This article from The Wall Street Journal Asia reports that the Japanese are providing peace-keeping troops to the Solomon Islands, including famous Guadalcanal. I wonder how this is going to work out?
The other DrC and I spent a year as visiting faculty, living out in Micronesia. We chatted with a lot of local people: students, colleagues and neighbors. When finally driven out by the allies at the end of World War II, the Japanese didn't leave behind a lot of friends in that part of the world.
Japanese occupiers tended to view and treat the islanders as losers, as nearly subhuman. I remember hearing local folks tell of a cousin who was beheaded with a samurai sword. Needless to say, this didn't win Japan a lot of admirers. Locals still celebrate the day the GIs came back as Liberation Day.
I know the Japanese don't win popularity contests in Micronesia, maybe the situation will be different in the Solomon Islands where outsiders are truly needed to keep the peace.
