Fate of the Australian Aborigines in an Axis Victory, and Japanese Australia

Well, the majority of Australians lived in the big cities, and while yes, year-long Guerilla warfare would happen, with the influx of Asian immigrants to Australia, soon the Australian population would be bred out with Asians. Soon Guerilla fighters will be going further, and further inland away from Japanese authority.
I just don't think the Japanese will be able to outnumber whites in less than maybe a half-century, especially when a winning Japan will likely have other, more appealing places for settlers.
 

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In my opinion, the Aboriginals will have very little change in their lives. Maybe treated slightly better, but considering how bad it was even slightly better doesn't mean good.

I don't understand how the Japanese would hold Australia. Conquering it is near-impossible, but holding it sounds even harder. I can't imagine 8 million white Australians will just how down to Japanese rule. I'd expect a long, hard guerilla conflict to expel the Japanese that simply would make the occupation force question why they were holding such a relatively useless territory at such high cost.

As for the Japanese using the aboriginals as a collaborator class, I simply don't think they were well enough educated or numerous to be an effective controlling force.
Do we have evidence that the Japanese planned to make Australia into a settler colony in the first place? I imagine any plausible Japanese Empire peace deal doesn't include the annexation of Australia, as they couldn't even invade it.
 
Given the way the Imperial Japanese treated other non-Yamato race peoples...it is probably worse in some ways and maybe better in others. I know the Aussies did not treat the Aboriginal people even half decently, but I'm not sure where on the spectrum Australia circa 1940 is compared to the Japanese.

Australian Aborigines were considered fauna by the Australian government, just to give you an idea.
 
That's not actually true, though it's unfortunate that it's so believable.

I think the Japanese would treat the Aboriginals the same they did any other non-Japanese group: to be held up as brothers wherever propaganda permitted, exploited where possible, murdered when necessary and ignored the rest of the time.


That's... not exactly removed from the status quo.
 
look up the Aniu in Japan

You beat me to it, good...


https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/cnngo-travel-hokkaido-ainu/index.html

220px-ainumanstilflied.jpg
 
Well, the majority of Australians lived in the big cities, and while yes, year-long Guerilla warfare would happen, with the influx of Asian immigrants to Australia, soon the Australian population would be bred out with Asians. Soon Guerilla fighters will be going further, and further inland away from Japanese authority.

"Year-long", try "decades long", funded by the CIA. And what Asians, the same Asians also being oppressed by the Japanese? Because there's not enough ethnic Japanese to make up even a majority.
 
"Year-long", try "decades long", funded by the CIA. And what Asians, the same Asians also being oppressed by the Japanese? Because there's not enough ethnic Japanese to make up even a majority.

Given how under-utilised the Australian continent was in the 1940's it is entirely plausible that a Japan that occupied Australia would bring in large amounts of slave or near slave labour in order to exploit it. Outnumbering whites would take a little while, but without the migration of the post-war era it would be quite possible.

In any case Japan would certainly have been more than capable of invading Australia - if the United States and Britain are somehow kept out of Asia and the South Pacific. It could not have done this actually during WW2, but if Japan is able to win in Asia Australia will be isolated and weak. Invasion would be costly, but the Australian continent would be worth it. Obviously, keeping the British and Americans out of Asia is quite tricky, probably impossible without a pre-WW2 PoD. The best I can think of would be a second American Civil War during the 1930's due to the depression, coupled with a Nazi takeover in Europe that at the very least leaves Britain isolated from any strong allies. Both pretty remote scenarios, but not truly ASB. Such a scenario could well see Asia fall under Japanese control, at least for a time, and an undistracted IJN with bases in Indonesia is more than capable of conquering Australia if it wants to.
 
Given the way the Imperial Japanese treated other non-Yamato race peoples...it is probably worse in some ways and maybe better in others. I know the Aussies did not treat the Aboriginal people even half decently, but I'm not sure where on the spectrum Australia circa 1940 is compared to the Japanese.

My guess is that the Japanese would just view them as another occupied people. This means continuing the Australian policy of pushing them aside and moving on with bigger plans.

Sure, some University of Kyoto type linguists and anthropologists may conduct ethnographic surveys and some Japanese officials and servicemen would view them as “forest monkeys” (Japanese term for Andaman Islands indigenous peoples). But, this attitude was already shared by a certain number of British and Australians.

IOTL, the Japanese treated indigenous Taiwanese no different than they treated Han Taiwanese- a population of second class non-citizen semi nationals who could be coerced into IJA /IJN service.
 
The Aboriginal population bottomed out at ~74,000 in the early 1930s, which would presumably be referring to the full-blood indigenous populace by the parlance and standards of the time. It began a slow recovery after this, but would still be comfortably under 100,000 during the Second World War. This was the population spread across the entire continent.

Following the usual distributive pattern of ruling out the very young and very old, the total male adult Aboriginal population would be in the region of ~30,000 as a very, very rough figure. What role would the Japanese have for such a group of that size? They can't arm and train them all and many may not be fit for military service.

I concur that the continued fauna misconception doesn't add anything to the conversation.
 
Given how under-utilised the Australian continent was in the 1940's it is entirely plausible that a Japan that occupied Australia would bring in large amounts of slave or near slave labour in order to exploit it. Outnumbering whites would take a little while, but without the migration of the post-war era it would be quite possible.

It was underutilized then and is still under utilized for good reasons. Even with slave labor it is still probably not worth the effort for what you would get out of it. What does it offer Japan that somewhere like Korea doesn't?
 
It was underutilized then and is still under utilized for good reasons. Even with slave labor it is still probably not worth the effort for what you would get out of it. What does it offer Japan that somewhere like Korea doesn't?

Vast tracks of good agricultural land that can cheaply produce the sorts of high quality produce that the Home Islands will be demanding? Enormous cheap mineral wealth needed to fuel the economy of a large Empire? Australia is one of the richest pieces of real estate on Earth, and perhaps most importantly had/has a low population so that the per capita extraction is extremely high. It is also a good place to send rebellious individuals, similar to the original British purpose, as it allows them to remain productive while removing them from large hostile populations of oppressed Asians.
 
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