As the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II approaches, the government, as well as the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), are preparing a series of events to commemorate their “victory over Japan.” However, such events organized from a China-oriented perspective might fail to connect on an emotional level with the majority of Taiwanese and might even further alienate them.
According to public announcements by the government and the KMT, a series of events have been planned to honor those who bravely resisted the Japanese invasion of China, with KMT Secretary-General Lee Shu-chuan (李四川) going as far as saying that an event to be held on July 5 is to commemorate the heroes who made it possible for Taiwanese to speak Mandarin, celebrate the Lunar New Year and eat zongzi (粽子) during the Dragon Boat Festival.
Hopefully, the planning of the events and Lee’s remarks were made out of ignorance.
First, while it is true that those who sacrificed their lives in the fight against the Japanese deserve to be remembered, how does the KMT plan to connect with Taiwanese on an emotional level? For the majority of Taiwanese, what happened in China during the war is only something they learned about in history class.
Additionally, saying that Taiwanese are able to celebrate traditional holidays because of efforts by the Chinese military would be a deviation from historical fact, as — with the exception of the later years of the war, when there was strict food rationing and Japanization was taking place — Taiwanese under Japanese rule had always been able to celebrate their own holidays.
The end of World War II certainly is something worth commemorating. However, the planning of any commemorative events must take into consideration Taiwan’s unique demographic composition, which includes those who experienced the Japanese invasion of China and settled in Taiwan after the war, as well as those whose families lived in Taiwan before it was a Japanese territory — both groups have different views on the war and Japanese rule.
That is not to say that ethnic Taiwanese view Japanese rule in a positive light. However, since Taiwan was a territory of Japan for half a century, many older Taiwanese were born and educated under Japanese rule and they have a more complicated view of the Japanese, and some of those ideas have been passed down to their descendants.
For instance, asking someone who lived under Japanese rule what they thought of the colonial period might render complaints about how harsh the government was or how much they hated Japanese police officers. However, some might just as easily remark on how nice and friendly some Japanese teachers were or how heartbreaking it was to bid farewell to Japanese neighbors.
Of course, there was Taiwanese resistance to Japanese rule as well, with intense armed resistance in the first decade after Tokyo took control in 1895, followed by peaceful resistance in the 1920s. However, armed resistance was not fought due to nationalism, but rather out of a determination to defend their own homes, while peaceful resistance was conducted with assistance from Japanese leftists.
Those in power must be humble and tolerant, especially in a nation like Taiwan with such diverse ideas about that period of history. If the government — and by extension the KMT — does not want to create more domestic divisions, it must be careful about planning events to commemorate the end of the war.
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