If John had never met Yoko... | Page 4 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

@Dark Overlord said
I hope i’m not derailing this thread too much but wasn’t it just the US who were against the Japanese whereas the UK was mainly against Hitler and the Nazis.  

Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and Burma, among others were British territories, @Dark Overlord. The same day Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, they attacked Hong Kong. The fall of Singapore was even more brutal, including the Alexandria Hospital massacre. Large percentages of POWs, including civilians, were British, Australian, Canadian, Indian (all part of the then British Empire).

The Nazis, vile as they were, largely treated captured foreign soldiers in accordance with the Geneva Convention. The Japanese didn’t.

@Expert Textpert said

Ron Nasty said
I don’t think it was as simple as racism. It was the hangover from the Second World War. The British captured by the Japanese were treated brutally, which left a lot of ill-feeling among the British, especially since the Japanese refused to apologise and pay compensation for a long time. Had John fallen in love with someone from virtually anywhere else, of any colour or race, there would have been no problem. It was the hangover of the resentment about Japanese actions during the war.  

I hadn’t thought of that, and it may very well have something to do with it, but I don’t think it is the whole story and I don’t think it explains why the hatred lingers.  

The point I was making was that it wasn’t as simple as plain racism. The ill-feeling in the UK towards the Japanese over their actions in the Second World War continued for the rest the 20th Century, as shown by the protests against the State visit of Emperor Akihito in 1998:

Emperor Akihito was greeted with hostility from former British prisoners of war, who symbolically turned their backs on him, while others jeered, as he and the Queen passed by on The Mall in a horse-drawn carriage during a royal procession. Addressing the state banquet later, the emperor spoke of his “deep sorrow and pain” over the suffering inflicted by his country during the Second World War, but he stopped short of apologising for the treatment of prisoners in work camps. A small group of PoWs also held a candlelit vigil outside the Japanese embassy to remember those who died. The emperor was also met with protests at Westminster Abbey and in the Welsh capital, Cardiff.

I think that whenever someone is cast in a certain light, it becomes difficult to overturn, even if those years later are unaware of the original bias that helped formed that opinion.