During Imperial Japan's conquest in the east, did they encounter any indigenous tribes/peoples?

Out of the Foxholes Questions
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I am curious if Japan did encounter these peoples and how they reacted to them and treated them.

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I can only speak for a few Islands like Kiribati which I visited in 2013. I attended the 70th year commemoration of the liberation of Tarawa and the Making Atolls. In short the treatment was horrendous and mass torture was prevalent. In Butaritari the locals were used as forced labour to dig trenches and a good Japanese soldier warned the locals not to work too hard because the plan was to murder any local with knowledge of the defenses. The Marines came just in time and prevented this. PS my only source is the locals which prepared a fantastic meal. The only flights in are Air Kiribati charters and you might be requested to help loading bananas, mats and other local produce on the way back.

On a lighter note, these islands also have crabs which walk sideways and try to scissor toes at dusk. It felt like being in a frikking Nintendo game. Possibly this is were Nintendo got the idea from?

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Thanks for the response!

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The indigenous peoples of Borneo gave the Japanese a hard time during their occupation of the island. Especially towards the end of the war when Japan had a harder time in putting down any rebellions. I believe also the fear of “headhunter” tribes within the peoples of Borneo also spooked a lot of Japanese occupation forces when encountering these groups.

On the whole, Japan occupation forces treated all peoples fairly equally on Borneo, whether indigenous or Malay, and that was pretty harshly.

my best
Ray Bottorff Jr

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Japan did conquer the Andaman and Nicobar islands where indigenous tribes were living and officially trasferred sovereigny over thos islands to thhe Indian 'government’of Subhas Chandra Bhose. I don’t know whether the treatment of indigenous people improved once an Indian ‘government’ was (officially) in charge. The isolated island of North Sentinel was part of the Japanes occupied archipel.

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