc, “a hero of the European war, who had been recently dispatched to try to pick up the pieces in French Indochina.” The presence of these men, according to Ronald H. Spector’s marvelous new book, “A Continent Erupts,” may have been MacArthur’s way of “emphasizing the complete negation of Japan’s earlier military triumphs.” But it could also have been his way of “signifying the determination of the dispossessed imperial powers to reclaim their colonial real estate.”

1945年9月2日清晨，道格拉斯·麥克阿瑟將軍登上美國「密蘇里號」戰艦主持「二戰」日本投降儀式。在九個同盟國的代表中，有一群戰敗的殖民官員。向日本投降並交出馬來亞的白思華中將也在場。菲利普·勒克萊爾將軍也在那裡，他是「歐洲戰爭的英雄，最近被派去收拾法屬印度支那的殘局」。根據羅納德·H·斯佩克特的精彩新書《大陸爆發》，這些人的出現可能是麥克阿瑟「強調完全否定日本早期軍事勝利」的方式。但這也可能是他「表明被剝奪的帝國勢力決心收回其殖民地」的方式。

Which was it? In the decade after Japan’s high-flying ambitions to dominate the Asian continent crashed and burned, East and Southeast Asia became the most violent region of the globe. As nationalist wars erupted in Indochina and Indonesia, China and Korea became engulfed in violent, internecine conflicts. An estimated 2,500,000 combatants died in the Chinese Civil War, about 800,000 in the Korean War, about 400,000 in the French Indochina War, and at least 50,000 in the Indonesian War of Independence. Among civilians, up to 16 million in China, 5 million in Korea, and 300,000 in Indonesia perished.

究竟是哪個？在日本稱霸亞洲大陸的雄心壯志破滅後的十年裡，東亞和東南亞成為全球最暴力的地區。印度支那和印度尼西亞爆發民族主義戰爭，中國和朝鮮半島也陷入了暴力、自相殘殺的衝突。估計有250萬戰鬥人員在中國內戰中喪生，約80萬人在朝鮮戰爭中喪生，約40萬人在法屬印度支那戰爭中喪生，至少5萬人在印度尼西亞獨立戰爭中喪生。至於平民，中國有多達1600萬人喪生，韓國500萬人，印度尼西亞30萬人。

But as Spector’s book reveals, the sources of this bloody mayhem were complex. Far from being the result of “the struggle against white supremacy” as the old colonial powers attempted to reclaim their former empires, the wars of liberation in the first decades after 1945 took on the character of civil wars.

但正如斯佩克特的書中所揭示的，這場血腥混亂的根源很複雜。1945年之後數年的解放戰爭具有內戰的特徵，遠非隨舊殖民列強試圖收復昔日帝國而來的「反對白人至上鬥爭」。

The peoples of formerly occupied territories held vastly different visions about their postcolonial future, which also helps to explain the savagery of much of the fighting. Friends and foes became hard to distinguish.

前佔領土的人民對他們的後殖民未來有著截然不同的看法，這也有助於解釋大部分戰鬥的血腥。朋友和敵人變得難以區分。

Even the defeated Japanese became part of the mix. A significant number cooperated with the nationalists to battle for Indonesian independence, providing arms, ammunition and tactical training. Others fought alongside the Vietminh against the French and the British in Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh often welcomed Japanese help if it meant neutralizing his Vietnamese opponents.

甚至被擊敗的日本人也參與其中。相當一部分人與民族主義者合作，提供武器、彈藥和戰術訓練，為印度尼西亞獨立而戰。還有人在越南與越盟並肩作戰，對抗法國人和英國人。胡志明經常歡迎日本的幫助，這意味著壓制他的越南對手。

And after waging a brutal war against the Japanese for eight long years, Chiang Kai-shek cut secret deals with Japan in 1945-46 and actually engaged some Japanese troops against the Chinese communists — the same communists who had also fought to resist Japan between 1937 and 1945.

在同日本進行了長達八年的殘酷戰爭之後，蔣介石在1945-1946年間與日本達成了祕密交易，並實際上讓一些日本軍隊對抗中國共產黨——正是在1937年至1945年同樣參加抗日戰爭的共產黨人。

Meanwhile, a significant number of Korean Christians became fierce anti-communists following their persecution by fellow Koreans in the Soviet-occupied northern zone after the peninsula was divided in 1945. These ardent anti-communists fled south and worked alongside the Americans to help lead the bloody suppression campaigns of leftist insurgents during the initial battles of the “first” Korean War (1948-50).

與此同時，在1945年半島分裂後，在蘇聯佔領的北部地區受到朝鮮同胞迫害後，相當數量的韓國基督徒變成了激烈的反共分子。這些堅定的反共分子向南逃跑，與美國人並肩作戰，幫助領導了在「第一次」朝鮮戰爭（1948-50年）的最初戰鬥中，對左翼叛亂分子的血腥鎮壓運動。

Spector, an emeritus professor of history and international relations at George Washington University, does an excellent job of bringing alive this unruly and complicated story of postwar Asia. He is also wary of the view that the violence was a matter of Cold War proxies. “It might be more accurate to say that the Cold War did not spread to Asia; it was invited in.” All sides sought the material support of the United States and the Soviet Union while neither superpower desired the escalation of these internal conflicts into a global war.

斯佩克特是喬治華盛頓大學歷史與國際關係的榮休教授，他出色地再現了戰後亞洲不受控制且異常複雜的歷史。有觀點認為，暴力是冷戰代理人的事情，他對此持謹慎態度。「可能正準確的說法是，冷戰不是蔓延到亞洲；而是被邀請到亞洲。」各方都尋求美國和蘇聯的物質支持，而兩個超級大國都不希望這些內部衝突升級為全球戰爭。

While the politics of the region gradually stabilized, the legacy of this violent history continues to be felt in what are now the two most dangerous flash points in the Asia-Pacific region: the Taiwan Strait and the Korean peninsula. Spector’s gripping book reveals the underlying motivations of these civil wars. In doing so, he helps us to understand why the legacy of these conflicts is still with us today.

雖然該地區的政治逐漸穩定下來，但在亞太地區目前最危險的兩個爆發點台灣海峽和朝鮮半島，人們仍能持續感知這段暴力歷史的遺留問題。斯佩克特這本扣人心弦的書揭示了這些內戰的潛在動機。在這個過程中，他幫助我們理解為什麼這些衝突的遺產今天仍然存在。