The expansion of Imperial Japan across the Asia Pacific from 1941 was accompanied by many atrocities against Catholic missionaries, clerics, nuns, and lay people. Imperial Japan had developed State Shinto as the Imperial religion and promoted the notion of the divinity of the Emperor. Japanese propaganda identified Catholics with European dominance – especially among Japan's own small Catholic community but also larger Asian communities in East Timor, Korea, French Indo-China the Dutch East Indies, the Philippines, Singapore, Hong Kong, Australian Papua, Australian New Guinea and elsewhere.
