How WW2 transformed Asia

Summary

Podcast Summary: HistoryExtra — How WW2 Transformed Asia

Host: Spencer Mizzen
Guest: Hans van der Ven, Professor of Modern Chinese History, University of Cambridge
Date: August 16, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, host Spencer Mizzen is joined by Hans van der Ven to discuss the overlooked but monumental impact of the Second World War on Asia, as captured in van der Ven’s new book, Blood Dawn. The conversation sheds light on how WW2 catalyzed the decline of European empires and propelled the formation of modern nation-states in Asia—specifically China, India, and Indonesia. Through a blend of historical narrative and personal insight, the episode argues for a reframing of WW2 history, urging listeners to move away from Eurocentric perspectives and towards a deeper understanding of Asia’s transformative journey through and after the war.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Challenging the Western Narrative

[02:39–05:19]

• Van der Ven’s Aim: The war has long been narrated through a Western lens, focusing on Europe and the roles of Britain and the US as heroes. In contrast, events in Asia are treated as peripheral.
• Transformative Role in Asia: The war marked the collapse of European imperialism and the birth of new Asian nation-states. Asia re-emerged on the world stage, not only through China but also India, Indonesia, Japan, and Korea.
• Contemporary Relevance: Understanding these wartime roots is crucial to making sense of the modern world, with Asia’s resurgence defining current global dynamics.
• Notable quote:

  “If we are going to understand the world in which we live today… that new world really came out of the Second World War.” — Hans van der Ven [04:42]

Early Anti-Colonial Movements in Asia

[05:19–08:29]

• Origins of Resistance: Anti-imperialist efforts began soon after European expansion in the 19th century, including significant uprisings in Indonesia, China (Taiping Rebellion), and India.
• Evolution to Mass Movements: Resistance grew from elite-led movements to mass organizations during WW1, influenced by Wilsonian ideals and the Russian Revolution.
• WW2 as a Watershed: The war further empowered these movements, making a return to colonial rule untenable.
• Key Leaders Emerged: Mao (China), Sukarno (Indonesia), and Nehru, Gandhi, and Jinnah (India) rose as leaders intent on forging new national identities.

Focus on China: Kang Youwei vs. Sun Yat Sen

[08:29–12:18]

• Contrasting Figures:
  • Kang Youwei: Traditional Confucian scholar, advocated constitutional monarchy.
  • Sun Yat Sen: More radical, cosmopolitan, championed revolution and nationalism merging traditional and modern influences.
• Symbolic Importance: Sun Yat Sen’s early death made him a unifying figure for both Mainland China and Taiwan.
• Notable quote:

  “If you want to become the father of a country, to die as an important moment before it all goes wrong… is a very good thing to do.” — Hans van der Ven [11:19]

The Indian Struggle: The British, Quit India, and International Responses

[12:18–15:46]

• India’s Division: Despite its huge contribution to the war effort, India was deeply divided about supporting Britain.
• Underestimating Resistance: Churchill and British leaders failed to grasp the intensity of anti-colonial feeling.
• International Ramifications: The Quit India movement forced Roosevelt to choose between supporting the Atlantic Charter’s principles or the British war effort; he sided with expediency.
• Notable quote:

  “Roosevelt perhaps didn’t quite understand the depth of this desire to create these new free nation states… And they are just completely wrong. It’s a complete misjudgment.” — Hans van der Ven [15:19]

Formation of US-Asian Relations During and After WW2

[15:38–16:42]

• Consequences for US Policy: The US misjudge the nationalist fervor, leading to blunders in Vietnam, Korea, and persistent misunderstanding of Asian movements.
• Advice Undervalued: Some Asian leaders warned the US to back true mass movements, advice that was largely ignored.

Collaboration and Calculations: Nationalist Leaders and Japan

[18:57–21:44]

• Flexible Alliances: Leaders like Subhas Bose (India) and Sukarno (Indonesia) used the Axis powers and Japan as leverage to further their anti-colonial cause.
• Charges of Collaboration: Postwar, many caught between empires faced accusations of betrayal, but their motivation was nationalist aspiration, not mere opportunism.
• Sukarno’s Strategy: Master communicator; harnessed mass politics and modern media to unite supporters and outmaneuver rivals.
• Notable quote:

  “He understands how to get power in these new conditions… in the same way that Trump understood how to use Twitter…” — Hans van der Ven [22:28]

Japanese Occupation: Villain or Liberator?

[23:07–26:56]

• Mixed Legacy: While Japanese brutality remains notorious (e.g., Nanjing Massacre), in places like Indonesia, the Japanese were initially welcomed as liberators.
• Nuanced Realities: The Japanese occupation differed greatly by context and audience. For some, it broke the myth of European invincibility and inspired local actors.
• Allied Actions Scrutinized: Firebombing and the Bengal famine are also cited as pointing to Allied ruthlessness.

“The Horrors of the Peace”: Chaos in Postwar Asia

[26:56–30:56]

• Immediate Turmoil:
  • Indonesia: Declaration of independence and protracted struggle with returning Dutch and British forces.
  • India: Partition led to massive violence, displacement, and trauma.
  • China: Civil war reignited between Nationalists and Communists, marked by famine and unspeakable cruelty.
• Notable quote:

  “Nobody’s taking any prisoners. Everybody knows this is the crucial time. It is now or never, and it has got to be now.” — Hans van der Ven [30:31]

The Bandung Conference (1955): Asia Steps onto the World Stage

[30:56–33:51]

• Bandung as a Turning Point: Symbolic “coming out party” for 29 new Asian and African nations, affirming non-alignment and Asian solidarity.
• Western Anxiety: The US and Europe feared Asia would tilt Communist but were relieved by the conference’s moderate, pragmatic tone.
• Beginning of Decolonization’s Next Phase: Acknowledged that full decolonization would be a long, complex journey, inaugurating modern identity politics.

Collective Memory and the Legacy of WW2 in Asia

[33:51–37:50]

• East vs. West Memory: In the West, WW2 memory is fading; in China, it retains central political and cultural relevance.
• Varied Narratives: China links the war to national identity and the Communist Revolution; India and Indonesia remember it through the lens of anti-colonial triumph.
• Continuing Importance: Borders, national stories, and international tensions in Asia remain rooted in the legacies of WW2.

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Notable Quotes

• “If we are going to understand the world in which we live today… that new world really came out of the Second World War.” — Hans van der Ven [04:42]
• “If you want to become the father of a country, to die as an important moment before it all goes wrong… is a very good thing to do.” — Hans van der Ven on Sun Yat Sen [11:19]
• “Roosevelt perhaps didn’t quite understand the depth of this desire to create these new free nation states… And they are just completely wrong. It’s a complete misjudgment.” — Hans van der Ven [15:19]
• “He understands how to get power in these new conditions… in the same way that Trump understood how to use Twitter…” — Hans van der Ven, regarding Sukarno [22:28]
• “Nobody’s taking any prisoners. Everybody knows this is the crucial time. It is now or never and it has got to be now.” — Hans van der Ven [30:31]

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Timestamps — Key Segments

• 02:39 — Challenging Eurocentrism: Rewriting WW2 through an Asian lens
• 05:19 — Roots of Asian anti-imperialist resistance
• 08:29 — China’s path: Kang Youwei, Sun Yat Sen, and revolutionary nationalism
• 12:18 — India’s wartime crisis, Quit India, and British misjudgments
• 15:38 — The US and Asia: Postwar misunderstandings and consequences
• 18:57 — Collaboration, agency, and the Japanese factor
• 21:56 — Sukarno’s rise and tactics in Indonesia
• 23:07 — Evaluating the Japanese occupation: liberation, atrocity, and nuance
• 26:56 — “Horrors of the Peace”: Asia’s bloody and chaotic aftermath
• 30:56 — 1955 Bandung Conference: Asia’s diplomatic debut
• 33:51 — Legacy and memory of WW2 in modern Asia

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Memorable Moments

• The assertion that Japan’s invasion “showed that the great myth of white power across Asia is a myth and that you can mobilize against it.” [07:31]
• Hans comparing Sukarno’s use of radio and print “like Churchill used speeches, and Trump used Twitter.” [22:28]
• The poignant recounting of postwar tragedies—partition, civil war, famine—often omitted from mainstream wartime histories. [27:21–30:56]
• The reflection on collective memory: “In China, it is absolutely not.” — on WW2’s ongoing significance [34:44]

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Conclusion

This episode underscores how World War II irreversibly changed Asia, shattering imperial control and enabling the rise of self-determined nation-states. With attention to local perspectives and complexities, Hans van der Ven compels listeners to question traditional Western-centric narratives and consider the cascading effects of wartime upheaval and postwar struggles. The legacies of this transformation—national identities, unresolved border disputes, trauma, and new global roles—continue to shape Asia and the world to this day.

Transcript

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[Podcast Host Introduction]

For decades, the history of the Second World War has been told predominantly through Western eyes. That, writes historian Hans van der Ven, simply has to change. Hans new book Blood dawn sets out to reset this focus, exploring the conflict story from an Asian perspective. In this episode of the History Extra podcast, Hans tells Spencer Mizzen how the Second World War supercharged the fight for independence from European domination across India, China and Indonesia, and how, in doing so, it transformed the continent.

[Spencer Mizzen]

Hans, thank you so much for joining us on the History Extra podcast today. In your new book, Blood dawn, you write that in standard narratives of the Second World War, Europe has traditionally served as the focal point that the United States and the United Kingdom stand as heroic saviors of freedom and democracy. The war in Asia, by contrast, is quite often being seen as a bit of a sideshow. Is that while you've written the book as a kind of corrective to this Western centric approach to writing histories of

[Hans van der Ven]

the Second World War, you're absolutely right for two reasons. I think that this, the standard corrective that we learn in our schools, that we see on movies, that we see in museums and so on. I think there are two problems with it. One is that even today, we think about the world today through the lens of the Second World War as it's written about from a Eurocentric perspective. And I think that's not actually helping us very well in understanding a very different world in which we live now, the problems it has and so on. And yes, my aim was to draw attention to the absolutely transformative role that the Second World War played in Asia. Before the Second World War, you have an Asia that is dominated by, of course, the British Empire. It's the policeman of the world and definitely of Asia, but also the French Empire, the Dutch Empire and so on. In 1945, when the Allies declared victory, actually there is no peace in Asia breaking out. Instead, you have a struggle for the future of Asia in which you have the emergence of a whole range of new states. Especially important for us, the collapse, disintegration, the defeat of European imperialism. So I think that is a hugely transformative aspect of the Second World War. If we are going to understand the world in which we live today, in which Asia is, I don't want to say back, but it is back. It has been back for some reason, time, but Asia, not just China, but also India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea and so on. We're going to have to deal with this new world. And that new world really came out of the Second World War. And we have to understand these origins if we are going to make sense of the world in which we live today and the world in which the great transformations that are now really beginning to work through.

[Spencer Mizzen]

Sure. As you just said there, Bloodthorn is very much a story of how Asia was transformed from a continent dominated by imperial powers, like I've just said, the British, the Dutch and the French, to one of nation states. Now, the people of Asia had been agitating for this, I mean, long before the Second World War broke out. When did that first begin to happen? When did the people of Asia first begin to try to throw off the yoke of imperialism?

[Hans van der Ven]

I. European imperialism in Asia really takes off after the Napoleonic Wars. It's during the Napoleonic wars that Britain conquers India. From the beginning, there is very significant resistance. You have the rebellion in Indonesia, you have the Taiping rebellion in China, you have the rebellion in the 1850s in India. But I think it becomes politically modern, significant, moving towards a nation state solution to the problem. These societies have really, in the last decade or so of the 19th century, and these are still very much elite movements. These are people who like to talk, to write, to chat, to bring court cases. Not very effective. But then it becomes socially important during the First World War, partly because of sort of Wilsonian promises, also because of Islamic movements of resistance in the Middle east and of course also of the communist revolutions. And that sort of heats up the process. People discover that they can organize political parties that can mobilize societies. And it's all very messy because they're experimenting on the ground. And kind of strangely in the 1930s, this comes down. But these movements that have done build these huge social political bases, that have produced stories about themselves, that have produced legends about themselves, I think really take off and become empowered in the Second World War. And then when the Europeans in 1945 believed, okay, Japan has surrendered, now we come back and we restored a lot, they just can't. They don't have the power anymore to do this. Of course, one factor in that is that Japan, who before the Second World War, tries to replace the European empire by making its own kind of empire in Asia, Japan has shown that the great myth of white power across Asia is a myth and that you can mobilize against it. And you have these figures like Mao in China, like Sukarno and Hatta in Indonesia, like Nehru, Gandhi, Jinnah in India. These are big, strong figures who see it as their destination to take their countries in a completely new direction. And they don't want a return of European imperialism, or American imperialism for that matter.

[Spencer Mizzen]

Now, the book very much focuses, doesn't it, on experiences of three Asian nations. China, India and Indonesia, which, as you point out, are the first, second and fourth most populous nations in the world today. I wonder if we could look at all three of those nations and maybe start with China. I wonder if we could talk about two figures in particular. I'm thinking Kong Yuwei and Sun Yat Sen. They both sought to enact change in China, but adopted very different strategies for achieving that with vastly different results. And what did their examples tell us about China in the interwar period?

[Hans van der Ven]

So Kang Yowei, Sun Yat Sen. I think the difference is that Kang Yowei is A more traditional figure. He thinks of himself as a Confucian sage who reinterprets the legacy of the Chinese tradition. He is very learned. He knows the Chinese classics, but he also knows Buddhism. He also knows Western learning. That has all come to pass. And he's really focused on trying to turn the Qing dynasty into a Japanese style constitutional monarchy. Sun Yat Sen is from South China. He has a wide range of connections that Kang your Way never really did, ranging from secret societies to overseas Chinese businessmen, to some literary figures. He's popular among students in Japan and elsewhere who are in exile. Often Sun Yat Sen has Christian connections. He goes to school in Hawaii. He studies medicine in Hong Kong. Just a very different world. And it is Sun Yat Sen, I think, sort of 20th century China can be seen as a struggle between these two tendencies. But Sun Yat sen in the 1920s, with Soviet assistance, really becomes the key figure in creating a new political party that aims to create revolution. The idea of revolution is critical to him. And Kang Yowei is really against revolution. It's not what he wants. He wants to retain the Qing Dynasty. Sun Yat Sen is no, the Qing Dynasty is the problem. These are foreigners. We don't want them. We need a new nation really run by Chinese people. Sun Yat Sen, of course, has the great advantage that he dies in 1925. And of course, if you want to become the father of a country, to die as an important moment before it all goes wrong for your party really is a very good thing to do. And so he did. This was the 1920s, was this very exciting time when you have lots of student protests. And he was in the middle of this. He had just built a whole new army, set up a new government. It was about. The suggestion is to take over. And then he dies from stomach cancer. It's pretty clear. And then he becomes really a symbol of a new future. People really actively mourn seriously for this leader that they had now lost. I think that itself is really an impetus for Chinese nationalism. And interestingly enough, in both Taiwan and in mainland China, Sun Yat Sen is revered as the father of the country. There's little that brings the two countries together, but Sun Yat Sen does. He is also a hugely charismatic figure. Everybody wants to help him. And he has that kind of charisma. I think Kang Yowei doesn't have that. He's too elite, too literary.

[Spencer Mizzen]

Okay, I'd like to talk about India now, because that's obviously been portrayed as a jewel in the crown of the British Empire. Its army had made an enormous contribution to the fighting in the First World War and would do so again in the Second. And yet, as you observe in the book, India was hugely divided over the question of whether it should support Britain. And it was during the Second World War that the influential Quit India campaign emerged. Do you get the sense that the British were taken aback by the depth of opposition among the people of India to kind of throw in their weight behind the British war effort?

[Hans van der Ven]

I think in India, certainly. I think the Indian elites in India during the Second World War became terribly demoralized. They didn't know what to do because they were, of course, on the periphery. In the larger context of the war, that didn't go so well. The leaders at the time, British Governor General, Viceroy, realized that the opposition ran very deep indeed, but they faced a very conservative government, this coalition government, of course. But foreign affairs in the war is run by Churchill, who has, I think, no understanding of that depth and doesn't take it seriously and believes they're all just faking it and it's not serious, it's not real, and so on. He has no idea. I think the Quit India Campaign, and I hadn't anticipated that before writing the book, is actually really crucial, not just in the story of India, but in the broader development of Asia at this time. Because Quit India puts Roosevelt, US President Roosevelt, for the question of do I support what I have said in the Atlantic Charter about democracies, freedom, self determination and so on, or do I Support the British, who. 42. America is rapidly rebuilding its armed forces and all that is going to be a major. But it still needs the British armed forces, the British Empire, Roosevelt concludes. So in the end, Roosevelt declines a request by Chiang Kai Shek to turn against Churchill and force him to at least make India a dominion within the British Empire. In the broader story of Asia's war. It's got military expediency. I don't think Roosevelt abandons this idea of a new order based on democracy and the Atlantic Charter and so on. Therefore, he makes China into one of the big four. So China will function as the counterexample to what the British are doing in India. But it also sets the United States on a course, as is clear in 1945, in which it accepts, at least for the moment, as a form of expediency, the return of European imperialism. You can say, too, that Roosevelt perhaps didn't quite understand the depth of this desire to create these new free nation states, because you have documents, you have statements coming out of the State Department that really completely miss that and say, no, there will be very little resistance to the return of the French and the Dutch. And they are just completely wrong. It's a complete misjudgment.

[Spencer Mizzen]

And how did that misjudgment shape relations between the United States and the people of Asia over the coming decades?

[Hans van der Ven]

Well, of course the post1945decades are deeply troubling for the United States. The United States turns this is the rise of the Cold War, of course, but the United States becomes entrapped in the Korean War. But then of course, the great example is Vietnam. They turn to support right wing countries not seeing that there are much deeper movements that they should have support. There's some interesting statements out of India. The new Minister of Foreign affairs said, look, you guys, you're just betting on the wrong horse. If you really want to secure Asia for a liberal capitalist Europe, stop supporting these small totalitarian countries and support these mass movements. That's where the real future is going to be. They're not listening

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[Spencer Mizzen]

And to return to India during the war, what was the thinking of those Indian people who actively supported the Japanese during the conflict? What calculation were they making and what were their interactions with the Japanese like?

[Hans van der Ven]

Yeah, I think that's a very important point. And it's not just India, of course, but the Dutch. Indonesia is a very, very good example. So I think most Asian leaders are looking at the Second World War and said, well, how do we use this opportunity to achieve our freedom, establish these new nation states? Of course, Jinnah uses this in India to build up his own support because he collaborates. Collaborates is this awful word. But he works with the British, let's put it that way. Suvas Bose in Bengal, quits the Congress Party, first goes to Germany, not quite happy with that, and then he goes to the Japanese, and then he uses Japanese support to set up armies in Burma to make a lot of wonderful speakers. He was a great charismatic speaker. This is a great period of charismatic leaders. I think that should not be forgotten. Anyway, so Silvers Bose tries to mobilize the Japanese to fight against the British in Burma and then invade from Burma and to Delhi. Chalo. Delhi is the great phrase. And I think he has a lot of support, at least among Bengalis. One of the things we must not forget that India is a very diverse place. And the Punjab and the Muslims, Sikhs will have another kind of attitude, and that's the Bengalis, which in Bangkal itself is very divided. But Subhas Bose becomes, strangely enough, the British try to take him to court. He's dead. But he tries to take his followers to court and say, these are traitors. They've collaborated with the Japanese. These are awful people, they must go to jail. And of course, the same happens with the Dutch in Sukarno. And I remember very well from my own upbringing in the Netherlands to bring either Japanese or the animosity towards Sukarno. He was seen as a collaborator with the Japanese and so not beyond the pale. And yet what Sukarno is doing is using the Japanese to build up support to gain power to drive out the Japanese. And Sukarno is completely successful. Indonesia declares independence two days after Japan's surrender and only one day after he comes to the conclusion that Japanese are finished. Like Sun Yat Sen. These guys are people like that are very attuned, must be attuned to the situation and make decisions.

[Spencer Mizzen]

So can we talk about Sukarno in a bit more detail? Because he's not somebody I personally knew a lot about before coming to your book. I mean, what made him so successful, such a force in nature in this period?

[Hans van der Ven]

Yeah, that's a great question, because you wouldn't have thought that he would be such a great figure. Of course, he became such a great figure because there's opposition to him even among intellectual supporters like Sudan Shahrir and Mohammed Hatta, who were educated in the Netherlands and believed themselves intellectually superior in the same way that many people, many intellectuals in China believed themselves superior to Sun Yat senior. But he is able to build up a mass following. And his speeches, he is always able to draw huge crowds to his speeches. It's his rhetoric. He mobilized this. I think it's the same when you say that Churchill mobilized Britain by making speeches. The same is true for Sukarno. And of course, that has to do with the emergence of new media, print, radio especially. And maybe that is not so hard to understand from perspective of today. He understands how to get power in these new conditions in the same way that Trump understood how to use Twitter to get power and defeats the intellectuals through that.

[Spencer Mizzen]

Can I just return to the Japanese quickly? I think this is quite an interesting point. You said earlier that a lot of the pro nationalist, pro independence forces across Asia took inspiration from the example of the Japanese. Now, I guess from a British perspective, it's sort of quite tempted to say this is a terrible mistake. The Japanese armed forces did terrible things. Is this something that the nationalists in Asia came to regret, or do you think they genuinely learned something from using the Japanese model as an example?

[Hans van der Ven]

Well, it isn't just the British who are deeply who believe the Japanese are beyond the pale. And there's a lot. The Chinese are even more so. And it remains politically and geopolitically deeply relevant today. And that is the result of the, you know, things like the Nanjing massacre, the use of germ warfare, life experiments. All of the horror stories just are all over the place. So there is that side, and I don't think anybody is denying that to me. This was brought home. And so I tended to write mostly about China. And so that was the impression I had of Japan. I grew up in the Netherlands. We have equally negative impression of Japan during the Second World War. But I was struck by. I came to the conclusion that that kind of story isn't the totality of it. When I read about the Japanese occupation of Java and the Javanese welcomed the Japanese as liberators. And that is true across many places in Southeast Asia. So I think the Japanese in Asia isn't one story. It's a set of different kinds of stories that plays out differently. And interestingly for the Japanese themselves, they regret. When they regret, they know that going into Southeast Asia in the same way that they went into China with all guns blazing and little political nuance isn't going to work or is not the way to do it. For many Japanese soldiers who served in China when they are moved to Indonesia, they say we now have a second chance to create a better. That kind of belief in being able to improve what had gone so terribly wrong is one story about Japanese imperialism that does deserve some more attention. I think one of the reasons we all live with this idea that the Japanese were uniquely evil and violent and brutal is partly there was a great deal of truth to it, there's no doubt. But it's also a point that was made by the allies after 1945 to convince the Japanese. It was an instrumental policy to convince the Japanese that Japanese had militarily lost, that their military was no good. That had to be driven. Of course, the truth is the opposite. They had not lost in most places at all. When you go to Singapore and you see the jail, of course, when you see Nanjing, of course you're furious. But it's not lost. Not the only story. And of course, at the same time, what the Allies did in Asia was not so nice either. The Bengal famine would be a clear example where there are trouble. But the firebombing of Japan was atrocious, deeply devastating of Japanese society. And of course, it ends with atomic bombs. And I think that complicates Japan's remembering of the Second World War.

[Spencer Mizzen]

Okay, now, one of your chapters is called the Horrors of the Peace. And as you point out, no sooner had Japan capitulated in August 1945 than Asia was beset by further waves of unrest and conflict. Can you tell us a little bit about that? What happened in the months after the Second World War officially came to an end?

[Hans van der Ven]

A lot happened. And I think it's one of the important points I really want to drive home of how terrible all of this was with the famines before 1945 in Java, in Bengal, in China, and no doubt other places. And this tends to be written out of history, and I don't think it should. After Japan's surrender in August 1945, in Indonesia, you have Sukarno declaring independence. The British move in, but with with too few troops to establish order. And so the new Indonesia gains really significant opportunities to amass weapons often left behind by the Japanese. The struggle will take four years to complete, but it's going to be war in a part of the world, across Asia where people are living completely destitute lives. And that intensifies the horror because in Indonesia, the British try to restore. I think many British people, there's a new colonial elite that comes in and wants to do empire right, but they discover that they're not welcome. They become demoralized quickly. Then there are elections that polarize Indian society. And very quickly you have the utter disaster of partition in 1947, when 1 billion people died, 10 million people, and become refugees. And in China, the civil war that had been between the Nationalists, Chiang Kai Shek's Nationalists, and Mao Zedong Communists began in the 1920s, continued to the 1930s. They had made some kind of common cause during the Second World War before 1945, although there were also conflicts between them. I think this is this wonderful moment when Chiang Kai Shek, who has lost his armies, he is sitting in Chongqing way from Shanghai. Best armies are in Burma. Not going to come. And Mao is ready from the spring of 1945 to take China's biggest cities. He thinks he can win at this point. Chiang Kai Shek, that's very clever. Chiang Kai Shek then invites him to come to Chongqing for talks about China's future. Mao Zedong believes himself is so confident that he says, no, not doing it, not coming. Tough. And it's all public, right? And then Jang Kashek issues a second invitation. And once again, brutally, Mao Zedoun says, no, not doing it. And it's the third time of asking that Stalin steps in and says, you must go. And then he goes. Just to give up on an immediate conquest of at least northern China. Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, the Nationalists gain another opportunity to try to recover what they have Lost what they did lose in 1937. But very quickly, the civil war begins. And again, these are mass armies fighting across China and the Communists, starving people to death, using food as a weapon of war, as of course, it happens. In other words, theaters of the Second World War as well. So utterly brutal, utterly ruthless. This is when the future is at stake and you're gonna do everything you can to survive. Nobody's taking any prisoners. Everybody knows this is the crucial time. It is now or never, and it has got to be now.

[Spencer Mizzen]

And you talk in the book also about the Asia Africa Conference that was held in a place called Bandung on the island of java in Indonesia, 1955. You write that the conference served as a coming out party for 29 newly minted sovereign nations. What did that coming out look like and how was it received by the major powers in the West? What was their reaction to this happening?

[Hans van der Ven]

So before the Bantung Conference, America and most European capitals were deeply worried what would happen because the Cold War has begun. Is Asia going to side with the Communists? That is Moscow. That was a clear possibility. I think it was a real festival, a coming out party. You look at the photographs, it gives that impression of happy, smiling people, people getting signatures from their great heroes who had delivered this new future for Asia. Because Bandung politically is not the disaster that America fears, because it is a neutrality. The Asian countries decide not to participate in the Cold War. Very importantly, there is reconciliation, there is accommodation, let's put it that way, between a Communist China and the rest of Southeast Asia and India and especially Southeast Asia at this time, that really fear the Chinese, because there are so many overseas Chinese in places like Indonesia, Malaya and so on. That is the moment where it's that. That believe that there are these dark clouds all over Asia and it's going to be a horror show again. And if there's going to be a war between the United States and China, then the Soviets will be dragged in again and the whole Korean thing will just blow up again. And then it's, you know, and so that does not happen. I think that's what causes this relief. But it is also a moment when Ban Dong make a lot of different things happen at the same time. It is also a moment when decolonization becomes a huge historical project. Of course, first, Sukarno's opening speech, which I think rather interestingly, he speaks with accent. You can hear the echoes which also make his point. Decolonization is going to take a long time. It's not easy. Yes, we have power now. Yes, we Asians can meet to talk about Asia in Asia itself. Fantastic. But decolonization is going to be a very long project, and race is going to be and racial identity and racial identity politics, I think, in some ways begin at Bandung. So in that sense, Bandung is also inaugurating a new age with new kinds of issues on the agenda.

[Spencer Mizzen]

Okay, here's a quick note for our listeners. If you'd like to delve further into why the Second World War in Asia is often regarded as a sideshow, then please check out a podcast we ran with the broadcaster Kavita puri back in 2025. I'll put the link to that episode in the show notes of this podcast. Now, Hans, we talked at the beginning of the interview about how histories of the Second World War in the west have traditionally been dominated by the Western experience of the conflict. But what about in Asia? What are people in Asia today about the Second World War? Does the conflict loomis large in perceptions of the 20th century among the people of, say, China, India and Indonesia, as it does in Europe and America, or even in Japan?

[Hans van der Ven]

I think it has a much greater place. I think my generation still were the children of the Second World War, to which we were connected through our parents. I think our younger generations really aren't that interested in and you can go to World War II museums 10 years ago, 20 years ago, and your dad and your granddad would know the names of all the weapons and all the planes and all of that. And this is a Spitfire, and that's a zero. And all of that, that time is gone. So museums have to adjust to a very new reality about what people still know. And I think it's genuinely fading as a collective memory in China. It is absolutely not. Until the 1980s, the Chinese Communist Party talked about the Communist Revolution, not about the war with Japan. That changed after the Cultural Revolution, partly because they needed a new story about the Chinese nation and its origins and so on. They also needed a more inclusive story of which Taiwan could be a part, shifting today again, a little bit back to Communist revolution as a source of the Xi Jinping is trying to do. But I think it's also that the war is so traumatic. It takes time for these kinds of really, countries that have been occupied need time to become comfortable in talking about those occupations. And so it's only recently that you've had these great parades, the great commemorations, the public holidays, the great museums about the Second World War. You still have vast numbers of Second World War films on Chinese websites and so on. I think in India, the Second World War is part of a commemoration of part of a memory that focuses on British colonialism, which kind of did its worst in the Second World War. So in Indonesia, it's the Dutch and of course the triumph of the revolution against the Dutch that is foremost in public memory.

[Spencer Mizzen]

Do you think the war and memories of the war will continue to shape Asia in the coming decades?

[Hans van der Ven]

I think yes, because the current nation states really have their origin in this period of the Second World War. Many of the continuing stresses, tensions between Asia's nation states, they accept this principle of sovereignty, but there are all these border conflicts and many of them are still not resolved. I think for that reason the Second World War remains so germane to understanding Asia geopolitically as well as socially as well as the nation states. They build the kinds of stories they're going to tell about their own state making. So I think it's going to last much longer yet.

[Podcast Host Introduction]

That was Hans van der Ven speaking to spencermission. Hans is professor of Modern Chinese History at the University of Cambridge and his new book, Blood the Second World War and the Making of Modern Asia, explores how the global conflict transformed the continent.

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