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China Is Still Afraid of Losing World War II

In the long Asian wars, being the victor in 1945 meant little. August 15, 2025, 2:20 PM Comment icon View Comments ( )

Three men and a woman are seated outdoors.

When Hisao Kimura first heard the news that his country had surrendered, he refused to believe it. By 1945, the 23-year-old Japanese spy had been undercover in Central Asia for four years, pretending to be a Mongolian monk in order to make his way to Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. The experience had tarnished his optimism about Japan leading other Asians to liberation, but Kimura still clung to the remnants of trust in the emperor and the army. The claim, he decided, must be bazaar gossip, one of the wild rumors of the Himalayas.

Over the next few weeks, Kimura

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