Chapter 2. Japanese Colonial Rule in Taiwan
2.6. Aftermath of Japanese Colonial rule: Restoration to China
The Cairo declaration, December 2nd 1943, declared that after the defeat of Japan;
Taiwan, Penghu and Manchuria should be returned to China. On October 25th 1945 Taiwan was restored to Chinese rule. The majority of Taiwanese were happy to return to China. In Taipei 30.000 people showed up to welcome the KMT. Yet, part of the joy of reunification was short lived. (Rigger, 1999:55) Chang Chun-hung remembered the emotions as the Taiwanese greeted the Chinese soldiers:
“We all took flags to and went to welcome them…that was really how we felt-entering the embrace of our fatherland. But although we accepted the mainland takeover, we immediately began to sense a conflict of culture. Moreover the conflict of culture was extremely intense. It was discovered that the Japanese culture of which we had originally loathed, was compared to the culture of our fatherland, a strong culture a superior culture. And the culture of the rulers is a worthless, inferior, an inferior kind of barbaric culture, That kind of conflict was extremely intense and transformed us from the heights of identification to the heights of hostility.”(Wahman, 1994:95)
In the 50 years of colonial rule the Japanese had transformed the island from a peripheral outpost to a modern state. The population rose from about two and a half million in 1895 to around six million people in 1945. During the second half of the Japanese rule, the foreign rulers sought to assimilate the Taiwanese into Japanese. For the eight last years the assimilation policies were aggressively enforced. By the end of the
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war 71,2 percent of the school age children were enrolled in school, 80,86 percent of the boys and 60,95 percent of the girls. A number of the population growing up in the colony had to some degree been affected by the war. A number of the Taiwanese people came to identify with Japan. The historian Ye Shitao claimed that two thirds of the Taiwanese had been Japanized by the end of the war. (Huang, 2006:312)
For the Chinese masses the 50 years of Colonial rule had made differences. More than half a century cut apart from China had made the Taiwanese incomplete Chinese.
“Most Taiwanese had little or no knowledge about Chiang Kai-Shek and the nationalist government, and even fewer spoke Mandarin Chinese the new national language. (Ching, 2001:36)
The New government considered the people enslaved during colonial rule. All aspects of Japanese culture adopted during the colonial rule were products of enslavement.
The education was labeled slavery education, thus needing eradication. All Japanese thoughts, customs, habits and culture were targets for the eradication. The Japanese culture had to be replaced by the Chinese revolutionary spirit based on the three principles of Sun Yat Sen. As seen in the Taiwan Xinshengbao editorial:
“Taiwan has been under the oppressive rule of Japanese imperialism. The Japanese spread numerous poisonous elements to numb and captivate the
Taiwanese people so they will have no clear idea about the motherland, and will gradually distance themselves in order to achieve the goals of Japanization and imperialization… We think it is an urgent task for us to eradicate the poisonous elements of thoughts that Japan has been creating for 50 years; and it should be done immediately” (Huang, 2006:315)
After the end of the war the Taiwanese people continued to speak Japanese. It is estimated that around 70 percent of Taiwanese used Japanese by the end of Japanese rule.
As a result the government initially allowed some Japanese sections in the newspapers. In June 1946 the government launched a national Language promotion committee to
promote Mandarin. In September 1946 an order forbade the middle schools to use Japanese in education arguing that since the province had been restored for over a year,
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the national language should be promoted. A proclamation banning Japanese from newspapers and magazines were issued. The Taiwanese intellectuals did not react well to the cultural reconfiguration. The change of language and removal of the status of
Japanese and Japanese education led to changes for a number of Taiwanese. In the Japanese common schools, they learned to read and write in Japanese. In the new state, jobs required Chinese abilities. Thus for a large number of the Taiwanese elites their education was redeemed useless. Instead of appointing local Taiwanese the new government would fill leadership and higher positions with Mainland Chinese. In addition the Chinese were rumored not to trust Taiwanese because of the Japanese influence. Chen Yi was alleged to have stated “the Taiwanese had been slaves of the Japanese and would therefore have to complete resinicisation before exercising full political-cultural rights. (Fairbanks, et al, 1973:902)
In response to the changing status of the elites evoked a series of responses from the Taiwanese elites. The Taiwanese response to the changing policies shows the
difference between Taiwanese and Chinese and the effects of Japanese colonial rule.
During the colonial rule some aspects of society had become deeply rooted in the
population. In the editorials for the Taiwanese independent newspaper Minbao the author argues that the Japanese rule brought positive changes to the Taiwanese as well.
“Taiwan was originally an orderly society...Many from outside like to say that the Taiwanese were under 50 years of Japanese enslavement, their thoughts distorted and thus not fit for holding political power. This is pure nonsense. It is completely incorrect unless they have another motivation for saying so… We can firmly state that 99 out of 100 people were not being enslaved. It is shallow, insulting and self-deceiving to to label someone as being enslaved just because they cannot speak fluently or write completely in Mandarin-Chinese… One cannot claim the Taiwanese had been transformed or imply they are useless because a superficial phenomena such as speaking the Japanese language or possessing a temperament that is similar to Japanese, or because they do not speak and write beautiful Mandarin… Taiwanese people, though under oppressive Japanese rule, had nevertheless been baptized by a high level of capitalism; there are very few
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feudalistic vestiges left among the people. This is something we can be proud of”.
(Huang, 2006:321)
Over the time the opposition from the Taiwanese elites continued to rise. They were unhappy about their status in society and the policies of the provincial government.
The nationalist movement created during Japanese colonial rule resurfaced with The Home Rule Movement demanding rights of political self-determination. The opposition of colonial rule culminated in the 228 Incident. After the incident martial law was implemented on Taiwan. The martial law marks the definite end of the colonial rule, and the beginning of a new era.