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The Pacific War, sometimes called the Asia-Pacific War, was the theater of World War II that was fought in Asia, the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and Oceania.

It was geographically the largest theater of the war, including the vast Pacific Ocean theater, the South West Pacific theater, the South-East Asian theater, the Second Sino-Japanese War, and the Soviet-Japanese War.

The Second Sino-Japanese War between the Empire of Japan and the Republic of China had been in progress since July 7, 1937; with hostilities dating back as far as September 19, 1931 with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria.

It’s more widely accepted that the Pacific War itself began on December 7, 1941, when the Japanese invaded Thailand and attacked the British colonies of Malaya, Singapore, and Hong Kong as well as the United States military and naval bases in Hawaii, Wake Island, Guam, and the Philippines.

The Pacific War saw the Allies pitted against Japan, the latter aided by Thailand and to a lesser extent by the Axis allies, Germany and Italy.

Fighting consisted of some of the largest naval battles in history, and incredibly fierce battles and war crimes across Asia and the Pacific Islands, resulting in immense loss of human life.

The war culminated in massive Allied air raids over Japan, and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, accompanied by the Soviet Union’s declaration of war and invasion of Manchuria and other territories on August 9, 1945, causing the Japanese to announce an intent to surrender on August 15, 1945.

The formal surrender of Japan ceremony took place aboard the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on September 2, 1945.

After the war, Japan lost all rights and titles to its former possessions in Asia and the Pacific, and its sovereignty was limited to the four main home islands and other minor islands as determined by the Allies.

Japan’s Shinto Emperor relinquished much of his authority and his divine status through the Shinto Directive in order to pave the way for extensive cultural and political reforms.

Moving forward sixty-seven years, the Vietnam War showed the world that using biological war agents are an abhorrent use of chemistry against mankind.

Moving forward seventy-four years, it is also apparent that China did not get the memo about not creating biological war agents.

It is without a doubt that our global population and our global economy has suffered great losses since December, 2019 and I’m relatively certain that most would agree that China is not only to blame, but to blame for making a biological agent that could be used in times of war while the rest of the world – for the possible exception of North Korea – has been destroying all such biological agents since the ending of the Vietnam War.

One such country that has taken a large financial pulverization is the Philippines. It is without a doubt that the Philippines offers vacationers some of the most pristine beaches with pristine ocean water to play in; a diverse culture and an abundance of friendly people.

The president still not learning his lesson by announcing his displeasure with life in general; deciding and boldly announcing that he was going to tear up the Visiting Forces Agreement in February, 2020 – only to rescind on that promise in June, 2020 – further sinking an already embattled economy, forgetting that military personnel spend money like anybody else thereby helping the economy in this time of need.

The president also seems to have forgotten that the US presence in the Philippines is small. As of March 2020, the Pentagon reported that there are 196 active duty military personnel and a dozen civilian DoD employees that were permanently stationed in the Philippines.

To further his blundering, only to drive more nails into the coffin of a plummeting economy, the president decided to make a trip to China to secure $24 billion of Chinese loans and investment pledges for his ambitious infrastructure overhaul, a few weeks after saying the Philippines was being treated like a dog by Washington and would be better off with China.

Once again, this too blew up in his face when China did not issue but a very small fraction of those loans, leaving the president red faced in the cold.

If all of this was not enough, the bumbling president allowed a number of atrocities to transpire – besides the drug killings.

First, he allowed China to invade and completely decimate the Spratly Islands, only stating “there’s nothing we can do.” A once pristine archipelago in the South China Sea, once used as a fishing ground for the Philippine fishermen, it has now been turned into a dump to be used as a military installation for China.

As I had stated before, if the president had placed a call or maybe taken a plane ride to Washington DC early on, that would not have happened and of course, the complete failure of the China loan deal that has now left the Philippine people to repay a loan for $24 billion that they did not receive from an aggressive Chinese government.

Only to add more insult to injury, the continuously bumbling president, in an effort to inject money into a failing economy that also has a thieving congress to blame, the president has boldly proclaimed that the US and China must pay.

For the US, his statement of the country did not want “loose coins” or “dilapidated equipment.” Again forgetting that the US has spent billions and more like trillions to help aid the Philippines in times of natural disasters.

As for China, I can only imagine that they laughed so hard that they spit their tea all over the room. His pronouncement for them was that he wanted P231.7 billion for the reefs destroyed by China in Philippine waters, but also P644 billion worth of looted fish since 2014.

China has long refused to acknowledge an arbitrate ruling that invalidated its claims over the resource-rich West Philippine Sea, the part of the South China Sea within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.

Would it not have been wise to have a little forethought into these situations before the damage was done? No. Apparently, the administrations choice, as we have seen is to complain after the damage is done.