Japan's colonial rule a dark chapter of Taiwan island

Editor's Note: Certain forces on China's Taiwan island have been distorting history for their selfish gains, downplaying the atrocities committed by Japan during its colonial rule there and advocating so-called friendship with Tokyo. On May 27, the Taiwan research center of the Institute of Modern History, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, held a seminar to expose these falsehoods. Three experts share their views, as reported by China Daily's Li Huixian.

Japan's centuries-long scheme reveals expansionist ambition

Studying colonial history is not about stirring up hatred, but about uncovering the truth; not about dwelling in the past but about safeguarding the future. Japan's long history of coveting China's Taiwan island, and the military suppression, political control, economic plunder, cultural assimilation and destruction it engaged in during its occupation of the island expose the manipulative lie of so-called "friendship" between the island and Tokyo, as touted by the island's separatist forces.

Japan's 50-year occupation of Taiwan was not merely an outcome of the 1895 Treaty of Shimonoseki, but the culmination of Japan's long-standing expansionist strategy, a strategy that dates back to the late 16th century when feudal lord Hideyoshi Toyotomi, who unified Japan, envisioned using the Korean Peninsula as a springboard to conquer China and dominate East Asia. This aggressive vision laid the groundwork for Japan's continental policy, and remained the underlying logic of sustaining national development through military expansion well into the Meiji era.

Japan's southward expansion began with the Ryukyu Islands. In 1609, Japan's feudal domain of Satsuma invaded Ryukyu, capturing it and forcing it into vassalage and tribute. Over the ensuing nearly 300 years, Ryukyu maintained its tributary relationship with China, while being compelled to accept Satsuma's domination and heavy tribute obligations.

After the Meiji Restoration of 1868 — which returned Japan to direct imperial rule under the Emperor — Japan's national strength swelled rapidly, accelerating its expansionist efforts. In 1879, Japan dispatched troops and officials to incorporate Ryukyu into its territory; the centuries-old Ryukyu Kingdom collapsed.

During its annexation of Ryukyu, Japan also set its sights on Taiwan island. In 1871, Ryukyuan fishermen were caught in a storm and landed in Taiwan, where clashes with local indigenous communities led to casualties. Japan exploited the incident, framing it as an "assault on Japanese nationals" and launching a punitive expedition in 1874.

Although Japan withdrew under diplomatic pressure from the Qing (1644-1911) government of China and international criticism, the operation helped it achieve key strategic objectives: testing the Qing government's coastal defense capabilities and diplomatic red lines, fabricating the false logic that Ryukyuans were Japanese nationals, conducting a combat rehearsal for future southward expansion, and gaining crucial experience for larger-scale aggression.

In 1894, Japan instigated the First Sino-Japanese War and in the following year compelled the defeated Qing government to sign the unequal Treaty of Shimonoseki, ceding the entire island of Taiwan and its affiliated Penghu Islands to it, marking the beginning of a 50-year-long bloody colonial rule.

Japan's colonial rule over the island was characterized by brutal suppression of civilian uprisings and large-scale massacres. Taiwan island residents were denied the right to stand for election or vote, economically exploited, and subjected to cultural assimilation efforts aimed at erasing their history and national identity. Under the autocratic rule of the governor-general and a police-dominated administration, they lived in an isolated, surveilled and brutally oppressive giant prison. During World War II, many Taiwan compatriots were conscripted and sent to the battlefield.

Therefore, any rhetoric that glorifies Japanese colonial rule, downplays the massacres, or distorts history betrays historical truth and desecrates civilization.

Colonizers plundered rather than modernized island

"Taiwan independence" separatists peddle the theory that the island saw modernization during Japanese colonial rule, while overlooking Japan's invasion and exploitation, even venerating colonial figures such as Yoichi Hatta.

However, this so-called "modernization" was essentially continued colonization of the island.

Instead, the island's modernization began under the late Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), with progress in sectors such as transport and industry, including railways, steamships, telegraphy, postal services and coal mining.

When Japan occupied the island, Taiwan already had a stronger economy under the late Qing Dynasty compared with Japan in the early days of the Meiji Restoration. Therefore, it is misleading to attribute Taiwan's growth solely to Japanese colonization.

The so-called colonial modernization was, in reality, Japan's exploitation of Taiwan's resources and people.

The colonial authorities seized large tracts of newly cultivated or ambiguously titled land, stripping local farmers of their land on dubious pretexts and transferring it to Japanese enterprises.

By the time of the island's restoration, more than six million of its residents held less than 30 percent of the land, with the rest being held by the Japanese.

Since the early 20th century, Taiwan's sugar production was largely shipped to Japan, with zaibatsu, such as Mitsui and Mitsubishi, monopolizing the island's modern sugar industry. Sugarcane farmers were stripped of any say in the cultivation and pricing of the crop.

Although rice production increased, it was mostly exported to Japan at low prices, forcing Taiwan people to turn to sweet potatoes. Emerging industrial sectors such as electricity and chemicals were also dominated by Japanese capital, which funneled substantial profits back to Japan, investing them in other industries and even overseas expansion.

The island's foreign trade was also controlled, with agricultural products and raw materials largely exported to Japan. In return, the Chinese island imported expensive fertilizers from Japan.

Following its full-scale invasion of China in 1937, Japan imposed a wartime regime on Taiwan, further exploiting its manpower, finances, trade, and agriculture. Farmers were allowed to keep only minimal grain for subsistence, with the rest requisitioned. Being tied to Japan's war chariot, Taiwan suffered heavy bombing by the US military during late World War II, which severely damaged its farmland, factories and other infrastructure.

Taiwan's postwar economic difficulties, including food shortages and unemployment, were direct results of Japanese colonial rule.

Japanese colonization left the Chinese island's economy structurally deficient. The colonial authorities integrated Taiwan into Japan's economic sphere through unified tariffs, currency and other measures.

By 1939, Taiwan's foreign trade was almost entirely dependent on Japan and its occupied territories.

Before the 1930s, Tokyo treated Taiwan primarily as an agricultural base, with industrialization limited to food industries such as rice and sugar. After the 1930s, industrialization was promoted to meet wartime needs, focusing on fertilizers, cement, aluminum, papermaking, and shipbuilding, but the industrial structure remained unbalanced.

During Japan's colonial rule, Taiwan residents were excluded from senior management roles in government and business.

Indigenous Taiwan capital was restricted to traditional sectors such as agriculture and small-scale crafts, while being barred from modern manufacturing, thus suppressing local investors. Local workers earned less than half of what Japanese workers in Taiwan did, and even their wage growth lagged significantly behind increases in labor productivity.

All of this proves that the claim that "Japan modernized Taiwan" is a complete fallacy.

Tours reveal misery under Japanese rule

After Japan seized the Chinese island of Taiwan, people on the Chinese mainland had gradually realized Japan's colonial oppression in Taiwan. In response to Japan's propaganda about its "achievements", tours of prominent figures such as Sun Yat-sen, Zhang Taiyan, and Liang Qichao to the island have exposed how Japan's colonial rule there was far from the "success" it was being made out to be.

Zhang Taiyan, a philosopher who visited the island in late 1898, refuted the Japanese claim that the occupation of Taiwan was "divinely ordained" and resisted the sycophantic trend of eulogizing the colonizers.

His criticism on issues such as heavy taxation, electoral injustice and educational inequality reveals the harsh reality of colonial rule. Similarly, Liang Qichao, a prominent Chinese thinker, offered incisive critiques in letters during his 1911 visit from Japan to the island of Taiwan. His observations profoundly influenced and encouraged Taiwan compatriots to resist oppressive rule.

While in Japan, Liang had come across newspaper and magazine commentaries praising Japanese rule in Taiwan, while friends he had from the island painted a starkly different picture.

People on the Chinese mainland, too, were curious to know the actual situation across the Strait. This prompted Liang to travel to the island and investigate.

Upon arrival, Liang was warmly received by the islanders, which convinced him that they still cherished deep sentiments for the motherland. He observed that Japan deliberately restricted access from the Chinese mainland to Taiwan.

Also, contrary to Tokyo's claims, his investigation revealed that the island people had suffered immensely under Japanese dominion.

In his fourth and fifth letters, Liang expressed great disappointment about the claims of development made about the island — while certain so-called modern administrative facilities on the island were not uncommon elsewhere in the world, Japan engaged in rampant economic exploitation and educational discrimination on the island.

Beneath the ostensibly "orderly" society on the island, Liang observed the profound suffering of its people. His poems reveal how Japanese colonial authorities expropriated farmers' land, selling it to Japanese sugar companies and leaving the dispossessed farmers to starve in winter. Others had no choice but to sell themselves into labor.

Liang's observations also highlighted discrimination in the field of education, with quality education being reserved for Japanese children, while children from Taiwan island were relegated to inferior schools with limited curricula.

Liang's worry — about Taiwan residents losing a sense of belonging to the motherland as the colonialists suppressed the Chinese language and his compatriots being rendered illiterate — is foreseeable.

Just as revealing is Japan's import policy and its effect on prices on the island. According to Liang, Japan's severing of Taiwan's economic ties with the Chinese mainland led to increased prices and a higher cost of living on the island.

Nearly all daily necessities, from straw sandals to noodles, were imported from Japan but sold at much higher prices in Taiwan. The colonizers' arbitrary pricing resulted in price hikes that far outpaced wage growth, leaving the people economically crushed and with no way out of colonial oppression.

The views don't necessarily reflect those of China Daily.