Japan's colonial rule a dark chapter of Taiwan island

Tours reveal misery under Japanese rule

By Chen Zhongchun

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 author is the director of the Institute of History at the Graduate Institute for Taiwan Studies at Xiamen University. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

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