Japanese occupation of Cambodia
The Japanese occupation of Cambodia (Khmer: ការត្រួតត្រារបស់ជប៉ុននៅកម្ពុជា) was the period of Cambodian history during World War II when the Kingdom of Cambodia was occupied by the Japanese. Vichy France, who were a client state of Nazi Germany, nominally maintained the French protectorate over Cambodia and other parts of Indochina during most of the Japanese occupation. This territory of Cambodia was reduced, by concessions to Thailand after the Franco-Thai War, so that it did not include Stung Treng Province, Battambang Province, and Siem Reap Province.[1]
The liberation of Paris occurred in the late summer of 1944, and in early 1945 a Japanese coup d'état in French Indochina caused Cambodia to officially separate from newly liberated France. Cambodia declared itself an independent nation, and the Japanese military presence continued for the brief remainder of the war.
The Japanese occupation in Cambodia lasted from 1941 to 1945 and, in general, the Cambodian population escaped the brutalities inflicted on civilians by the Japanese occupiers in other countries of Southeast Asia. After the nominal French Indochina colonial government was overthrown in 1945, Cambodia became a pro-Tokyo puppet state until the surrender of Japan.[2]
Historical background[edit]
The 1940–41 Franco-Thai War left the French Indochinese colonial authorities in a position of weakness. The Vichy government signed an agreement with Japan to allow the Japanese military transit through French Indochina and to station troops in Northern Vietnam up to a limit of 25,000 men.[3]
Meanwhile, the Thai government, under the pro-Japanese leadership of Field Marshal Plaek Phibunsongkhram, and strengthened by virtue of its treaty of friendship with Japan, took advantage of the weakened position of France, and invaded Cambodia's western provinces to which it had historic claims. Following this invasion, Tokyo hosted the signature of a treaty in March 1941 that formally compelled the French to relinquish the provinces of Battambang, Siem Reap, Koh Kong as well as a narrow extension of land between the 15th parallel and the Dangrek Mountains[4] in Stung Treng Province.
As a result, Cambodia had lost almost half a million citizens and one-third of its former surface area to Thailand.[5]