Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Japan's Imperial Networks: Taiwan and Manchuria

Japan Focus, where there are always interesting articles, has two good offerings this week. First, an interesting connection between the Japanese puppet state of Manchuko and Taiwan under Japanese imperial rule emerges in this piece on Manchuko. One of the ways that being a Japanese colony affected Taiwan was that it enabled thousands of Taiwanese to travel around Asia to do things they otherwise might not have had the chance to do, with a historically new status as probationary Japanese. It also provided protection for Taiwanese operating in China, by giving them Japanese rather than Chinese citizenship (Manchukans by contrast had no citizenship, since they were going to be incorporated wholesale into the Japanese empire at some point, according to one view expressed in the article). On to the excerpt....

+++++++++++

Just as Korea was linked to Manchuria because it was a Japanese colony, Taiwan also developed ties with northeastern China.

Hsu Hsueh-chi (Xu Xueji), 54, who heads Academia Sinica's Institute of Taiwan History in Taipei, has since the 1990s conducted research on Taiwanese who lived in Manchuria. When she studied the February 28, 1947, massacre of residents by the Guomindang government and the oppression that followed, Hsu noticed that many victims had returned from Manchuria.

Researchers on Japanese colonial rule had focused on Taiwanese who joined the Guomindang in Chongqing in southwestern China but not on those who went to Manchuria, she said. When she gathered information on some 700 people who lived in Manchuria, Hsu was impressed with the large number of doctors involved. Graduates of the Manchuria medical college alone topped 100, followed by government employees.

Hsu said many Taiwanese went to Manchuria where they were treated equally as Japanese and could play active roles in society. "Taiwan at the time had few institutes of higher education," she said. "Landing jobs was not easy, and there was a wide gap in wages between Taiwanese and Japanese workers." In addition, many young people went to Manchuria because they admired Xie Jieshi, a Taiwan native who became Manchukuo's first foreign minister, according to Hsu.

Hsu interviewed some 50 people who had returned from Manchuria, but they were reluctant to talk. The returnees feared for their safety because Xie Jieshi was labeled a "traitor to China" after World War II. One of those Hsu interviewed was Li Shuiqing, who was among the first graduates of Kenkoku University (national foundation university), Manchukuo's highest institution of learning.

Li, 89, said he was passionate about the ideal of Gozoku Kyowa when he entered the school. It had Korean, Russian and Mongolian students in addition to Japanese and Chinese. Li spent six years living with them in a dormitory. "I still retain close ties with old students who are like my brothers," he said in fluent Japanese.

Li was poor, and the tuition-free Kenkoku University was like a dream come true. The school not only paid for meals and other living expenses but also provided students with an allowance. While it was common in Manchukuo for Japanese to eat rice and for Chinese to sup on gaoliang grain, students at the dormitory ate the same meals in protest against such discrimination. Looking back on his experience, Li said that Kenkoku University entered a period of turmoil around 1940 in its third year and eventually collapsed.

The Kwantung Army cracked down on dissidents at the end of 1941, when Japan entered into war against the United States and Britain. Some Kenkoku University students were arrested and died in prison.

During the Guomindang government's crackdown on Taiwanese residents in 1947, Li's junior in school was killed. While Li himself spent 2 1/2 years in prison, he believes he was fortunate to have attended Kenkoku University. "I was able to learn to see things from different viewpoints because I went to school with people of different nationalities," he said.

+++++++++++++++

A second article discusses the probable Asian policies and policy shifts of new Australian PM Kevin Rudd, who once studied Mandarin here in Taiwan, and has considerable experience of both Taiwan and China. There are four long pieces collected inside this Japan Focus piece, too long to meaningfully excerpt here; don't miss the two pieces that argue that while Rudd is a lot like "Tony Blair," he is seeking a way to preserve the US Asian presence while not acting as Washington's lap dog.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

John Howard may have been Washington's lapdog, but Rudd is China's bitch.

Here's what he said about Taiwan - http://www.abc.net.au/sundayprofile/stories/s1154754.htm

The usual Beijing line...he might as well pull his pants down and bend over for China right now. As an Australian, I am ashamed that this China groupie got voted into power...what a disgrace.

JZ said...

There is nothing wrong what Kevin Rudd said. An honest analysis of the current state of affairs. Chen Shui-bian is a very dangerous person who does everything for personal gains, even putting millions of life in danger.

Tommy said...

Hahaha..... Z, the problem with your thinking is that you want to interpret most of Chen's actions as provocative towards Beijing. Chen, while not the most prudent of politicians or speakers has not done anything belligerant. He has crossed no major lines. If the Chinese would just drop their threats to use war to conquer a country that they do not control (whether that country is called ROC or Taiwan), then there would be no problem at all.

Now you tell me, who puts people's lives in danger? A politician who speaks to his constituency, as all politicians do, or a dictatorship that threatens force on those who dare to think differently? Nobody's life would be in danger if Beijing would just forego its bizarro-quixotic windmill chase (a negative pursuit of a loony cause) by dismanteling its missiles and talking rationally with the Taiwanese.

So hey, let's turn this around. "Hu Jintao is a very dangerous person who does everything for...."

Anonymous said...

Well, maybe to you...but there's lots of people out there like me who willingly vote for Chen Shui Bian, knowing full well that it may put our own lives in danger, simply because we don't want to be Chinese.

So no, he's not putting our lives in danger. We're putting our own lives in danger.

Does it surprise you so much that there REALLY are people out there who would rather lose their lives than be Chinese? It shouldn't, because we're the majority in Taiwan:)

channing said...

I don't know if you're purposely introducing bias here, because:

1. Denying Chinese identity does not represent the majority of Taiwan's population, and

2. Voting for Chen Shui-bian does not erase an ethnic identity.

Last I heard, he loves speaking Taiwanese, a variant of Minnan tongue originating from China.

Anonymous said...

Exactly the problem with the term 'Chinese,' does it refer to ethnicity or does it refer to nationality? It is totally befuddled by that "one China" claim: a rhetoric so powerful that it allows the country that has committed the most terrible cultural murder against China to represent China.

Thus the angry youths happily write in simplified Chinese, "You don't want to be Chinese? Fine! Don't write in Chinese. You have forgotten your ancestors," never looking at the irony of using that artificially simplified language.

Last I heard. English is a variant of British English originating from England.

channing said...

Yes, and the American colonial subjects were British nationals until the revolutionary war forcibly established the United States nation by military power--an option that the ROC and its subjects do not want to consider.

Simplified Chinese has been around for ages. It was fully systemized during the KMT era as a draft, I believe, but not put into the education system until after the CCP took mainland China. It's simplified, but it was not Communist-made propaganda.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "Don't write in Chinese," as Taiwan currently has no other writing system. Inventing a new writing system out of hatred would be the ultimate chauvinistic propaganda!

Anonymous said...

Anon either got it totally wrong or is intentionally satirical. Anon should not see China as a constant and Taiwan as the only variable. In doing so, Anon is demonizing China. Remember, China is changing. Anon shows little or no understanding of China. There is only one person in the world that may say he understands China, and thatis Hu Jintao, whose understanding shapes the understanding of China.

The murderer has already placed a chokehold on the victim, and is putting more strength into the arms. The murderer has already placed a chokehold on the victim, and is putting more strength into the arms. Part of the victim's brain is already giving up; the other part wants to struggle, however futile it may be. As the victim gasps feebly to the passerby, the passerby spits on the victim and says: “you are so noisy, it’s probably your own fault; he probably wants to kill you because you gasp so terribly.”