Materials on East Timor during World War II

摘要

In the late 1930s and during the Pacific War, East Timor was a sensitive and strategically important location. For Japan, it lay at the heart of what the Japanese called the 'Austro-Asia-Mediterranean' area, and following their withdrawal from the League of Nations in 1933, the Japanese paid particular attention to the island. It was controlled by Portugal, the weakest of the European colonial powers and neutral in international diplomacy, and it lay at the heart of a strategically important zone with Australia to the south, Southeast Asia to the west, Japan to the north and the Pacific islands to the east. The significance of Portuguese Timor to Japan is discussed in Goto Ken'ichi, 'Japan and Portuguese Timor', in idem, Tensions of empire: Japan and Southeast Asia in the colonial and postcolonial world (Athens, OH and Singapore: Ohio University Press and Singapore University Press, 2003, pp. 24-38).