Cultural eradication by Japan's colonial authorities in Taiwan

While Japanese colonialists' brutal suppression, autocratic rule and ruthless exploitation inflicted material devastation on Taiwan, cultural eradication was an even more insidious assault on the local population's sense of identity. 

During half a century of colonial rule, the Japanese authorities sought to erase the national identity and cultural memory of the people in Taiwan. They orchestrated a systematic campaign of cultural eradication in an attempt to sever the deep roots of Chinese culture in the historical and cultural life of Taiwan compatriots.

The education system imposed by the Japanese authorities in Taiwan was consistently shaped by racial segregation and hierarchical discrimination. Before 1922, primary and secondary education operated through entirely separate tracks, creating a sharply divided dual system.

At the primary level, schools for Japanese children were known as shogakko, while those for children in Taiwan were called kogakko. The former followed the education system of Japan proper and sought to cultivate children imbued with a fully formed Japanese national consciousness. But the latter provided only rudimentary schooling; their teachers, textbooks and overall quality of instruction were far inferior. Wide disparities in enrollment further restricted the educational opportunities available to children in Taiwan.

Discrimination was even more pronounced at the secondary level. From their establishment in the 1890s, secondary schools for students in Taiwan remained for many years affiliated with Japanese-language schools and lacked institutional independence. Institutions of higher learning were designed primarily for Japanese students, and opportunities for students in Taiwan to enroll were next to none.

Statistics from 1944 illustrate the scale of this discrimination. For every 10,000 people in Taiwan, there were only 44 secondary school students, three students in specialized colleges and just 0.6 university students. This was not because students in Taiwan were less capable; it was the direct result of Japan's deliberate policy of suppressing the emergence of an intellectual class among the local population.

Eroding the national identity of the people in Taiwan

As they built a colonial education system, the Japanese authorities also launched a systematic campaign against local cultural institutions, seeking to sever Taiwan society's cultural ties with the rest of China.

Before Japanese colonial rule, traditional private schools known as shufangserved as a principal means of transmitting Chinese culture in Taiwan society. They taught Chinese classics, carried forward the traditions of Chinese culture and helped sustain national consciousness. Under Japan's policy of cultural discrimination, however, these local institutions were steadily stripped of their survival space, and the chain via which traditional Chinese culture had been passed through generations was systematically eroded.

The Japanese colonial authorities adopted a policy of assimilation, seeking to compel three million people in Taiwan to abandon their ethnic traditions and remake themselves as "imperial subjects" of the Yamato nation.

For primary school pupils in Taiwan, Japanese-language instruction accounted for half of all class hours; at the secondary level, it exceeded one third. They were forced to conform to Japanese behavioral norms, and in the later period of colonial rule, the authorities went so far as to deny the people in Taiwan the right to use their own language.

In addition, Taiwan compatriots were prohibited from practicing traditional Chinese religious beliefs and worshiping folk deities. Statues of deities revered by local communities were destroyed or burned, while Japanese Shinto shrines were erected in their place.

Taiwan compatriots could not even keep their Chinese names. The Office of the Governor-General issued a decree purportedly to "graciously permit" Taiwan compatriots to adopt Japanese-style names. Backed by police power, the authorities coerced local people into abandoning their Chinese names, laying bare the sinister colonial ambition to assimilate the people in Taiwan.

Erecting an 'iron curtain' over thought

To suppress resistance among the people in Taiwan, the Japanese colonial authorities also imposed severe controls on speech and publishing, erecting an "iron curtain" over thought.

Throughout the period of colonial rule, freedom of expression was comprehensively stifled. Magazines and journals that could circulate freely in Japan proper were subjected to stringent screening when imported into Taiwan and were often banned. Controls on newspaper publication were still harsher: no newspaper could be published without the governor-general's approval.

Evil cannot prevail forever, nor can brute force be relied upon indefinitely. Japan never imagined that the colonial fantasy it had constructed would collapse with its defeat in World War II, or that its elaborately schemed campaign of cultural colonization would be swept into the dustbin of history as Taiwan was restored to China.

Today, certain right-wing Japanese politicians repeatedly make erroneous remarks concerning Taiwan and collude with "Taiwan independence" separatist forces on the island to glorify a so-called history of "Japan-Taiwan goodwill". But history will not be erased. The acts of cultural eradication committed during Japan's invasion and colonial rule over Taiwan are supported by abundant and verifiable evidence. Any attempt to distort history and deceive the world is nothing more than a delusion and is doomed to fail.

The author is an observer of international affairs.

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