Holding handmade posters reading: “Democracy killer” and “Has the Republic of China (ROC) fallen?” a number of National Sun Yat-sen University students yesterday protested against former premier Hau Pei-tsun (郝柏村) for his description of Taiwanese as “loyal subjects” (皇民) of the Japanese emperor during the Japanese colonial era.
The students demonstrated during Hau’s visit to the Greater Kaohsiung campus, where he gave a talk on the Second Sino-Japanese War and cross-strait relations.
The students said Hau’s “Japanization” (皇民化) remarks — made before the Nov. 29 nine-in-one elections — reopened historical scars for Taiwanese and make Hau guilty of causing inter-ethnic distrust.
Photo: Chang Chung-yi, Taipei Times
In his lecture, Hau said victory in the eight-year-long Second Sino-Japanese War was due not only to the broad expanses of Chinese territory and its massive population, but also to the unwavering determination of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石).
The war was one of the most devastating occurences for Zhonghua minzu (中華民族, Chinese ethnicity), but it also bestowed great rewards, including the abrogation of various unequal treaties and the reclaiming of lost land, Hau said
However, Hau added that the truths of what he called a simultaneously tragic and glorious era in Chinese history have been distorted or buried.
Photo: Chang Chung-yi, Taipei Times
In terms of cross-strait relations, Hau said that despite what former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) said was a “state-to-state” relationship and what former president Chen Shi-bian (陳水扁) said was “one country on either side [of the Taiwan Strait],” he considered cross-strait relations as growing from “civil war caused by international issues,” and that only through recognition of the “1992 consensus” were peaceful relations allowed to flourish.
When asked by students his thoughts about retired ROC military officers who receive national pensions, but reside in China, and those who are openly cozying up to China, Hau said that retired military officials living in China does not equate to their embracing the Chinese Communist Party.
The question in itself is not objective, Hau added, saying that under the “one China” principle, Taiwanese retired military personnel returning to China was by all considerations “returning home (回家鄉).”
Photo: Chang Chung-yi, Taipei Times
On questions regarding the ROC military’s perceived confusion of who it should consider an enemy and the Chinese Communist Party’s infiltration, Hau said that his personal stance is the same as the military’s, and that he is against Taiwan independence, against “united front” tactics and anticommunist, but not anti-China or anti-Zhonghua minzu.
In response to a question on whether Taiwan has truly been “restored” following the end of the Japanese colonial period on Oct. 25, 1945, as well as the conclusion of the Second Sino-Japanese War, Hau said that everyone focused too much on the 228 Incident and the White Terror era while failing to pay enough attention to the retrocession of Taiwan from Japan.
When further asked by attendees why the 228 Incident and the White Terror era do not deserve focus, Hau said that there were about 1,000 individuals who had disappeared during the 228 Incident and 10,000 at most — if the tally included families of the individuals — before adding that most of the people executed during the White Terror era were mainlanders.
Hau said that Lee was also a “Japanized” Taiwanese, adding that Lee not only had a Japanese name, he was also one of the few “elites” in Taiwan, as at the time, more than 95 percent of National Taiwan University (NTU) students were Japanese and just 5 percent were Taiwanese.
Meanwhile, the protesting students said that although they respected the KMT’s historical memories of the war — since Taiwanese could have different pasts, but share a common future — they said that Hau’s singing of the Chinese national anthem in China last year severely hampered national consciousness for Taiwanese.
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