Taiwan Under Japanese Colonial Rule, 1895

The end of World War II resulted in the defeat of Japan and the end of Japanese colonial rule in Taiwan. The government of the Republic of China (hence-forth, the Nationalist government) took over Taiwan from Japan.¹ During the half-century of colonial rule, the Japanese colonial government aggressively promoted assimilation policies, employing state coercion to transfer Japanese culture to Taiwan in order to make Japanese culture dominant in the colony. Japanese nationalism was introduced through educational institutions on various levels. The assimilation policy was further intensified after the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937; the imperial subjugation movement banned Chinese newspapers, and imperial subject training centers were established throughout the island to mold the Taiwanese into true imperial subjects. Under such conditions, it is no wonder that the Taiwanese came to identify with Japan, and in fact, by the end of the occupation, the Taiwanese had indeed become to a certain degree japanized.² Writer and literary historian Ye Shitao , commenting on the japanization of the Taiwanese, proclaimed that two-thirds of the population had been japanized by the end of the war.³ In 1944, the year before Japan’s defeat, 71.30 percent of school-age children were enrolled in school, with the total for boys reaching 80.86 percent and girls 60.94 percent.⁴ Most of these schoolchildren had become “military youth.” The degree of japanization can be noted both from the personal experience of Ye Shitao and from statistics in historical documents.

The formation of modern nation-states in Asia, especially in previously colonized countries, is different from that of Western European states. Ex-colonies that moved from decolonization to independence faced a difficult situation in that they established central governments first, and then had to move quickly to nationalize the various ethnicities that lived within their boundaries. Unlike static nation-states, they were state-nations undertaking a nation-building process that moved from the top down.⁵ Taiwan immediately after the war faced exactly this predicament.

To the Nationalist government, the first priority was the task of incorporating noncitizens, i.e., the japanized Taiwanese, into the society of the Republic of China. In order to reconstruct the national consciousness of the Taiwanese people to speed up their sinicization, the Nationalist government pursued thorough sinicization cultural policies and embarked on a series of cultural reconfigurations that were top-down in their orientation.⁶

This article explores a controversial keyword, “enslaved,” as it could be applied to the 1947 Nationalist government’s cultural reconstruction on the eve of the February 28 Incident. It is through the examination of the term and its surrounding issues that I hope to present what intellectuals at the time thought about the colonial culture and their attempt to find a cultural path for themselves in the postcolonial era.⁷

NATIONALIST GOVERNMENT POLICY FOR RECONFIGURATION OF TAIWANESE CULTURE

The “Cairo Declaration,” announced on December 2, 1943, proclaimed that after the defeat of Japan, Taiwan, Penghu, and Manchuria should be returned to China. After the Cairo conference (November 22 to 26), the highest-ranking Chinese official, Chiang Kaishek , returned to China and immediately ordered the Central Planning Bureau, which was an affiliation of the National Defense Primary Committee (the organization in charge of the Nationalist government’s administration and military affairs), to create a committee to investigate conditions on the island in preparation for Taiwan’s takeover. The chair of this new committee was Chen Yi , who later became the first head of the Taiwan Provincial Administrative Bureau, the organization that ruled Taiwan in the immediate postwar era.

The first task given to the Taiwan Investigation Committee was to draft “Guidelines for Receiving Taiwan.” The guidelines were formally announced on March 23, 1945. The guidelines included sixteen sections and served as the blueprint for the receivership and administration in Taiwan during the immediate postwar era. They consisted of: section 1: general principles; section 2: domestic affairs; section 3: diplomacy; section 4: military; section 5: monetary policy; section 6: finance; section 7: industry, mining, and commerce; section 8: education and culture; section 9: transportation; section 10: agriculture; section 11: society; section 12: food supply; section 13: legal system; section 14: irrigation; section 15: health; section 16: land.⁸ Directly concerned with postwar Taiwanese cultural reconfiguration were section 1, item (4) in the general principles and section 8 (education and culture), items (40)–(51), which drafted the basic principles for the concrete reconfiguration of Taiwanese culture.⁹ What particularly warrants our attention is item (4) of the general principles:

(4) The cultural facilities after taking over Taiwan should emphasize their functions in reinforcing national identity, eradication of thoughts of slavery, popularizing opportunities for education, and raising the level of culture.¹⁰

The passage indicates that the Nationalist government considered the Taiwanese to have a weak national identity that had been completely enslaved by Japan. There was therefore a need to expunge Japanese culture and strengthen national identity.

JAPANIZATION AND ENSLAVEMENT

The basic guiding principles held by the Nationalist government in reconfiguring Taiwanese culture, as stated in the previous section, were to reinforce national consciousness, eradicate thoughts of enslavement, promote educational opportunities, and raise the level of culture. The Nationalist government categorized all Japanese culture that pervaded the colonial period as “thoughts of enslavement,” and colonial education as “slavery education” that thus needed eradication.

While serving on the Taiwanese Investigative Committee in Chongqing, Chen Yi wrote a private letter to then-Minister of Education Chen Li-fu :

Taiwan is different from other provinces after being occupied by the enemy for forty-nine years. During the forty-nine years, the enemy employed all sorts of treacherous schemes to constantly carry out his enslaving education. Besides the slavery mentality, our national language is banned in order to popularize Japanese language and education. There are more than seven thousand Japanese language schools and more than half of the population is educated in Japanese. As a consequence, those who are under the age of fifty have had no chance to learn about Chinese culture and the Three Principles of the People, so naturally they are ignorant. This is indeed dangerous. It is most important, after the restoration, to get rid of the old enslaved mentality from its roots and to establish the revolutionary mentality. And this will mainly be done through education.¹¹

Later, after taking over as head of the Taiwan Provincial Administrative Bureau, Chen listed the “eradication of poisonous thoughts”¹² as one of the main educational goals. The official newspaper of the Provincial Administrative Bureau, Taiwan xinshengbao , spoke openly in its editorials of the need to “purge poisonous elements from our thoughts”:

Taiwan has been under the oppressive rule of Japanese imperialism. … The Japanese spread numerous poisonous elements to numb and to captivate the Taiwanese people so that they will have no clear idea of 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 in Taiwan for the past fifty years; and it should be done immediately!¹³

For the officials of the Nationalist government, japanization in Taiwan was equated with imperialism, enslavement, and poisoning. All culture, thoughts, customs, and habits were targets for eradication.

However, amid this trend, an editorial in Taiwan xinshengbao, “Constructing New Culture in Taiwan,” also advocated the following:

If we judge Taiwanese culture by Chinese standards, certainly there are many deficiencies. After all, Taiwan has been away from China for half a century and there is nothing we can do about it. However, if we judge Taiwan from a world perspective, then we must conclude that there are a lot of good things about it. During the fifty years of Japanese rule, Taiwanese people did learn something. To put it bluntly, though the national culture of Taiwan is not up to that of the motherland, its level in world culture is by no means low. …We should retain international academic studies, and not only retain them but also further develop them.¹⁴

Another editorial, “To Know the Mainland and to Know Taiwan” further proposed:

In order to profit from and to rule Taiwan, Japan had conducted various investigations, published numerous books during the past fifty years. Almost any object, any issue, as large as Taiwanese history, geography, politics, economy, and customs and as small as spiders, in Taiwan has been studied and written about. … We think that future building and research in Taiwan should first start with the translation of various reports done by scientific and technological institutions of the Japanese colonial era to be used by the experts of the administration in their planning of construction projects.¹⁵

The official newspaper of the bureau presented a view slightly different from the official stance. Xu Shoushang ,¹⁶ who was the chief of the National Editorial and Translation Bureau and who played an important role in the reconfiguration of Taiwanese culture, wrote:

Academic culture in Taiwan has had a good foundation and can serve as a model for other provinces. … Surely we should be rid of the militarism of Japanese rule, but at the same time, we should not deny the value of pure academic achievement. We should inherit it and improve upon it. If we should sort through and translate the accomplishments of the Japanese scholars’ research on Taiwan, and publish a series of books on Taiwanese studies, I am sure it would reach a hundred volumes.¹⁷

From the editorials in Xinshengbao and Xu Shousheng’s opinions, then, we can see that during the process of cultural configuration, there were those who proposed to incorporate the colonial academic cultural heritage into this process.

As for slavery education, Chen Yi pointed out at a conference for provincial middle school principals that “the Taiwanese people were educated by the Japanese slavery educational system, which made a point of fooling the people, to keep them from understanding politics correctly.”¹⁸ But at the same time, he commented:

I feel that there are two good habits that Taiwanese people possess which make me optimistic [about the future]: one is that they have a tradition of self-governance. This is perhaps a benefit from Japanese rule, since the Japanese emphasized self-governance. … The second good habit is that they have an insatiable desire for knowledge. This may also be the influence of Japanese education. … Self-governance and the desire for knowledge are two basic conditions for modern politics. In this respect, Taiwan is far superior to other provinces.¹⁹

Chen Yi’s comments are somewhat self-contradictory. On one hand, he indicated that the Taiwanese lack of a correct understanding of politics was due to “Japanese enslaving education,” but on the other hand, he praised their ability for self-governance and desire for knowledge. He pointed out that two basic elements of modern politics had resulted from the Japanese educational system. He was therefore positive about the contributions of Japanese education.

The basic premise of the Nationalist government in its cultural reconfiguration was to negate and eradicate the prewar influence of Japanese education. However, after seeing the educational level Japan had achieved in Taiwan during the prewar period, and after comparing it with that of the mainland, they realized that they could not completely deny the positive effects of Japanese education. At least a school of thought like this existed within the administrative bureau.

On the other hand, what was the common view of “enslavement” among Taiwanese intellectuals? To the equation of japanization with enslavement, the privately run Taiwanese local newspaper Minbao asserted editorially, “Taiwan was not ‘enslaved’”:

Taiwanese people never embraced the Japanese enslaving education. Other than a small number of people who possessed a slave mentality and were willing to lower themselves to serve as slave, nobody else was willing to submit themselves. … Taiwanese people, though economically oppressed, were absolutely not slaves. It is only after the restoration that we see the term “enslavement” used so often.²⁰

Taiwanese critic and poet Wang Baiyuan also commented the newspaper Taiwan xinshengbao in an article entitled, “The so-called ‘enslavement’ issue”:

When we were under Japanese rule there was a term, “imperial subjectification” (kōminka ), which put much pressure on the Taiwanese people. After the war, the word that constant threatens us is “enslavement.” The current leadership of Taiwan uses the word whenever they speak, political enslavement, economical enslavement, language enslavement, even our names were enslaved. It is as though if they do not speak of Taiwanese people being enslaved, they are not qualified to be leaders of this people.²¹

In another article, “For gentlemen from outer provinces,” in Zhenjingbao , he continued:

Taiwan was originally an orderly society. … It is equipped with various preconditions of a modern democratic society. Many from outside provinces like to say that the Taiwanese were under fifty 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 in saying so. If that’s the case, how about the Chinese people under the enslaving Manchu rule for three hundred years, and women who still wear Manchu costume? Why is it that after the fall of the Manchu, Han ethnics can reign? The Taiwanese people, though under Japanese rule for half a century, were not enslaved at all. We can firmly state that ninety-nine in a hundred were absolutely not enslaved. It is shallow, insulting, and self-deceiving to label someone as being “enslaved” only because they cannot speak fluently or write competently in Mandarin Chinese. … There is a need to distinguish between substance and phenomenal conditions. One cannot claim the Taiwanese had been transformed or imply that they are useless because of superficial phenomena such as speaking the Japanese language or possessing a temperament that is similar to the Japanese, or because they do not speak or write beautiful Mandarin. … Taiwanese people, though under oppressive Japanese rule, had nevertheless been baptized by a high level of capitalism; there are very few feudalistic vestiges left among the people. This is something we can be proud of.²²

Wang Baiyuan’s articles pointed out the main reasons for which the Taiwanese were accused of having been “enslaved”: they neither spoke nor wrote Mandarin Chinese, and they practiced certain Japanese customs and habits—in other words, they had been japanized. However, to the Taiwanese, these elements of japanization were precisely the necessary conditions for constructing “a modern democratic society” and achieving a “high level of capitalism.”

Another Taiwanese intellectual and journalist, Wu Zhuoliu , also expressed his opinion:

After the restoration there were all sorts of people discussing Japanese education in Taiwan. Some are experts on education while others know nothing about education. Though there was a lot of noise, they all arrived at the simplistic conclusion of enslaving education or poisonous education. It is a shame that most of them were subjective and emotional in their assessment and were not able to see the true essence of Japanese education in Taiwan.

Japanese education paid attention to spiritual education in teaching the concept of national polity (kokutai ), ethics, and history in order for its subjects to blindly follow the so-called “enslavement education.” However, in the field of science, there was no such effort at enslavement. As I have mentioned previously, the spiritual education Japan carried out in Taiwan—the so-called “enslavement education”—was not successful. Rather, it was often at the point of bankruptcy. Taiwanese people openly and secretly resisted it. There were many who went back to the motherland to join the resistance to defeat the Japanese empire.

On the other hand, science education was successful. Taiwanese youth are not only not inferior to youth from other provinces, but in general they are in fact superior to them.²³

Wu Zhuoliu also did not think that being educated in the Japanese way would inevitably lead to being enslaved. On the contrary, by accepting Japanese education the Taiwanese could enjoy modern scientific education and develop scientific thought. He was somewhat positive about Japanese education during the colonial period.

During the immediate postwar period, the Taiwanese continued to use the Japanese language, which was viewed by the Nationalist government as an enslavement phenomenon. Japanese language had come to symbolize “enslavement.” According to one estimate, at the end of the war approximately four million two hundred thousand people—70 percent of Taiwan’s roughly six million people—used Japanese.²⁴ Faced with this reality, the Nationalist government permitted Japanese sections in newspapers and magazines that were published locally right after the war. In June 1946, a “National Language Promotion Committee” was set up to promote Mandarin Chinese. However, those who came from China to teach Mandarin did not necessarily speak standard Mandarin, and this added to the confusion of the Taiwanese. Some even mistakenly thought that there were six different kinds of Mandarin. The campaign did not go well.²⁵

In September of the same year, the Nationalist government issued an order that forbade middle schools to use Japanese. On October 25, asserting that since “the province had been restored for one year, the national language should be promoted in order that national policy can be carried out,”²⁶ and a proclamation banning Japanese in newspapers and magazines was issued. The “national policy” refers to the sinicization of Taiwan. The Nationalist government attempted to use linguistic enforcement to ensure and to hasten the sinicization of Taiwan. Banning the use of Japanese language in middle schools and getting rid of the Japanese sections of newspapers and magazines was a major event in cultural reconfiguration in the immediate postwar period. The Taiwanese reacted vociferously. Privately owned newspapers and magazines in Taiwan all came out against the measure. The monthly magazine Xinxin , for example, argued openly:

The banning of Japanese in newspapers and magazines will start this coming October twenty-fifth. This will in effect seal the eyes and ears of the Taiwanese people. Young people and the middle-age generation all express their resentment and reproach toward this overreaching, ineffective act.

Japanese colonial rule employed high-pressure tactics when they ruled Taiwan, but even they did not ban the use of Chinese until long into the second year of the Sino-Japanese War. Other than that, a certain degree of freedom was allowed, and no restrictions were put on education or literary activities. “Banning Chinese” was something that happened only eight years ago, a sweeping and radical policy change that occurred at the very end of a lengthy Japanese rule. In a sense, this fact reveals that the Japanese were rather respectful of public sentiment.

We hope the authorities can reconsider the policy and listen to the wishes of common folks.²⁷

Xinxin opined on the banning of Japanese and at the same time criticized the Nationalist government’s intolerance that was worse than that of the Japanese. Wu Zhuoliu also expressed his dissatisfaction:

What’s wrong with Japanese? It is a language that was once armed, however, now it has already been disarmed. Japanese has returned to its original state and it is not a bad thing. … The disarmed Japanese is carrying out an important mission of introducing culture. Most of the culture of the world has already been translated into Japanese. One can come into contact with all sorts of world cultures as long as one knows Japanese. Before the Sino-Japanese War, many students were dispatched to Japan by our state, using taxpayer money. Now, all of a sudden six and a half million students who study abroad have to return to the motherland. They follow world trends by speaking Japanese, reading newspapers and magazines in the Japanese language. There is nothing strange about it; in fact, it is something to be delighted about. We really cannot understand why the authorities are so foolish in banning Japanese. They not only do not appreciate those who brought back precious cultural information, but irrationally trample it. How would future historians judge this affair? … There were various factors involved in banning Japanese. Unfortunately, it has caused acrimony between the Taiwanese and the mainlanders. In the current hostile environment, all theories are empty and nothing works even if it is rational. But for the sake of culture, we should reexamine the whole issue in a balanced way to see whether preserving Japanese would hinder Chinese culture. In my opinion, only governmental publications should abolish Japanese language versions. On the other hand, Japanese language newspapers and magazines, no matter whether they are during the transitional period or not, should be allowed to continue to publish permanently.²⁸

Right after the war, for Taiwanese who did continue to speak their mother tongues (which included Fukienese, Hakka, and aboriginal dialects), Japanese seemed the only intellectual language. Therefore, a total ban on Japanese and a vehement denial of Japanese culture would contribute to a loss of self-identity. The Taiwanese were appalled by the discriminatory treatment and oppression of colonial rule, but they had also been introduced to modernity and had come into contact with the outside world through Japanese education. Taiwanese intellectuals, after reflecting on Japan’s cultural influence, reacted strongly to the word “enslavement.” They tried to overcome the issue of “enslavement” and a narrow sense of right or wrong in the argument over “japanization,” and tried to rethink Taiwan’s postwar cultural path through the lens of “Westernization.”

SEARCHING FOR A CULTURAL PATH FOR POSTWAR TAIWAN

Immediately after the end of the war, after the debate on “enslavement,” it was natural for Taiwanese intellectuals to ascertain their own cultural path. An editorial in the local newspaper, Minbao, titled, “The true spirit of sinicization,” commented on the official policy:

It is a matter of course that various organizations are currently involved in promoting Chinese culture. In principal, we have no qualm about the idea. However, in reality there are several issues that need to be carefully thought through.

What is sinicization? Many think that by getting rid of customs and habits developed during the Japanese rule and by transplanting everyday customs from China they will achieve the purposes of sinicization. On the whole, we agree with this direction, but we need to clearly articulate the guiding principles so that mistakes will not be made. First, the way of thinking and customs in China are not necessarily all suitable for our emulation. Some wise men have pointed out that modern life in China is full of filth, laziness, and decadence, and itself needs to be improved with notions of order, cleanliness, simplicity, and artlessness. … Second, though the ways and customs under Japanese rule did not follow the Three Principles of the People advocated by Dr. Sun Yat-sen and need to be completely purged, there are, nevertheless, some concepts that are necessary in a law-abiding society. Ideas such as obeying the law and social morality cannot be ignored if we are to maintain a basic civil society. … We are absolutely against the outright rejection of these conceptions simply because they do not exist in China, and they have been categorized as being the result of Japanese enslavement. In this respect, we not only do not want sinicization, we ask those who came from outside provinces to join us in Taiwanization. … Whether they were born here in this province or came from other provinces, our goal should be to improve everyone’s life, to make a rich and prosperous life for the nation and its people.²⁹

Xinxin, which was a private, nongovernmental magazine, gathered local Taiwanese intellectuals for a dialogue on the future of Taiwanese culture. Huang Deshi , an assistant professor at Taiwan University at the time, commented:

There are two aspects in considering the direction of Taiwanese culture after the restoration. One is the fact that Taiwanese culture has been under the strong influence of Japanese culture, and thus has been able to reach world standards. The other is that, comparing current cultural conditions in Taiwan to those in China, we can see that many areas still have not been sinicized.

In the future, how does one promote, simultaneously, Westernization and sinicization? Those aspects that have reached world standards should be expanded and promoted. Areas compared with China’s own culture that are not suitable or not up to its standards should also be improved to push for positive sinicization.³⁰

Taiwanese writer Wu Ying-tao also published an essay, “The road for Taiwanese culture.” When he published the piece, the Japanese language had already been banned in all newspapers and magazines.

The recent decline in culture and increase in suffering have not resulted merely from the sudden shift of language. Although it might be possible to attribute this decline to the past fifty year’s ailment and symbolic castration of ethnic identity, if we reflect carefully we will realize that we cannot ignore the level of culture Taiwan has achieved under the influence of Japanese culture, which is up to world standards.

World cultural standards, in a broad sense, do not exclude spiritual education and the moral environment of everyday life. Taiwan not only maintains the best national spirit, but also provides a glorious, solid cultural foundation to serve as a model province for China.

However, several decades’ estrangement has resulted in a small part of Taiwanese culture that does not fit into Chinese culture. For this, we need to carefully consider the appropriate path to resolve recent confusions and to follow the grand route of Chinese culture.³¹

The above opinions share belief in both future sinicization and also internationalization. There is a consensus among Taiwan’s intellectuals on the path its culture should take. They all agree that the future of Taiwanese culture should seek a balance between top-down sinicization and the Westernization Taiwan inherited from the Japanese colonial rule.

But during the postwar era, the Taiwanese were fooled not only by the Nationalist government’s cultural policy but also by its economic policy. “How does one look at Taiwan?” an editorial in another nonofficial magazine, Renmin daobao (People’s report), painstakingly pointed out: “We agree with the need for sinicization in Taiwan. However, sinicization in Taiwan does not mean the corruption of Taiwan; neither does it mean the impoverishment of Taiwan.”³² Taiwanese intellectuals were well aware of the great difference between Taiwanese society and that of mainland Chinese.

Wang Baiyuan made this awareness explicit in his “The struggle of Taiwanese history,”

Though Taiwan was under oppressive Japanese imperialism, it has lived through half a century in a highly developed industrial capitalism. Its consciousness, social institutions, and political inspiration all came out of an industrial society. … During its eight-year resistant war with Japan, China has become very progressive in many areas. However, it has still not completely risen from the hyper-colonial state that entails many of the defects of an agricultural society. This takeover clearly demonstrates the advantages and disadvantages of an agricultural society and an industrial society. Taking over Taiwan in a sense is taking over Japan. It is certainly not an easy task for an underdeveloped society to take over a highly developed society.³³

Leaving aside a discussion of whether Wang Baiyuan’s understanding of historical conditions is correct, it is evident that Taiwanese intellectuals sensed the difference between the two societies of Taiwan and the mainland. They not only asserted the superiority of Taiwanese society, but they also indisputably recognized the cultural advantages and disadvantages of the two.

Taiwanese poet and historian Yang Yunping also stated in his “Cultural exchange”:

After the restoration, one of the most talked about issues is the “cultural exchange” between this province and that of other provinces [in China]. I have talked about it, the people in this province have talked about it, and friends from other provinces have talked about it too. Unfortunately, after a year, there are not many concrete accomplishments.

To begin with, there is a set pattern for cultural flow, which is like that of water flowing from a high to a low place. The flow is rapid. However, the current situation in this province is somewhat different from this pattern. Cultural levels in this province and other provinces are not uniform, so it is not a simple matter of one side flowing to the other. This is the main reason that cultural exchanges have not progressed. If we want to talk about cultural interaction, we need to face up to this reality.

Cultural interaction has not moved forward as expected because there is a certain psychological division separating the people of this province and other provinces. If they do not respect or trust each other, how will it be possible to have cultural exchanges? It takes effort to break this barrier when we talk about cultural exchange.

Another important phenomenon that interferes with cultural exchange is the continuing civil wars all over China. With the unceasing warfare, there is no way to deal with exporting to or bringing in other cultures.

We pointed out several factors as to why the cultural exchange between Taiwan and the mainland is being held back. There is nothing we can do about the first reason. However, the second and third reasons are manmade circumstances and can be improved or eliminated. Those of us, comrades from both sides, who care about culture, should work toward that goal!³⁴

From these remarks by Taiwanese intellectuals, one can see the predicament the Nationalist government faced in the first year of its takeover of Taiwan, and their struggle to accept this cruel reality. The result of more than a year of the cultural reconfiguration campaign was that many local intellectuals did not agree with the sinicization process. It not only failed to bridge the distance between the two peoples but also, on the contrary, further separated the two. One sign of the detrimental animosity that had grown between the Taiwanese and Chinese was the February 28 Incident, which took place one month after Yan Yunping published his “Cultural exchange.”

CONCLUSION

In summary, the postwar Nationalist government’s cultural reconfiguration and its “rebuilding of the national citizen” in Taiwan moved from outside to inside, from top to bottom. It was a process of reincorporating the japanized, nonnational subject Taiwanese back into the fold of the republic.

The Taiwanese did not react well to this cultural reorganization. The deeply rooted Japanese customs and ways, and the lack of the ability to either speak or write Mandarin Chinese led the Nationalist government to equate japanization with slavery. Nevertheless, Taiwanese intellectuals and journalists vehemently denied that japanization had resulted in their enslavement and their dehumanization; rather, they argued that the other side of japanization was modernization/Westernization. They maintained that the future for postwar Taiwanese culture would have to lie in the balancing of sinicization and Westernization.

Taiwanese intellectuals and the Nationalist government differed in their outlook on the effects of Japanese culture. Certainly, though rash in its conclusions, the Nationalist government’s objections were understandable in that it felt it urgent to quickly incorporate Taiwan back into China. But on the other hand, the perspective of the Taiwanese intellectuals perhaps explains, or even attests, the depth of the trauma and the difficulty of a decolonized people moving into the postcolonial period.

NOTES

*Translated by Faye Yuan Kleeman.

1. The Nationalist government used the term “restoration” to define the takeover as “repossession” or “returning to the motherland.” However, many Asian and African colonized states that established independent nations after the war tended to use terms such as “independent” or “liberated” to describe their decolonized status. The historical factors are different in each case, but the connotations of “restoration” and “independent” or “liberation” are obviously different. For details, see Wu Mi-cha , “Taiwanese Dream and the 2–28 Incident: The Decolonization of Taiwan,” in Kindai nihon to shokuminchi [Modern Japan and its colonies], vol. 8 (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1993): 39–70. In this paper I will avoid such value-laden terms and instead refer to this period as “postwar.” However, quotations or reference material using terms such as “restoration” will maintain original usage.

2. Huang Chao-tang , “Taiwan no minzoku to kokka—sono rekishiteki kōsatsu,” Kokusai seiji 84 (1987): 73–76.

3. Hsu Hsueh-chi , “Taiwan guangfu zhuqi de yuwen wenti—yi er er ba shijien qianhou weili,” Si yu yan 29.4 (1991): 158.

4. E.P. Tsurumi, Japanese Colonial Education in Taiwan, 1895–1945 (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1977), 148.

5. Okabe Tatsumi, “Ajia no minzoku to kokka,” Kokusai seiji 84 (1987): 3.

6. The Nationalist government’s cultural reconstruction in the immediate postwar era included the establishment of new cultural institutions through the following four organizations focusing on education, media, and culture: Taiwanshen bienyiguan (Taiwan Provincial Editorial and Translation Bureau), Taiwanshen xingzheng zhangguan gongshu xuenchuang weiyuanhue (Taiwan Provincial Administrator Bureau Propaganda Committee), Taiwanshen guoyu tuixing weiyuanhue (Taiwan Provincial National Language Promotion Committee), and Taiwan wenhua xiejinghue (Taiwan Cultural Association). See Huang Ying-che , “The Light and Shadow of the Reconfiguration of Taiwanese Culture (1945–1947)” (Tokyo: Sōtosha, 1999). Also, “The Development of the ‘National Language’ Movement in Postwar Taiwan,” Faxue yenjiu 75.1 (2002).

7. Some assert that Taiwan, decolonized from Japan, was immediately recolonized by the Republic of China, and thus differs from other newly independent nations in the appropriate application of postcolonial theory to its condition. However, this paper deals with intellectuals on the eve of the February 28 Incident. At that time, neither the intellectuals nor the common people felt that the island had been recolonized.

8. “Outlines for Receiving Plan in Taiwan—1945.3.14 no. 15493,” ed. Chinese Secondary Historical Resource Center, Taiwan ererba shijien danganshiliau 1 (Nankin: Dangan chubanshe, 1991), 20–31.

9. “Outlines for Receiving Plan in Taiwan,” 21, 25–27.

10. “Outlines for Receiving Plan in Taiwan,” 21.

11. “Chen Yi’s private correspondence to Chen Li-fu on education after the Taiwan restoration” (May 10, 1944), in Chen Mingzhong and Chen Xingtang, eds., Taiwan guangfu he guangguhou wunien shengqing 1 (Nanjing: Nanjing chubanshe, 1989), 58.

12. “This year in Taiwan’s education,” edited by the Taiwan Provincial Administrator Bureau Education Office (Taipei: 1946): 96.

13. “Suqing sixiang dushu,” editorial, Taiwan xinshengbao, December 17, 1945.

14. “Jienshe Taiwan xinwenhua,” editorial, Taiwan xinshengbao, November 6, 1945.

15. “To Know the Mainland and to Know Taiwan,” editorial, Taiwan xinshengbao, December 13, 1945.

16. For the role that the Taiwan Provincial Editorial and Translation Bureau played in the reconfiguration of Taiwanese culture, see my article “Sengo shoki Taiwan ni okeru bunka saikochiku—Taiwansho henyakukan o megutte,” Ritsumeikan bungaku 537 (December 1994): 342–372.

17. Xu Shoushang, “Draft of press conference: Task and goals of the Provincial Editorial and Translation Bureau” (August 10, 1946).

18. Renmin daobao (February 10, 1946).

19. Chen Yi, “My thoughts on arriving in Taiwan for three months,” Chen zhangguan zhitai yenlunji 1 (Taipei: Taiwan Provincial Administrator Bureau Propaganda Committee, 1946), 48–49.

20. “Taiwan was not ‘enslaved’,” editorial, Minbao, April 7, 1946.

21. Wang Baiyuan, “The so-called ‘enslavement’ issue,” Taiwan xinshengbao, January 8, 1946.

22. Wang Baiyuan, “For gentlemen from outside provinces,” Zhenjingba 2.2 (Janaury 25, 1946), 1–2.

23. Wu Zhuoliu, Taiwan before dawn (Taipei: Xyeyou shuju, 1947), 15–18.

24. Zhang Liangze, “Taiwan ni ikinokotta nihongo—‘kokugo’ kyoiku yori ronzuru,” Chugoku gengo kenkyu 22 (June 1983): 17.

25. Xu, “Taiwan guangfu zhuqi de yuwen wenti,” 182.

26. Taiwan Provincial Administrator Bureau Propaganda Committee, “Propagandas in Taiwan in the past year,” Xin Taiwan jienshe conshu [New Taiwan construction series] 20 (Taipei, 1946), 34.

27. “It’s still too early to ban Japanese,” Xinxin 7 (August 1946): 16.

28. Wu Zhouliu, “My opinion on banning Japanese,” Xinxin 7 (October 1946): 12.

29. “True spirit of sinicization,” editorial, Minbao, September 11, 1946.

30. “On the future of Taiwanese culture,” Xinxin 7 (October 1946): 5–6.

31. Wu Yin-tao, “The road for Taiwanese culture,” Xinxin 2 (January 1947): 20–21.

32. “How does one look at Taiwan? A question for Mr. Zhou Xian wen,” editorial, Renmin daobao (June 13, 1946).

33. Wang Bai-yuan, “The struggle of Taiwanese history,” Zhengjingbao 2.3 (February 10, 1946): 7.

34. “Cultural exchange,” Xinxin 2 (January 1947): 1.