1937: Japan and the Netherlands sign a ten year agreement for oil from the Dutch East Indies. This diplomatic coup for the Japanese government keeps the Pacific at peace during the European War.
1939-1945: Various resistance groups begin to sprout up in the Dutch East Indies and French Indochina when the two countries are occupied by the German army. Both nations, with aid garnered from the rest of the world, manage to hold on to their possessions though the French hold in Indochina is much more tenuous.
mid-1945: The European War ends. Within two months of Germany and Italy's surrender, French and Dutch troops bolstered by surplus German, British, or American guns, aircraft, and ships flood into their colonies.
The newly formed United Nations is busy with other matters.
1945-1948: France deploys four different demibrigades of the Foreign Legion to Indochina to maintain order. Vo Nguyen Giap, the guerilla leader they are fighting, steals across the northern border and into the Chinese hinterlands.
1947: The Netherlands and Japan renew their oil sail contract for the Dutch East Indies, this time until 1954, when the Dutch coalition government has promised to have it's next election.
1949: India and Pakistan, following a protracted struggle just before independence, become separate countries inside the Commonwealth.
1948-1955: A homegrown liberation movement for an independent Indonesia headed by Sukarno and Hatta springs up on Borneo and Java, attempting to establish areas of indigenous control in the remote hilly areas of the country.
By 1954 Hatta has been killed in a commando raid, and Sukarno is in hiding in Java from the Dutch authorities who are making substantial progress in their counter-insurgency strategies.
early-1953: The independent Indian government enters into talks with the Dutch government to purchase their next oil contract when it comes up for renewal in 1954. These discussions are kept quiet, but the results of such an action are fairly obvious to the Japanese once they find out. Within a month of the initial Indian query on the subject, there is a quiet but strident bidding war over the oil between the Indian and Japanese governments.
mid-1953: At a speech in Ames, Iowa, former State Department honcho Dean Rusk states that "The Pacific is very much in the US interest, just as much as Europe is. Australia as much as Britain, India as much as France, Indochina as much as West Germany." Pointedly absent from his speech on Pacific Security Policy is any mention of US policy towards the Dutch East Indies and the war that is still burning there.
late-1953: Buoyed by what seems to be US apathy towards the Indonesian Crisis and the Indian/Pacific Ocean border in general, the Japanese General Staff decides to go ahead with advanced planning for a naval and airborne assault to capture the Dutch East Indies and paralyze the Indian naval presence in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. At the insistence of members of the government and diplomatic corps, the plan is expanded beyond Indian forces to include certain Australian targets.
early-1954: The Dutch Government announces that India has won a six year contract for oil from it's East Indies colony.
Japan enacts it's war plan, sending airborne troops against the Dutch oil center at Tarakan and into Borneo. They also land amphibious troops at Manado (Sulawesi), capturing a Dutch airfield intact.
Within hours of the Manado Operation, one of the four Japanese carriers in service launches it's strike fighters against Darwin, sinking three warships at anchor and damaging another five. One of these ships is the British carrier HMS Ark Royal, which was being repaired after a collision.
An Indian surface group near Bombay is attacked by several Japanese submarines, and two warships are sunk before they drive off the attackers.
The Japanese Army and Navy make multiple landings on Borneo, Java, and New Guinea, capturing oil fields on the first two and air fields on the latter. Within a month of the war's beginning, Japanese four engined bombers (similar to the Lancaster in ability) are based in north-central New Guinea and flying night raids against northern Australia and eastern Java.
Two divisions of infantry backed by an independent tank brigade land on Java, one hundred miles northwest of the capital: Batavia. They encounter zero resistance when they hit the beach, and only begin to get problems when they start advancing up the spine of the island as the Dutch defenders, backed by a Canadian battalion that was stranded by the outbreak of war, establish concentric defensive lines for miles all the way back to Batavia. For hundreds of miles, the Japanese fight hardened guerilla fighters holed up in mountain firebases backed up by mortars and pack howitzers until they finally reach Batavia and destroy the army they were facing. Batavia, and Java with it, falls by mid-1954.
Mid-1954: The UN, too late to save the lives of those who have died so far, convenes yet again to work out a plan to stop the war. Japan has walked out of the Security Council, which opens the door for a (OTL) Korean War-style solution, letting the remaining powers vote in a plan allowing the United Nations to label Japan the aggressor and assemble a coalition of willing nations to go against them to kick them out of the islands they have taken.
The US, Canada, France, South Africa, Belgium, Sweden, Columbia, and dozens of countries join the war effort in whatever form they can.
One USAF General, Hap Arnold, pitches a plan that has the backing of the USMC: in order to end the war with less loss of life and less time, the Japanese home islands should be subjected to a strategic bombing campaign similar to that of the European Theatre using the B-29s of SAC. "All we need to do," he says, "is take us a few islands in the South Pacific."