Former president Lee Teng-hui’s (李登輝) recent comments in an interview with a Japanese magazine were faithful to Taiwanese history and “represented the Taiwanese voice of his generation,” former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislator Chen Wan-chen (陳婉真) said yesterday.
The Japanese-language Voice magazine quoted Lee as saying that Taiwan did not fight a war of resistance against Japan during the Japanese colonial era, and that many Taiwanese joined the Imperial Japanese Army at that time to fight for “their motherland,” which they thought of as Japan.
In the interview, the former president cited his own experience and that of his elder brother, Lee Teng-chin (李登欽), who joined the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy respectively.
Lee Teng-chin was killed in action in Manila on Feb. 15, 1945, and his ashes are enshrined in Tokyo at the Yasukuni Shrine.
Lee Teng-hui’s comments drew outraged criticism from several Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) politicians, including President Ma Ying-Jeou (馬英九), who accused him of “betraying Taiwan, humiliating its people and debasing himself.”
Chen, the author of The Missing 1940s — Children Who Made Airplanes (消失的40年─造飛機的小孩們), a collection of interviews with more than 200 elderly Taiwanese, including veterans of the Imperial Japanese Army and their family members, said Lee Teng-hui’s comments “represented the Taiwanese voice of his generation.”
His critics were enraged because the former KMT member “challenged the legitimacy of the KMT’s rule,” she said.
Taiwanese of Lee Teng-hui’s generation identified overwhelmingly with Japan because they were born as Japanese citizens, Chen said, adding that Japanese national identity was widely accepted in Taiwan at the time.
Japanese era names — such as “Taisho” and “Showa” — were used by Taiwanese genealogy books as chronological devices, and the word “chao” (昭) appeared in the names of many Taiwanese children born then because it indicated they were born in the Showa period, Chen said.
“So how could they have joined the War of Resistance Against Japan?” Chen said, labeling Ma’s criticism of Lee Teng-hui “absurd.”
Taiwanese of Lee Teng-hui’s generation deserve sympathy because they had no control over their national identity, which was imposed upon them by national governments that redrew political borders without their consent, Chen said.
When Lee Teng-hui talked in 1994 about the “sadness of being Taiwanese” (台灣人的悲哀) during a discussion with Japanese author Riotaro Shiba, “he meant being deprived of the right to choose and having to accept the KMT regime’s ‘Chinese education’ in silence,” Chen said.
When the KMT moved to Taiwan from China after it lost the Chinese Civil War, it viewed the island’s inhabitants as “imperial subjects” loyal to Japan and “second-rate citizens,” and securing its one-party state by promoting a biased historiography of “the War of Resistance” in national education as well as the repression of dissidents during the White Terror era, she said.
“Slogans such as ‘reconquer the mainland’ and Taiwan’s participation in the ‘Eight-Year War of Resistance’ (八年抗戰)’ were shams perpetuated by the KMT at the time to further its rule. However, Taiwanese have woken up to this fact,” she said.
Ma’s vitriolic attack on Lee Teng-hui was a continuation of the tragedy of the Taiwanese, Chen added.
Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je’s (柯文哲) mother, Ho Jui-ying (何瑞英), on Saturday was asked by reporters about Lee Teng-hui’s remarks because she was also born during the Japanese colonial era.
Lee’s comments were “quite accurate,” she said.
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