At the end of World War II, 68 years ago, the government of the Republic of China (ROC) occupied Taiwan on the orders of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers. Having taken over control of Taiwan, it ordered newspapers to stop referring to “what is commonly called Japanese rule” (日治) and call it “Japanese occupation” (日據) instead. This is why President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has used the phrase “Japanese occupation” since his childhood and why Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) memorized lessons incorporating the same phrase in his history textbooks at school. It also explains why we now hear a certain political scientist calling for the phrase “Japanese rule” in today’s textbooks to be changed back to “Japanese occupation.”
The first of these three people majored in international law, while the other two studied political science. They are all highly qualified intellectuals, but they are lacking in intellectual honesty. Ma fooled enough people to get voted into office, but even some members of his own Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) say he is incompetent and selfish. Now, he expects a single order to overturn the consensus that historians in Taiwan arrived at about using the term “Japanese rule.” It would be fair to say that although Ma lives in a glass house, he is keen on throwing stones.
When Ma and Jiang were schoolboys memorizing their lessons about the “Japanese occupation,” they must have also learned about the “Communist bandits seizing control of the mainland.” They can hardly have forgotten, either, about how KMT founder Sun Yat-sen (孫逸仙) decided to foment revolution because the Manchu ancestors of former KMT secretary-general King Pu-tsung (金溥聰), had “occupied” China for more than two centuries.
In 1894, the Manchu-ruled Great Qing Empire got itself into a war with Japan over the issue of Korea, but, after suffering heavy defeats, it sued for peace the next year. The war ended with the Treaty of Shimonoseki, signed by Chinese secretary of state Li Hongzhang (李鴻章), in which it was written down that “China cedes to Japan in perpetuity and full sovereignty” Taiwan and the Penghu islands. After the treaty was signed, Japan commenced its colonial rule over Taiwan and Penghu.
Taiwanese may be “common,” but the common term they use for this period — “Japanese rule” — is an honest one. Taiwanese historians grew up under the KMT’s brainwashing education system, but after Taiwan became a democracy they reached a consensus on using the term “Japanese rule.”
Ma, however, is more concerned with pleasing the Chinese government. He is willing to let political scientists who put ideology first overturn the consensus established by historians. From this, we can see that Ma is as devoted to brainwashing as the KMT was.
The procedure by which Japan gained possession of Taiwan and Penghu was in full compliance with international law, unlike the KMT, which occupied these territories on behalf of the Allies, but whose occupation was not confirmed by the 1951 Treaty of San Francisco. Former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) wanted to use Taiwan’s democratization to turn the KMT and the ROC into Taiwanese institutions, but the Chinese government and pro-unification forces in Taiwan both labeled his efforts as maneuvers aimed at Taiwan independence.
Ma, in contrast, has a “one-China” consensus with the People’s Republic of China — the very regime that the KMT tells us “seized control” of the Chinese mainland. China says it wants to “take back” Taiwan, and the truth about Ma is that he would not mind letting China occupy Taiwan in the not-too-distant future.
James Wang is a political commentator.
Translated by Julian Clegg
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) trip to China provides a pertinent reminder of why Taiwanese protested so vociferously against attempts to force through the cross-strait service trade agreement in 2014 and why, since Ma’s presidential election win in 2012, they have not voted in another Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate. While the nation narrowly avoided tragedy — the treaty would have put Taiwan on the path toward the demobilization of its democracy, which Courtney Donovan Smith wrote about in the Taipei Times in “With the Sunflower movement Taiwan dodged a bullet” — Ma’s political swansong in China, which included fawning dithyrambs