Soldiers want credit for fight against Japan

The Taiwanese people's contribution to China's resistance against Japan in WWII should be noted, scholars say.

Yesterday, on the eve of Taiwan's Retrocession Day, scholars said a group of Taiwanese who formed a "Taiwan Volunteer Corps" (台灣義勇?) to help fight the Japanese in China during its occupation there should be awarded due credit for its contribution to the defeat of Japan and the restoration of Taiwan to Chinese control.

"Although the restoration of Chinese rule on Taiwan is already celebrating its 54th anniversary, little progress has been made on the historical study of Taiwanese military contribution to China during its eight-year war with Japan," said Hsu Hsueh-chi (33榆V), a history researcher at the Academia Sinica (??研院).

Hsu made the remarks at a symposium on the 60th anniversary of the so-called "Taiwan Volunteer Corps." The symposium was organized by a foundation dedicated to the preservation of cultural heritage.

"The Taiwan Volunteer Corps was founded in 1939 in China by Li Yu-pang (李?籵1), who fled there four years earlier after launching an attack on a Japanese police station in Taipei," said Yen Hsiu-feng (嚴秀峰), chairman of the foundation.

"Li's move was cheered by Taiwanese who were taking refuge on the mainland, especially those in the southeastern coastal provinces," Yen said.

"Li's corps provided support to Chinese troops in four main areas: armed campaigns against the Japanese, medical work, production of necessities for the war, and circular morale-boosting missions around the country," she said.

Membership in Li's corps had reached 400 at its peak, with around 100 of them only teenagers who formed a juvenile division of the corps, according to a study by Chinese scholar Lo Zifang (樓?l芳).

"In 1945, Li's corps raised the first ROC flag in Taiwan since the island's cession to Japan 50 years earlier. They fulfilled the wish of Taiwan's people to return to the motherland," she said.

"But the [nationalist] government did not thank Li for his efforts during the war. It suppressed him instead, ordering him to disband the corps after the war, fearing the growing popularity of his corps," she said.

Li escaped persecution during the 228 Incident in 1947 when the government targeted dissidents and suspected communists, Yen said, but died during the White Terror that came in the 1950s.

Sociology scholar Tang Hsi-yung (湯?勇), of the Academia Sinica, provided a historical-social context for the volunteer corps to come into existence.

"When Li founded the corps, Taiwanese did not enjoy a good reputation among the local people on the mainland," Tang said. "The corps did manage to better the image of Taiwanese somehow."

"The Taiwanese at the time were sometimes considered foreigners by Chinese on the mainland because they came from a Japanese-occupied territory," said historical scholar Yin Chang-yi (??1義), of Fu Jen Catholic University.

"Taiwanese also had a bad reputation among Chinese on the mainland because of their involvement in corrupt businesses. In Fujian's Xiamen, for instance, Taiwanese gangsters established a stronghold there, running whore houses and opium dens," Yin said.

"The Japanese colonial government's policy was to send the island's troublemakers to the mainland. The Japanese wanted these people to damage the image of Taiwanese on the mainland and collect information for them at the same time," Tang said.