my maternal grandfather also grew up in Taiwan during Japanese occupation. He spoke fluent japanese and got a masters in chemistry in Tokyo. There are lots of things that show the influence of Japanese culture on taiwan. One of my favorite dishes Taiwanese oyster noodle soup is made with dashi stock. There's quite a few Taiwanese dishes with Japanese influence.
When I went to Taiwan a decade ago, I commented to my host as to how the beer tasted like Japanese beer 😊. It was then that I learnt of the long occupation of Taiwan (Formosa?) by Japan. He also attributed Taiwans technological status to the institutions/practices/standards put in place at that time. It was a revelation.
Even assuming no Japanese colonization, we Taiwanese still prefer modern Japan to China. The word “Japan” can be replaced by many countries, for example, people love S. Korea and the US more than China. All of these are self-inflicted by China’s bully recently. People love Japan, not because of Japan's colonization, but because of the mutual promotion of goodwill between Japan and Taiwan in recent years, such as the 2011 Japan earthquake, the Taiwan government and non-governmental organizations donated a huge amount of money to Japan, and the Japanese continue to Thanks, plus the former Prime Minister Abe aid to Taiwan, Taiwan has received incomparable warmth from Japan. I feel that what has happened in recent decades is far more important than history. And this trend has not stopped, just like a snowball, people more and more like Japan. Japan and Taiwan are like rolling a kindness snowball. China is the opposite snowball. The relationship between countries and China is gone forever, China's Xitler deserves it.
@@神神-p9p just look at how tsai ing wen ran for president of taiwan using japanese media styles like VNs or Lai Pin-yu doing cosplay while working at the Legislative Yuan something you dont even see in japan. Japanese culture has become a way to distance the island from the mainland alongside just being popular on the island.
@@神神-p9p As awful as colonialism always is, it's important to put it in context. A 100 years ago every nation on Earth was a lot more socially primitive than they are now. Not so nations have 'grown up' as quickly though. Hence Russia and China. Racism is another marker. Whereas it's being actively addressed here in the EU and other Western nations, it still has its teeth firmly bared in 2nd and 3rd world nations. Which is sad, maybe in another 100 years they will look back on us and wonder at how we could be so socially primitive too.
Great discussion. I always joke that these were the lost 50 years. Taiwanese kids were rarely educated about this era while grandparents were too scared to mention about this period. My grandmother was natively borned during this era, but she was also too scared to mention about it after the nationalists came to Taiwan. Japanese food were also banned at our grandparents house since my grandfather was a railway police from China and he really hated the Japanese. This caused a really interesting situation where none of us grandkids knew our grandmother can speak fluent Japanese until my brother and I passed the Japanese proficiency test after my grandfather passed away. My grandmother was so thrilled that her grandkids can speak Japanese that to our surprise she start speaking in Japanese whenever she met me and my brother. Heck, if we knew granny can speak better Japanese than anyone we knew, we should have asked her to teach us years earlier.
The Han falsely believe their fairer complexion makes them superior to other races. Their swarthier Japanese conquerers, however, brutally crushed that fantasy. LOL!
@@bobweiram6321 yet, that was in the past. Where now Japan stands? Leashed like a lapdog by Uncle Sam and have a greatly declining population compared to China. Now, China rules the economy of the world as the second largest and is more modern than Japan. Japan is nothing more than a shadow of its former glory.
@@bobweiram6321 Did anyone say "Gosh, I wish some Fox News-indoctrinated racist hater would show up and begin preaching Chinese inferiority"? No, I don't think anyone did. So why are you here?
I don't know which "Taiwanese kids" you're referring to, though... I'm in my 20s, and the history class I attended in the middle and high school always included the japanese occupation era. I think it's a common sense among my peer that some elderly from this era had been through a period of japanization, and thus speak japanese or even identify themselves as japanese.
I appreciate your ability to cover difficult topics with a focus on the facts, but not lacking human sensitivity. Very touching tribute to your grandfather at the end.
The book "A taste of Freedom" by Peng Ming-Min gives details about the colonial time in Taiwan, specially in academia. Universities like National Taiwan University had a Japanese system. He explains how organized it was but also how hard people from Formosa had to struggle to get a higher education. Great read, I highly recommend it. Nice vid! Regards from Taoyuan.
Which reminds me of the habit that wumaos have of calling greens weaboos etc-few people are greener than 彭明敏, and yet he had this to say of Japanese rule…
@@lrt_unimog8316 Yeah, sounds pretty much like wumao rhetoric. He wrote that a Taiwanese student was way below a Japanese student; not because they were better, but because Taiwanese were basically considered second class citizens in academia.
@@caonabocruzG Read a portion of the book from your comment (not finished yet), and it's an interesting read indeed. Two thing that paticulary stoodout to me was that 1) everything started to go more strict as Japan became militarized (post-Taisho era), and 2) Peng actually had less racisim in Japan than in Taiwan ("Nobody noticed us because we were Formosans; we enjoyed no special privileges nor were we treated as curiosities.) Although you have to add to the context that he was from the native elites (and obviously his political views), but I get the whole history was, to say the least, a very complex relationship between the colonizer-colonized.
@@caonabocruzG its true though, also taiwanese don't exist, unless you are talking about the native formossans, you are just a dpp shill, the native taiwanese were literally aboriginals and everyone didn't treat them well, the island of formossa didn't even get the name of taiwan until after the war lmao.
@ I'm afraid I don't know the details of Japan's constitution but We acually have some military alliances. Whether Japan can enter into a military alliance with Taiwan is another problem.
Great video on a complicated topic. Another major 'export' from Taiwan was lumber. In the '70s and '80s, the period is usually referred to as "Japanese Occupation". Today, the language is much softer: "Japanese Administration".
Today we are still under Chinese Occupation by the Republic of China, we are still working to end the Chinese Occupation and establish the Republic of Taiwan.
Great to get these histories from the perspective of an everyday Taiwanese capable of being impartial regarding colonialism. Thanks for the balanced approach, as an Aussie, I learned a lot.
Love it. It must have taken a lot of effort to cover this sensitive topic without irritating anyone. I took a class about history of Taiwan in NTU. I remember my professor was trying hard to not offend anyone.
My father was an economist focused on asian development. He knew Lee Teng Hui and pointed out that unlike other countries that focused on industrial development, the focus in Taiwan (due to the Americans who had calculated that they could supply Taiwan with arms but not food in the event of a conflict with the PRC) led to full employment and rapid economic growth in the postwar period. Perhaps you could do a video on how Taiwan was able to rapidly develop after the war. A great deal of human capital had migrated there, I know a lot of companies were started by such people...
@@MC-gs6cz lol Lee Teng Hui got whitewashed so greatly that ppl now thinks he is the key to Taiwan's economic growth. Ironically DPP increases their support rapidly in the late 1990s because they used to tie Lee and the Nationalist party he led with corruption.
@@leechien6 There were no such things as "Taiwan elites", only Japanese agents. Moreover, Chiang killed those who had connections with communists, not "dissidents" which you tried to make them look like western democracy fighters. More importantly, TW's economic boom started in 60s. Where was Lee Tunghui at that time?
@EvinOshima The Chinese Nationalists that the US Navy unloaded on Japanese Formosa launched into wholesale looting of the infrastructure built under the Government General of Japanese Formosa. The reconstruction program was funded and initiated by the American “principal occupying power” (SFPT artical 23a). The unlawful Chinese Nationalist regime provided the work force to implement the American program of reconstruction. Do not forget that the Chinese Nationalists turned out to be the proxy of the American "principal occupying power." And no wonder. Since the December 1936 Xi'an Incident, Chiang's KMT regime was already the proxy FDR used in his covert war against Japan.
My grandfather from my father's side spoke Japanese fluently. When he went to Japan, Japanese thought he spoke with a provincial accent. He never told us anything about his early life during Japan colonization. My grandfather from my mother's side escaped communists from mainland. He never told us anything about KMT martial law era.
You did a good job of balancing the facts around the shared history of Japan and Taiwan. There was a lot of this that most people outside Taiwan and maybe Japan would have no appreciation for. Thanks for the video.
Land reform throughout East Asia turned out to be an important prelude to industrialization. It forced the wealthy to go into and expand industry - but it also allowed for enough farmers to make enough money to buy the products that came out of those factories. The East Asian industrial policy practice was to combine industrial protection with export promotion. You need local demand to provide enough demand volume to justify creating firms large enough to have economies of scale, no matter what you are buying. Allowing farmers to own their own land, allowed them to achieve enough disposable income to buy the products that came out of the factories. There was also one other benefit: farm income was strong enough to slow the migration to cities. If one looks at Latin American cities during the power WWII era, their cities were swamped by migration to the cities of surplus population creating vast expanse of urban slums. The threat of Communism swamping all of East Asia forced the hands of the remaining non-communist regimes to implement land reform. This happened in all the countries that would safely become industrialized after 1950, including Japan itself, Taiwan as explained here, and South Korea, which was a little less well executed, but the threat of Communism so high still enacted. South Korea had and has huge agricultural tariffs (as I understand Japan still does too). Those high tariffs made it easy for farmers to make a profit from very small plots of land but also kept people down on the farm longer - putting less pressure on the cities - and also ensured high agricultural output. South Korea is size of Indiana, with a population of 50 million AND 70% mountains - yet it still grows enough, if barely, rice to feed itself - which ultimately is the first role of government (to make sure the local people don't starve). It is a shame that Latin America's upper class were not forced to move off the land and quit being rentiers. It's also ashame that America's wealthy are buying up all the land and real estate. The U.S.'s future looks a lot like Latin America's past.
Singapore meanwhile replaced farmland with public housing & factories (as the latter was more profitable) & probably retrained the farmers to work in factories
Having a bunch of poor know nothings running your farm land is not optimal, and land reform is almost always due to Leninist intra-elite competition: people within the elite know they can gain the upper hand by exploiting resentment within the lower class not because they are oriented to do what is good for society in general. Land reform is a side effect of development and political instability
The peasants in the usa are being driven into debt slavery by the oligarchs. The oligarchs don’t give a damn. New poor can be imported easily from Central America.
@@TheThreatenedSwan These nations all had high levels of literacy, the Japanese going back to the Bakufu. In the post war era, in addition to land reform, there was an extensive effort made to educate farmers on improved methods, along with improved grains. The focus of post WWII policy in Japan, then Taiwan, then South Korea, was to get these economies moving again, so the early efforts at economic growth and industrialization were focused on work with what was already there, especially agriculture. In Japan this meant fertilizer as part of a broader build up of chemical industries. The first role of every government is to feed the people. The transfer of ownership of land from rentiers to farmers/tillers, along with improved methods and use of fertilizer saw huge increases in agricultural output in the early post war years. Ownership breads an intensity of husbandry. (See "Planning for Change: Industrial Policy and Japanese Economic Develpment 1945-1990). The policies pursued by these governments weren't based upon any form of ideology, but mere pragmatism/common sense. There was a bias towards fostering competition, creation of employment and wage equality: ethics/decency/morality/values are a middle class characteristic, the rich don't need'em (Trump, Et al) and the poor can't afford'em - (this was demonstrated in the movie: "It's a Wonderful Life" circa 1946 [a primer in American civics], so was a well known notion even back then.), also desperate people do desperate things, leading to crime/depression/drugabuse/homicides, etc... Consequently non-tradeable jobs such as retail and service sectors in Japan were incredibly inefficient, while tradeable jobs in sectors subject to intense competition leading to incredible levels of efficiency and comparative advantage in short spans of time. I think the mistake in your assessment is to take an ideological view of civics. Ideology, no matter what stripe (Commies or Nazis), adhered to, leads to nihilism. This is because ideology attempts to answer questions before they occur - eventually reality serves up a context that renders the ideology absurd. They are generally proffered by social pretators with an agenda up their sleeve: you are sold the pretense, but you also buy the conclussion. In the case of Nazi, they sold German patriotism, but at the other end of that was global war, and wholesale genocidal murder, eventually leaving Germany in a smoldering ruins, divided and occupied by its enemies. Communist sell "fairness", but they bought two famines within 10 years and unbelievable cruelty. It is important to also point out that Anglo-Saxon civics is based upon pragmatism (as it emerged out of the Common Law, and then made the jump to politics) and compromise. As Oliver Wendal Holmes said: Judges created law, they were free to choose from the market place of ideas (cafeteria style) and did so and selected so pragmatically," (paraphrased) such that Anglo-Saxon societies are a "patchwork quilt" of ideologies - each used where the make the most sense, and otherwise ignored. The geniusness of that system is why Anglo-Saxonism emerged from a small part of a small island off the coast of a small continent to become a global phenomenon. The post war economic development efforts were sound common sense efforts to do what worked and ignore what did not. Private property was not thrown out. It was used to make farmers more productive. Land owners were bought out, and they, in turn, grew much much wealthier thru taking leadership roles in industrialization. But wealth concentration and consolidation/mergers was seen as antithetical to success and wage equality and competition were seen as virtuous. Japan has 8 car companies, the US 3, the Japanese are more competitive despite coming from a smaller market. Japan has maintained high levels of employment, wages and lifestyle, and low levels of crime for many years.
Taiwanese look favorably to Japan and the thumbnail you used still stands today as their Presidential Office. Traveling to other cities in Taiwan like in Alishan Forest (Chiayi) and Taichung and you can still see old Japanese-era buildings that were still being used today
there are still Japanese era buildings in Dalian, China like the train station still being used by Chinese. nothing exists in Korea though. that alone tells me how the Chinese view us.
Well, I had posted, and then accidentally deleted an entire thread about the fact that some 100,000 Taiwanese had served in the Japanese military during WWII. Most of these were conscripted and were lower level foot soldiers or laborers or worked below decks in the ships of the Japanese navy. I remember reading somewhere that there was one Taiwanese who was a POW camp guard during the war who was tried for war crimes after the war because of his cruelty to the POWs. The brother of Lee Teng-hui died during WWII while in the Japanese navy. This became public knowledge in 2007 when Lee Teng-hui decided to pay his respects to his brother at the Yakusuni shrine to the war dead. This was controversial because some 14 executed war criminals are also enshrined in the Book of Souls at the shrine as well as another 1,068 convicted war criminals from WWII. In the book "Embracing Defeat", an account of the postwar aftermath after the surrender of Japan, it describes how Taiwanese in the Japanese military were instantly re-classified by the allies as Chinese and sent back to Taiwan (Taiwan became part of China again as a result of Japan losing WWII) while Japanese POWs had to stay in POW camps longer.
OK, I managed to rescue some of the replies in the thread to my original post, so I'm going to re-post them here: ty m you may also want to read 《零下六十八度：二戰後臺灣人的西伯利亞戰俘經驗》(Minus 68 degree Celsius: The Siberian POW experience of a post-WWII Taiwanese) (probably only available in Chinese) by 陳力航. It basically described the story of the author's grandfather who was a Taiwanese soldier working for Japan in Manchuria and later became a POW in Тайшет. The collision of mutiple identity throughout his experience is an interesting microcosm of Taiwanese as a whole. V.D. There were Korean soldiers too, who were Japanese then, who were convicted on charges of cruelty to POWs. Gandalf Greyhame Yes, there were Koreans in the Japanese armed forces also, including I read somewhere, one who was a kamikaze volunteer pilot. Don't remember if this guy actually flew a mission and crashed his plane or not. A lot of kamikaze pilots survived because they were being reserved to fly against the invasion fleet against Japan, an invasion that never came. V.D. As for the shrine, it enshrines many normal ppl too who died in the war, including non-Japanese ones. They seems not able to separate the criminals from them for some religious reasons IIRC. I think they should be a bit more flexible on this.
Deletion of that entire thread came about because I was trying to post a reply to V.D. while I was on a VPN. TH-cam hates VPNs and that is how it punishes you. So, here's my reply about the Yakusuni shrine: I didn't originally go into all the details of the Yakusuni shrine, since it was sort of peripheral to my post about Taiwanese who served in the Japanese military, but here's some more pertinent details from wikipedia about the shrine: "The shrine was established in 1869, in the wake of the Boshin War, in order to honor the souls of those who died fighting for the Emperor. The shrine lists the names, origins, birthdates, and places of death of 2,466,532 men, women, children, and various pet animals. Japanese soldiers fought World War II in the name of Emperor Hirohito, who visited the shrine eight times between the end of the war and 1975. However, he stopped visiting the shrine because of his displeasure over the enshrinement of top convicted war criminals. His successors have never visited the shrine. The enshrinement of war dead at Yasukuni was transferred to military control in 1887. As the Empire of Japan expanded, Okinawans, Ainu, and Koreans were enshrined at Yasukuni alongside ethnic Japanese. Emperor Meiji refused to allow the enshrinement of Taiwanese due to the organized resistance that followed the Treaty of Shimonoseki, but Taiwanese were later admitted due to the need to conscript them during World War II. [During WWII era] Enshrinements at Yasukuni were originally announced in the government's Official Gazette so that the souls could be treated as national heroes, but this practice ended in April 1944, and the identities of the spirits were subsequently concealed from the general public. The shrine had a critical role in military and civilian morale during the war era as a symbol of dedication to the Emperor. Enshrinement at Yasukuni signified meaning and nobility to those who died for their country. During the final days of the war, it was common for soldiers sent on kamikaze suicide missions to say that they would "meet again at Yasukuni" following their death. After World War II, the US-led Occupation Authorities (known as GHQ) issued the Shinto Directive, which ordered the separation of church and state and forced Yasukuni Shrine to become either a secular government institution or a religious institution independent from the Japanese government. Yasukuni Shrine has been privately funded and operated since 1946, when it was elected to become an individual religious corporation independent of the Association of Shinto Shrines. The GHQ planned to burn down the Yasukuni Shrine and build a dog race course in its place. However, Father Bruno Bitter of the Roman Curia and Father Patrick Byrne of Maryknoll insisted to GHQ that honoring their war dead is the right and duty of citizens everywhere, and GHQ decided not to destroy the Yasukuni shrine."
In the case of Taiwan. From 1937 to 1942, the military recruitment system for workers. Volunteer system from 1942 to 1944. Conscription system after 1944
@@gandalfgreyhame3425 || They seems not able to separate the criminals from them for some religious reasons IIRC. I think they should be a bit more flexible on this. IMO this is just the nationalists in the countries who suffered from the Japanese occupation. The Commons are always the ones suffering from the words of the Above. A single stoke means dozen of thousands dead, but all is but numbers to the Top people ordering such actions. Just because the shrine is a Tomb of Glory for the known arseholes of the imperial military doesn't mean we don't pay respect to the hundreds of thousands poor souls who thought it's for the righteous. people who has no alternate voices due to censorship and walled garden can only listen to the "official" source, if the source tells them eating shit is good for yourself, they probably would too.
You forget to point out that, during the Japanese colonization, Taiwan's rice consumption per capita is decreasing because Imperial Japan needs more food to feed its people. The agricultural production is growing, but the population is growing too. Taiwan people are still hungry, especially farmers. My grandfather is a son-in-law（入贅）and a tenant farmer（佃農）, who benefits from Farmland Rent Reduction (三七五減租) and Land to Tiller（公地放領）. My maternal grandfather（外祖父） is a land owner, who lost some land during Land Reform. As my parents (both born after WWII) told me, cannot get enough food during their childhood. My grandfather has 4 sons and 2 daughters, and my maternal grandfather has 4 sons and 3 daughters. Famers' land won't increase, but the family population will. The whole family has to work harder to get food and clothing, even kids have to share housework after school. During the Japanese colonization, my maternal grandfather hides several bags of rice in piles of straw, to prevent the Japanese to find them. If they find hidden rice, Japanese police will use clamps（夾棍）to beat farmers, even to make them incontinence（失禁）.
Health data seems to contradict your claims. You can't grow taller and longer-living people on regular famines. If there were indeed still food shortages during that time, those must still have been far less severe than what happened before. And to be fair, a life expectancy of under 30 is pretty horrific.
@@nvelsen1975 At the end of World War II, it was really hard for people in Taiwan to get rice. It was not in such bad situation in the early years, people could still consume rice, there are even many afternoon tea cafes (冰菓室/喫茶店) in the street of Taiwan. Until the WWII in Asia heated up, In 1938, Japan Empire published the "National Mobilization Law" and changed its economic status to total war mode and imposed stricter martial law. In 1940, the "Rice Control Act" banned the free purchase of rice by the entire nation (including the Japanese archipelago and Taiwan). Although the war would end in 1945, it was undoubtedly a very difficult childhood for teenagers and children that time.
During this period, crop failures continued in the Tohoku region of Japan (due to cold damage). Children were eating radish as a substitute for rice. Human trafficking was also occurring as a measure against food shortages
And there's the daily dose of KMT's sympathizer (which is still common in nowadays Taiwan despite the party having killed thousands of Taiwanese people during Chiang's dictatorship)
Great video essay. Also, NTU was started as a imperial japanese university during the colonial era. Def an interesting blend of Chinese and Japanese flavors, always a treat to go back everytime and explore my parents homeland.
@@StephenMortimer I think you misunderstood what I meant. I voted for Trump, and will do so if he runs for 2024. Asianometry had an upload on his take of Trump, it was rather scathing to say the least, but I expected that from left-leaning tech folks. I don't agree, but I'm not going to let his opposing political view to bother me, though I think they've been mislead (same can be said about us on this side from their perspective)! 😆 🤣 FJB, FTW!✌️🤟😁
My Taiwanese acquaintances in America report that their elders looked favorably upon the colonial period. It is noteworthy that nobody on the island has ever lived under Communist Chinese rule or economic system.
Your last sentence is fucking obvious, but I'm more curious that you probably wrote it in order to gain favour from like-minded individuals. What's the point that you are trying to drive home with your last sentence? A reminder, the Communist Party of China governs mainland China, while the Kuomintang (Nationalist Party of China) and the Democratic Progressive Party are the 2 major political parties of Taiwan. Another reminder, mainland China's current economic system is different compared to the pre-economic reform period. How is China's economy capable of challenging, and inevitably surpassing, the economy of the USA, if you think China's economic system is imperfect or weak?
@@charlesk22 No, during colonial period Japanese were quite brutal towards Islander rebels. These in favorable view are probably descendants of colonists.
@@bichengan I mean, they already surpassed us in gdp ppp, and I think they’re gonna surpass us in pure gdp by what? 2030 at the latest. Writings just on the wall man
I have been bingewatching asionomatry and it's so fascinating. While all this important history was happening I was entirely unaware of it, and much more recently I've been wondering how it all came about. Finding this channel has allowed me to learn more about these amazing developments than I ever thought possible. Thanks!👍🤓 Edit- I was referring to the semiconductor industry, as I wasn't around as early as this presentation is about.😏
This story somewhat reminded me of one book by Hernando de Soto that I read in the supermarket, his main idea is to give the poor the rights for their land. Funny enough, he was the main economic adviser during Alberto Fujimori presidency and was the main ideologist behind his economic reforms.
A great take of an unmentioned chapter of history. I really applauded your dedication and insight into so many relevant topics today. From insights in production to economic reality and political decisions.
"In 1895, Japan acquired Taiwan island from the Qing Empire as their first colony." The First Sino-Japanese War ended April 17 of 1895 with the Treaty of Shimonoseki which not only ceded Qing control of Taiwan but also included 16,534,500 pounds of silver taels in indemnities to Japan. I don't know if this is Taiwanese education looking favorably on Japanese culture or my being Korean but "acquired" sounds more like a peaceful transaction and sounds off without the context of war.
I’d say it’s you being Korean. No one will try to whitewash what japanese dod during their „naughty” years, but it’s 2022 now. Japanese people who did all the bad to Korean people and Chinese people are a history mostly (maybe few and I mean few, still live) gone. I’m from Poland and I should hate every single living citizen of Germany because of what they did in the past, during WWI and WWII. People need to learn to let the past go because past is past lol.
Japanese brainwash through education for 2 generation in 50 years span, after WWII KMT also indoctrinating anti-communist education to Islanders. Now from anti-communist propaganda adopted by DPP ruling government evolved into full-on anti-China indoctrination.
Yes they now try to soften their view on Japan because they are anti PRC... There is a lot of fake history in Taiwan - and Japan as I'm sure you know as a Korean.
@@Huangiao yes I agree, it was not different from the US "acquiring" Spanish territories such as Guan and the Philippines. The US still owns Guam to this day.
@@Huangiao I don't know why this would be a "unorthodox" interpretation as you describe what happened without embelllishment. But without context, people make different assumptions and extrapolate. For instance, the Japanese proclaiming to fight for Joseon independence happens after they raid the royal palace in 1894. In 1895 they kill the Queen and in 1896, Gojong runs to the Russian legation which leads to the Russo-Japanese War, fought over control of Korea. And of course, Taft-Katsura Agreement outlines the understanding that the US would take the Philippines as long the it does not interfere with Japan taking Korea. My point is that I don't understand why historical context wasn't added into the video when it would have been so easy. A large part of why Japanese culture is so influential in Taiwan is based on an assessment made from comparisons drawn with the Qing and KMT rule in Taiwan, which somehow is not mentioned.
In both South Korea and Taiwan, the most prestigious flagship university of each country has their origins in the Imperial Japanese University system. SNU in Korea started out as Keijo Imperial University and NTU in Taiwan started out as Taihoku Imperial University. In both countries, these universities are seen as being a notch above the next top universities and have produced a disproportionate number of political leaders, CEOs and professionals.
An acquaintance of mine was the child of a U.S. missionary in Taiwan. He tells stories of Taiwan being tremendously "backwards" and poor still in the 1970s and he and his siblings dreaded going back each time after visiting the States even in the early 1980s. I visited Taiwan a couple of years ago and was impressed by the country. Hard to square his stories and memories against the current reality.
Yawn. The British and French empires did much the same. The Japanese development Taiwan's agriculture, but not so much its industrial capacities. That would be competition for domestic industries. The British and French left behind modern infrastructure and technology. They also discouraged industries that would be competition. Pity that you let racism and petty nationalistic thinking cloud your judgement.
@@Bunnyroo7 I would say it's the same everywhere, they only transfer the stuff they can benefit. i.e. manufacturing to China.P.R.C, TGV to Korea (which korea reverse engineered to the current 3nd gen 430km KTX train)
Interesting to see that Taiwan basically experienced an economic boom before the ROC moved there in 1949, I always assumed it was the retreat of the ROC that started the indistrialisation of the island nation. Regardless, the photos in this video were nice. If you told me it was Amsterdam the 19th century I would have believed you, with the architectural styles matching and all. It is my understanding that one of the biggest "gifts" Japan gave to Taiwan are the water resevour and dam systems. When I was in Taiwan I walked on one of those massive Japanese-built dams. Hope to visit there again one day. Taiwan has such an impressive combination of mountain vistas and dense urbanisation intertwined among another, as someone from the Netherlands it is really a sight to behold.
Imperial Japan built lots of infrastructures in both Taiwan and the Korean peninsula. There is a dam in North Korea that Japan made then and still works even now.
I'm from Indonesia, and I agree colonial era irrigation infrastructure is amazing In central Java, I saw and amazed by this "siphon tunnel" working as "flyover" for 2 crossing waterways The locals said it was made by the Dutch, so it should be at least almost a century old!
Yes, because prior to the massive irrigation/dam system they built Taiwan was funny enough experience lack of water for agriculture due to bad detention rate of water despite locate in subtropical region and being an island.
The KMT had massive war debts from WW2, resulting in hyperinflation brought over from Mainland China which evaporated the wealth of the elites in Taiwan.
That is a fair treatment of the history and its lasting impact. I went and visit Taiwan for a month and I observed the positive influence of Japan's colonial era. History as always is complicated and even with the most brutal invasions often there are silver linings that endure. I had no idea you are borned Taiwanese. I assumed you are a westerner expat. As always I enjoy your excellent work.
Come on. You want to call them silver linings. All these countries that were colonized could have achieved all those development and advances if the nation that colonized them traded with them fairly and made business ventures and financial investments instead of outright taking over the country and exercising total control over the lives of the people.
An amazing exploration of the topic. I have always found it difficult to fully understand the Japanese imperial impact. Knowing the obvious stories of repression and colonialism, but seeing the benefits of infrastructure, industrialization, and land rights. I’m glad my children can inherit such a fruitful legacy.
The problem is that there is still a legacy of hatred and bitterness as well, especially in Korea and China. And although my country has definitely moved on from it, it can be irksome whenever Japanese try to avoid blame for what they did. They did bad and unlike Germany they never really acknowledged it- at best they just said, "isn't that enough? We didn't do it, and if we did, it's in the past, and we're already bombed by nuclear so we don't need to apologize because we've been punished already."
You're right the whitewash was perpetrated and is perpetrated in behalf of many Asia Pacific nationalists who stood in opposition to other perceived threats. I would love to see more accurate education of the history of the period and aknowledgement similar to the educational reforms in Germany around the topic in Japan and throughout the region.
Really? Because all asians here in the West and in places not being Japan can cry about is muh oppression and colonialism and completely ignore the benefits it wrought for them.
There are few things in the world that are purely positive or purely negative. You just have to look at things in a balanced light and make your own rational decisions.
@@mrniceguy7168 You're right, but most of the time if you talk about to positives of colonialism, especially European or American colonialism (Philipines), you get lynched by hordes of angry racists. Some of the earlier academic works are downright painful to read; a whole chapter ragging on and on about how evil all white people are, before they go 'But we can conclude this railway the British built, is still the economic backbone of the country'.
From what my parents' generation told us, the rule by Japanese was hard but very much in orderly and civilized manner. When Chinese KMT fled to Taiwan, its treatment to Taiwanese was brutal, lawless and inhumane. Many Taiwanese that used to resent Japan's rule, suddenly turned into appreciating and thankful to Japan, after comparing to what KMT was doing (the way they told me, KMT was like thiefs, killed, raped and robbed many Taiwanese). In my own dad's words: it felt like a civilized society suddenly was under cruel barbarians' hands. That feeling and attitude passed down to my and later generations. Today Taiwan is not only the most friendly country in the world toward Japan, Taiwanese are also the people other than Japanese that understand and appreciate Japan most. It shows clearly in the reaction when we learned the news of Shizo Abe's death.
@@coolspot18 "The wealth and poverty of nations" by David Landes points out: Korea and Taiwan both were Japan's colonies and they thrived after WWII. For British colonies, Singapore was doing very well; Malaysia, India and some were ok; and some were poor. All colonies of other European countries such as France's, Spain's were all doing poorly. His conclusion: Japan did the best job in colonizing; Britain did all right; all others did terrible job. When Japan colonized Taiwan and Korea, it did build the infrastructures, industries, setup modern systems, education and rule by law. Britain did some. Other colonizing countries pretty much just exploited.
So who is better CCP or KMT? I live in mainland China and I keep saying if they want reunification so much it should be win-win, they get something they want, and the other side gets something they want, so for example, the two countries get reunified but under KMT rule.
@@hufficag It's like asking "which is better for your health, poison or dioxin?". You should know about CCP. KMT is a little bit less evil. But most people with sanity and ethics won't choose either of them. And the fate of Taiwan (or China) should be decided by all the Taiwanese (or Chinese) people, not by any political party. I can assure you, the vast majority of Taiwanese are not interested in the idea Taiwan merging with China. Note that I don't use the word "reunion". Taiwan has never been part of PRC, what reunion is there?
I am always impressed by your deep knowledge and insight. I appreciate your analysis on the relationship between Taiwan and Japan. Taiwan and Japan are allies and good friends now, but so many biases and misinformation are going on the internet, and it's hard for me to know the actual influences at the time.
We need ppl like you to educate on inner workings of Asia. Also please make something about daily life in Asia, what traditions, believes are still presented here? What modern asian family is in this time?
What about the 200k Taiwanese man impressed into service during WW2 to fight against the Americans? 30k of them were KIA (likely much more). I don't know anything about what tasks they were given, but it was likely they had more dangerous and menial roles than the Japanese. Forced conscription was a common and brutal technique of the Japanese empire.
By the late 1930s militants had gained the upper hand in Japan. The relative liberalism of the Meiji and especially Taisho eras was done away with. Repression was the order of the day, in Japan and the colonies. Taiwanese, Korean and Ryukyuan people were seen as more expendable but it wasn't as if the militants were particularly good to Japanese people, either.
@@Shaker626 Yes. There were (are) many who thought that the fact that Konoe Fumimaro had become PM was proof that the Imperial family and the Japanese aristocracy were all in on the militarism. In reality, Konoe became PM only because several PMs had already been assassinated by the militants and his status made him less likely to be targeted for that. That was not the "normal" Japanese government. They effectively hijacked the Japanese State.
What a wonderful outro sir. I watch this channel speciailly to get an honest take of what for me is foreign politic. This channel is awesome. I am into the tech topics as well, and they also have political ramifications....
3:05 there is no aboriginal population left anywhere south and east of whats today china. turned both Taiwan and Japan from Australian aboriginal related peoples into east asian rice farmers. A complete and total population replacement.
Once again, another great video. One thing I notice in your videos is you never edit in background music while your talking and I think that is a good choice. I notice alot that in other informative/educational TH-camrs, that they will add in background music that will usually improve the quality of their videos. You don't do this and your videos are still great and engaging.
The people of the Ryukyu Islands (now more commonly known as Okinawa) would disagree that Taiwan was Japan’s first colony. They were an independent kingdom before being invaded by the Satsuma clan in the 1600s and then formally annexed and made a prefecture in the Meiji era (1879).
@@GL-iv4rw except that the PRC officially recognizes the Bai as a distinct ethnic group; Japan has tried to systematically erase Okinawan indigenous identity, officially refers to the language as a dialect of Japanese in contradiction of most linguists, etc.
@@GL-iv4rw Big mistake. Ryukyu's traditional culture is more related to Han Chinese, especially in term of language and clothes. After imperialist Japan occupied Ryukyu, they killed everyone who spoke Chinese and keep classical Chinese culture.
@Laotree Only a Chinese troll could come up with such BS. And I do not care if the Chinese troll Laotree hails from China, Malaysia, Taiwan or anywhere else. "The Ryukyu islands are actually ours". I heard this enormity in the 1970's from a young Chinese Nationalist holed up on non-Chinese Taiwan. The US stole Taiwan from Japan in the mother of all unequal treaties, the SFPT . The US unloaded their "good" Christianized Chinese on Japanese Taiwan. Those arrogant and ignorant 阿Qs have been brainwashing themselves into believing that they own Taiwan. But the US never ceased to oppose to the Chinese of both persuasions that the international status of former Japanese Taiwan remains "unsettled". Japanese renounced Taiwan. The Chinese do not have Taiwan. Not even the Taiwanese enjoy the sovereignty of Taiwan. And they won't as long as they assume themselves Chinese. Now you know enough to use your own brain and name the power who controls Taiwan since Japan renounced it.
You need to mention to whom the benefits of the exports went, the general population or the appointed agents of colonial government? What was the price for the exports, was it fair market price?
Nice to see the other side of the usual arguments. As a tangential side note, I'll add that the US Constitution could have been framed more honestly: In place of "We, the people... etc", they could have written "We, the rich people of the colonies, feel we're not being given a fair crack of the whip by the established rich people in the home country...etc".
Well done report! At university I did a report comparing the development of Taiwan vs the Philippines, which was really interesting. Taiwan was colonised by Japan from 1895-1945 (50 years), while the Philippines was colonised by the US from 1898-1946 (48 years) - similar era and period. The Philippines was initially far more prosperous than Taiwan, but then Taiwan's growth quickly outstripped the Philippines. This vid would have been so helpful at the time I was writing that report!! What I basically discovered was that the Taiwan land reform policies were able to happened because the KMT coming from the mainland, meant that they did not own the land, and they had taken the industry from the Japanese so they also had no ownership of that. So the people in power did not have a personal stake in the policies they made. The land reform realigned the people with the economy - those who worked the land now owned the land. Those who had owned the land were now putting their educations into running industry. While those who controlled the government were not risking their own land or industry. But in the Philippines, there were a few very wealthy families, who owned the land & industry and they also ran the government. These Philippine elites were not about to risk any policies that would shake up things and take their stake in the country/economy - they wouldn't gamble their own fortunes to benefit the whole country. So Taiwan took off, and the Philippines stagnated.
1:53 I know the misleading caption is Wiki's fault, but there have never been any sugar railway north of Taichung as sugar production was concentrated in Central and South Taiwan. The pic was taken nearby the Huwei Sugar Factory in Yunlin, Taiwan's only remaining sugar factory which is still served by railway, notably during the winter harvest seasons.
I generally liked this episode but I think the title is a bit misleading because the last roughly 1/3 is about the KMT land reforms that benefited a huge swath of Taiwan's population, and this wasn't a Japanese thing. Also, I really feel like the Taiwanese comfort woman issue got totally glossed over in the end (but glad you at least mentioned it, some people even deny it ever happened). These poor women have been conveniently forgotten even in their own homeland because it doesn't fit with the current ruling party's narrative. Japan's colonial rule was much more brutal than how many Taiwanese people currently remember, and I personally take issue with this. Regardless, thank you for your videos.
Every single society since the history of mankind has had whores or as you call them comfort women. Whether by force or not. There is not one society that doesn’t have them now. Even in our “awakened” world you can get a whore to do anything you want from the North Pole to the South Pole on any continent for any price. Comfort women or whores will always be around and they play just as much a part in shaping the history in any region as the people that pay them. It’s not good or bad it’s just a fact of life. If you think that for some reason Japanese or Taiwanese should be held to a higher standard than the rest of the world you are delusional.
Every colonial rule was much more brutal than anyone really likes to remember. But for the places where the effects of colonization has left the countries devastated to this day there is, obviously, a greater will to remember. Places where the decolonization went smoothly and/or left the natives better off in the end obviously want to focus on the positive. And colonization or not, a hundred years ago EVERY country was a brutal asshole. Genocide, torture of war prisoners, military plunder, etc, was just more water under the bridge. It wasn't until after WWII that everyone was going "Uh, how about we stop this madness?".
Japan's colonial rule has been largely glossed over in modern Taiwan because KMT's rule greatly overshadows it. The negative impact of Japan's colonial rule while brutal, is quite simply no longer visible/tangible, whereas the KMT's remains fresh in the memory of many and still has a significant impact on Taiwanese society today. Hence, it's quite fair that the current focus is on rectifying the wrongs of the past KMT regime.
Korean prostitutes have no evidence or testimony by their families, and there is nothing but testimony by the person himself, but recently, "comfort women", which was the established theory in Korea as "red Wednesday", was forced. All the stories were false, and the book "The prostitute was making a lot of money. The prostitute was a voluntary prostitute" was released and recorded the best seller. Also, in "Anti-Japanese Tribalism," which also recorded a bestseller in South Korea before that, several scholars cite a huge amount of grounds and evidence such as U.S. military records and assert that "comfort women are voluntary prostitutes." I am. Last year, Professor Ramseyer of Harvard University completely denied the compulsion of comfort women, saying, "Lee Yong-soo and several other comfort women changed their story after deciding to demand money from Japan." "After claiming to have left the house, I changed the word that I was forcibly taken in 2002 and 2007," he points out the contradiction.
Land Reform in Taiwan Post World War II...who said it had to be "Communist"? Well said Asianometry! Well said! Human Rights and Social Justice don't always have to be dismissed as "Communist" as opposed to McCarthyist propoganda, though they are commited to be in denial, Land Reforms worked for Taiwan and it also worked for Japan! And that's that!👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍 And the colonialism parts too... a double edged sword...
My in-laws were educated in Japanese and so were most of their friends and relatives from the same era . When they met they either spoke Taiwanese or Japanese although they made an effort to speak mandarin with me and others who didn’t speak Taiwanese . After Chiang Kai Shek took over , schools started to teach in mandarin exclusively and forbade the students to speak their native language within schools boundaries. That changed in the nineties especially after Lee Deng Hui was elected president to replace the late Chiang Jing Guo .
your channel is infinitely, infinitely, infinitely interesting.. extremely sophisticated and well-researched.. I was a supporter on patreon until very recently. alas, my country's economy took a nosedive and I was forced to stop that support, very very reluctantly... Is it possible for you to make a similar program on japanese colonialism in korea? (I know, it is a hornet's nest) Is it possible to make a program that compares japanese colonialism to british colonialism in india? (an another hornest's nest)
British colonialism in India was more akin to the Belgian occupation of the Congo than the Japanese in Taiwan. The British robbed the country dry and had policies that led to multiple famines, killing millions.
Thank you. Great presentation. I live in Taiwan and knew a lot of this data but always good to extra facts and have them connected with other facts and what the later effects were.
As shown by the research of Ching-I Huang and Shao-Yu Jheng, an inclusive banking institution was established in Taiwan under Japanese colonial rule (1895-1945), which later boosted the Chinese Nationalist government’s capacity to promote postwar rapid industrialization. as decentralized, bottom-up banking system in colonial Taiwan allowed local elites to establish commercial banks to service farmers and entrepreneurs, resulting in extensive bank networks. This historical banking system played a crucial role in the post-war big-push policy which financed rapid industrialization by nationalizing the banking sector, because these commercial banks, even after being nationalized, continued to operate and expand new branches around the colonial bank networks in postwar Taiwan. Townships with more nearby prewar bank branches tended to grow faster during the period of postwar rapid industrialization. Reference: Huang, Ching-I and Jheng, Shao-Yu, Inclusive Origins of Rapid Industrialization: the Persistent Effects of the Colonial Bank Networks on Taiwan’s Economic Miracle (December 10, 2021). Available at SSRN
Africa is very far from Japan, Western colonialists had been also blocking ut to reach Africa, and we couldn't even get to India, blocked by Indian betraying troops owned by colonialist Brits but I believe that the incident we shot and sank the British battleship Prince of Wales gave Africans the energy to get the freedom from colonialists.
I can imagine how losing Taiwan affected the Japanese food supply chain at the end of WW2, based on the data presented. Great video. I don't know if it matches your yt channel's main focus, but could you talk about the crisis in Sri Lanka?
It is evident that most crises are related to corruption by the leaders and their peers. In Asia, all crises are related to mega-corruption. BRI projects also create corruption and most blame China, not themselves. The IMF is always involved in profit by making loans. Malaysia Dr. Mahatir was an intelligent man, he saved Malay from being the west victim. Watch out for history may return, remember the big collapsed Thai Bath in 1989?
“acquired” is such a lightweight word, China lost a war with Japan and lost its territory, not willingly gave up. It’s like saying Russian acquires Donbas.
Chinese rule over Taiwan was also recent. In fact they did not conquer it until after the Ming started to get conquered by the Qing, in the 1640s. So when Japan took Taiwan in 1895, China had only been ruling it for more or less 250 years.
@@ianhomerpura8937 Your view of history needs to be shorten to 1648 when the treaty of Westphalia was signed. While “rule recently” might be correct, sovereignty didn’t exist before that. The world was ruled by Kings and Churches. Dutch and Spain were in the island, so thus Chinese and Japanese traders and pirates. USA wasn’t even formed then and Mexico still owned California and Texas. Everything would be different if the European powers were expanding their territories like that of Russian, instead of just colonizing and taking treasures back home.
@@ianhomerpura8937 Not that I think Taiwan is still rightfully Chinese or anything, but how the hell do you think the 1640's was "recent?" And 250 years is still more than the entire lifetime of the US so it doesn't mean much.
"acquire" is a neutral word. there is no connotation at all to anything besides one having received something in whichever way. Russia did acquire Donbas. It says nothing at all to how it was done.
Interesting wonder if the Japanese management policies were different in Korea than in Taiwan which warranted the sharp difference in relations afterwards.
The Koreans take pride in being the one to have granted technologies to Japan, which they got from China, during the 3-5 century. The narrative going in the other direction is particularly inconvenient
One theory is that Japan fought the war on Chinese soil then claimed Taiwan. Compared to Korea, the war was fought in its soil and people had to had experience with japanese atrocities.
@@doctorwilly @Will Chien Japan's annexed Korea peacefully. There has been no war in Korea since their Joseon king surrendered under Japanese rule rather than being taken by Russia. The fallen of Qing made Joseon influenced by Russian from the north and Japan. The violence happened when the pro Japanese Joseon nobel eliminated the pro Russian Joseon Nobel. It's their history pride that makes them resistant to accept the facts.
As an American this is the first I'm hearing of any of this. Very interesting. I've never really thought about who lived in Taiwan before the Chinese nationalists arrived. The bit about land reform being done in a way that aided industrialization was very informative, since that topic is usually highly politicized in most discussions.
Colonialism did not end for the Taiwanese when Japan left, in fact many would agree it got worse under Chinese colonization by the KMT, the fact that the Republic of China exists instead of the Republic of Taiwan is a disgrass to the Taiwanese, we need to stop babying the Chinese colonists and end colonialism in Taiwan once and for all.
This was a really great analysis. I'm very interested in Taiwan (since I'm an IT Tech and self proclaimed computer nerd since the early 90s) and this perfectly summed up why "made in Taiwan" has always had an entirely different ring to it than "made in China". Not to dunk on Chinese goods in general, but goods from Taiwan has just always been more... well.. competitive.. and somehow expresses a better understanding of the needs of their target audience. Calling modern Taiwanese culture "to some extend a mix of Japanese and Chinese" drove it home for me. Also: Your granddad sounds like he was everything a granddad should be!
@@jennychuang808 I think if you actually went to the US you'll realise that it's probably a lot less. Understanding Americanisms and borrowing pop-culture from them is wildly different from being culturally alike. I know an American couple who moved here (Denmark) thinking that the cultures would be "reasonably similar"... heh.. let's just say that Danes who think they share cultural traits with Americans are actually the worst at proverbially stepping Americans on the toes, making them socially uneasy or feel embarrassed. In your case I think it would be the opposite. I think in day-to-day life you'd find them tactless or at least socially insensitive (And I think you'd find Danes brutally direct to the point of being outright inappropriate).
@@andersjjensen As a Taiwanese lives in Australia for a long time, I can tell you I am more Americanise than my Aussie friends. Especially my mindset. Not mention, around 20 % of Taipei citizens have American passports. Maybe you should go to Taipei and check it out.
There's a misperception about Chinese goods. Their products are priced in order to gain a foothold in the highly competitive and even hostile foreign markets. Having the lowest priced product gives you an incredible advantage and lowers resistance. Achieving such low prices requires government subsidies and some compromise in materials and workmanship. Chinese products, however, generally offer the highest quality at the lowest possible cost. They can manufacture an iPhone or a $1 pair of reading glasses and everything in between, including Bentley. Japan and Taiwan, on the other hand, started out manufacturing low quality products. Their products priced in the midrange, but the quality was at the lower end. Their early products weren't a great value. It took them decades to achieve their enviable status today, eventually allowing them to command a premium.
It's interesting to note that you consider the comfort women a minor issue almost an afterthought even though the Japanese are well known to have made this a huge problem across Asia from Korea to China and the Philippines, although I'm not certain the extent to which Taiwan was affected to be considered a side note. The other issue that has attracted the ire of the Japanese neighbours is the issue of War shrine controversy. Hopefully, Taiwanese can relate to the problem and recognize the significance of the Japanese leadership gesture in honoring the Japanese war shrines despite all the controversies around it. On a similar note, I'm sure Algeria benefitted immensely from the contributions of French colonization's of their country, but many have also seen the other destructive side of the relationship.
As a Taiwanese, I didn't hear many of the ancestors have propagated the hatred of comfort women to the next generation, and if the hatred for the KMT is not so heavy, then the hatred of Japan is even more long time ago. In other countries it might be serious, but not in Taiwan.
@@hirokokueh3541 R u for real ? Do u really wanna compare historical atrocities vs war crime shrine snubs or comfort women ? I don't think anything done by all the Chinese dynasties can compare with the horrors by the Japanese during the WW2. So, either you come from the same lineage and willing to turn a blind eye or you accept the responsibility of recent history and apologize publicly and stop those war shrine nonesense and stop erasing all those historical events from the Japanese schools. I don't see Germany trying to brush aside the significance of their past role in ww2 , so why is the Japanese allowed to do so with the blessings of the Muricans as well as the West ?
@@hirokokueh3541 Well you did come across as trying to vilify the Chinese as worse than the Japanese and you had to be called out on this stupidity. Also , I don't think u speak for all the Taiwanese. Maybe the English speaking Taiwanese , but that hardly represents all the Taiwanese. If you grew up unaware of the atrocities committed by the Japanese, then all u can come up with is all the atrocities committed by the Chinese while ignoring what the Japanese hv done in recent memory. Is there a group of Taiwanese trying to whitewash the crimes of Japanese ? That's what u sound like. A good analogy is to hv a group of Murican natives trying to defend and whitewash all the crimes committed to their own native ppl until near extinction by the white ppl as they look around for another scapegoat to deflect from the actual crimes.
Brilliant! Well- Stated! Imagine I grew up in a family with complications of two different values from Japanese colonialism and Chinese regime. Been through so-called racist in these days. Sometimes, it is difficult to present your identity to the public. There is no such right or wrong answers to it. Take lessons, move on, and love each other. When you know it is your home, please develop and take care of it. Where you could see during the colonial empire and late 1980. Let go hatred. Hope we will see the glory again!
Most Taiwanese I meet seem to have a positive view of the Japanese people and culture. One Taiwanese told me the Japanese intended Taiwan to be a model colony of sorts, a place where Japanese could retire to at the end of their working careers.
@@LancesArmorStriking I think there has been just too much trauma to the Taiwanese people as a whole (all groups that make up the current day Taiwan), that people in Taiwan generally are over whatever grievances past Taiwanese had with past Japanese. This, coupled with the present day existential threat from China, make it almost impossible to really hold on to past grudges that are irrelevant to present day Taiwan.
@@Cyberpunker1088 I think their fundamental sense of identity has been changed. They've gone from seeing themselves as a part of China to apart from it. Similar to how Ruthenia was Polonized until it became Ukraine and Belarus. Or how Britain forcefully divided India and created 2 new identities to keep a once united people fighting one another.
This is the same thing that is done in Korea. There are still railroad tracks, schools, and buildings in Korea that were built by Japan. At that time Korea was poor and had no schools. It was Japan that created the school system.
Interesting you mentioned comfort women. I worked in Korea and Taiwan. Yes Korea was treated badly and rage for CW runs high. But I interviewed a few Taiwanese cw. They stated the Japanese treated them and the country well so they did it for there country and duty. No regrets. One thing you leave out is the many other nations like Dutch who colonized Taiwan before Japan.
@@RandomVidsforthought I care about what the citizens living there think. You wont see Japanese culture or businesses in Korea. But will Taiwan. Citizens felt like a province vs an enslavement camp in korea. And Taiwan has been ruled by many nations before Japan
You can barely call what the Dutch did "colonization" though. They basically just established a trading post on the island. There was no attempt to use it for much of anything beyond trading with China. It was the Qing and subsequently Japan who actually treated it as a colonial holding.
The issue of CW is so complicated that Taipei had a great museum devoted to them. Though it closed in 2021, it looks like it will reopen in a new location. According to their oral history, some of the comfort women were already sold by their impoverished families at incredibly young ages as maids or prostitutes. While sexual violence has existed in military history since time immemorial, the comfort women were victims of their society as well as the brutality of colonialism.
my maternal grandfather also grew up in Taiwan during Japanese occupation. He spoke fluent japanese and got a masters in chemistry in Tokyo. There are lots of things that show the influence of Japanese culture on taiwan. One of my favorite dishes Taiwanese oyster noodle soup is made with dashi stock. There's quite a few Taiwanese dishes with Japanese influence.
When I went to Taiwan a decade ago, I commented to my host as to how the beer tasted like Japanese beer 😊. It was then that I learnt of the long occupation of Taiwan (Formosa?) by Japan. He also attributed Taiwans technological status to the institutions/practices/standards put in place at that time. It was a revelation.
Even assuming no Japanese colonization, we Taiwanese still prefer modern Japan to China. The word “Japan” can be replaced by many countries, for example, people love S. Korea and the US more than China. All of these are self-inflicted by China’s bully recently. People love Japan, not because of Japan's colonization, but because of the mutual promotion of goodwill between Japan and Taiwan in recent years, such as the 2011 Japan earthquake, the Taiwan government and non-governmental organizations donated a huge amount of money to Japan, and the Japanese continue to Thanks, plus the former Prime Minister Abe aid to Taiwan, Taiwan has received incomparable warmth from Japan. I feel that what has happened in recent decades is far more important than history. And this trend has not stopped, just like a snowball, people more and more like Japan. Japan and Taiwan are like rolling a kindness snowball. China is the opposite snowball.
The relationship between countries and China is gone forever, China's Xitler deserves it.
@@神神-p9p 👍
@@神神-p9p just look at how tsai ing wen ran for president of taiwan using japanese media styles like VNs or Lai Pin-yu doing cosplay while working at the Legislative Yuan something you dont even see in japan.
Japanese culture has become a way to distance the island from the mainland alongside just being popular on the island.
@@神神-p9p
As awful as colonialism always is, it's important to put it in context.
A 100 years ago every nation on Earth was a lot more socially primitive than they are now.
Not so nations have 'grown up' as quickly though.
Hence Russia and China.
Racism is another marker. Whereas it's being actively addressed here in the EU and other Western nations, it still has its teeth firmly bared in 2nd and 3rd world nations.
Which is sad, maybe in another 100 years they will look back on us and wonder at how we could be so socially primitive too.
Great discussion.
I always joke that these were the lost 50 years.
Taiwanese kids were rarely educated about this era while grandparents were too scared to mention about this period.
My grandmother was natively borned during this era, but she was also too scared to mention about it after the nationalists came to Taiwan. Japanese food were also banned at our grandparents house since my grandfather was a railway police from China and he really hated the Japanese.
This caused a really interesting situation where none of us grandkids knew our grandmother can speak fluent Japanese until my brother and I passed the Japanese proficiency test after my grandfather passed away.
My grandmother was so thrilled that her grandkids can speak Japanese that to our surprise she start speaking in Japanese whenever she met me and my brother.
Heck, if we knew granny can speak better Japanese than anyone we knew, we should have asked her to teach us years earlier.
interesting anecdote! Thanks for sharing!
The Han falsely believe their fairer complexion makes them superior to other races. Their swarthier Japanese conquerers, however, brutally crushed that fantasy. LOL!
@@bobweiram6321 yet, that was in the past. Where now Japan stands? Leashed like a lapdog by Uncle Sam and have a greatly declining population compared to China. Now, China rules the economy of the world as the second largest and is more modern than Japan. Japan is nothing more than a shadow of its former glory.
@@bobweiram6321
Did anyone say "Gosh, I wish some Fox News-indoctrinated racist hater would show up and begin preaching Chinese inferiority"?
No, I don't think anyone did. So why are you here?
I don't know which "Taiwanese kids" you're referring to, though...
I'm in my 20s, and the history class I attended in the middle and high school always included the japanese occupation era.
I think it's a common sense among my peer that some elderly from this era had been through a period of japanization, and thus speak japanese or even identify themselves as japanese.
Nice work, Thanks!
I appreciate your ability to cover difficult topics with a focus on the facts, but not lacking human sensitivity. Very touching tribute to your grandfather at the end.
The book "A taste of Freedom" by Peng Ming-Min gives details about the colonial time in Taiwan, specially in academia.
Universities like National Taiwan University had a Japanese system. He explains how organized it was but also how hard people from Formosa had to struggle to get a higher education. Great read, I highly recommend it.
Nice vid! Regards from Taoyuan.
Which reminds me of the habit that wumaos have of calling greens weaboos etc-few people are greener than 彭明敏, and yet he had this to say of Japanese rule…
@@lrt_unimog8316
Yeah, sounds pretty much like wumao rhetoric.
He wrote that a Taiwanese student was way below a Japanese student; not because they were better, but because Taiwanese were basically considered second class citizens in academia.
@@caonabocruzG Read a portion of the book from your comment (not finished yet), and it's an interesting read indeed. Two thing that paticulary stoodout to me was that 1) everything started to go more strict as Japan became militarized (post-Taisho era), and 2) Peng actually had less racisim in Japan than in Taiwan ("Nobody noticed us because we were Formosans; we enjoyed no special privileges nor were we treated as curiosities.) Although you have to add to the context that he was from the native elites (and obviously his political views), but I get the whole history was, to say the least, a very complex relationship between the colonizer-colonized.
@@caonabocruzG its true though, also taiwanese don't exist, unless you are talking about the native formossans,
you are just a dpp shill, the native taiwanese were literally aboriginals and everyone didn't treat them well, the island of formossa didn't even get the name of taiwan until after the war lmao.
日本人として台湾と良い関係が維持できることは感謝したい。
震災の時の多大な支援や励ましは日本人を救った。
日本は台湾の望む良い友人で有り続けたい。
台湾の最先端の半導体企業が日本に進出し我々日本が台湾から学ぶ機会を得た。
友好は日台をさらなる高みに引き上げる。
その通り！
Can Japan constitutionally enter into a military alliance with a foreign country by its own initiative?
@ I'm afraid I don't know the details of Japan's constitution but We acually have some military alliances. Whether Japan can enter into a military alliance with Taiwan is another problem.
Great video on a complicated topic. Another major 'export' from Taiwan was lumber. In the '70s and '80s, the period is usually referred to as "Japanese Occupation". Today, the language is much softer: "Japanese Administration".
Today we are still under Chinese Occupation by the Republic of China, we are still working to end the Chinese Occupation and establish the Republic of Taiwan.
@@andymetzen How can you be occupied by your own people?
@@andro7862 Spoken like a true colonists, disgusting.
@@andro7862 you mustn't understand that Taiwan itself is a colonial land from the actual natives that still live today.
@F L You're right. I guess I have always felt that 統治 comes across with a more of a hint of totalitarianism than 管理.
Great to get these histories from the perspective of an everyday Taiwanese capable of being impartial regarding colonialism.
Thanks for the balanced approach, as an Aussie, I learned a lot.
Love it.
It must have taken a lot of effort to cover this sensitive topic without irritating anyone. I took a class about history of Taiwan in NTU. I remember my professor was trying hard to not offend anyone.
My father was an economist focused on asian development. He knew Lee Teng Hui and pointed out that unlike other countries that focused on industrial development, the focus in Taiwan (due to the Americans who had calculated that they could supply Taiwan with arms but not food in the event of a conflict with the PRC) led to full employment and rapid economic growth in the postwar period. Perhaps you could do a video on how Taiwan was able to rapidly develop after the war. A great deal of human capital had migrated there, I know a lot of companies were started by such people...
It was the Chiang's that makes the post war boom possible, not lee
@@MC-gs6cz lol Lee Teng Hui got whitewashed so greatly that ppl now thinks he is the key to Taiwan's economic growth. Ironically DPP increases their support rapidly in the late 1990s because they used to tie Lee and the Nationalist party he led with corruption.
@@MC-gs6cz Chiang killed tons of dissidents, especially Taiwanese eslites.
@@leechien6 There were no such things as "Taiwan elites", only Japanese agents. Moreover, Chiang killed those who had connections with communists, not "dissidents" which you tried to make them look like western democracy fighters.
More importantly, TW's economic boom started in 60s. Where was Lee Tunghui at that time?
@EvinOshima
The Chinese Nationalists that the US Navy unloaded on Japanese Formosa launched into wholesale looting of the infrastructure built under the Government General of Japanese Formosa.
The reconstruction program was funded and initiated by the American “principal occupying power” (SFPT artical 23a). The unlawful Chinese Nationalist regime provided the work force to implement the American program of reconstruction.
Do not forget that the Chinese Nationalists turned out to be the proxy of the American "principal occupying power." And no wonder. Since the December 1936 Xi'an Incident, Chiang's KMT regime was already the proxy FDR used in his covert war against Japan.
My grandfather from my father's side spoke Japanese fluently. When he went to Japan, Japanese thought he spoke with a provincial accent. He never told us anything about his early life during Japan colonization. My grandfather from my mother's side escaped communists from mainland. He never told us anything about KMT martial law era.
You did a good job of balancing the facts around the shared history of Japan and Taiwan. There was a lot of this that most people outside Taiwan and maybe Japan would have no appreciation for. Thanks for the video.
Land reform throughout East Asia turned out to be an important prelude to industrialization. It forced the wealthy to go into and expand industry - but it also allowed for enough farmers to make enough money to buy the products that came out of those factories. The East Asian industrial policy practice was to combine industrial protection with export promotion. You need local demand to provide enough demand volume to justify creating firms large enough to have economies of scale, no matter what you are buying. Allowing farmers to own their own land, allowed them to achieve enough disposable income to buy the products that came out of the factories. There was also one other benefit: farm income was strong enough to slow the migration to cities. If one looks at Latin American cities during the power WWII era, their cities were swamped by migration to the cities of surplus population creating vast expanse of urban slums.
The threat of Communism swamping all of East Asia forced the hands of the remaining non-communist regimes to implement land reform. This happened in all the countries that would safely become industrialized after 1950, including Japan itself, Taiwan as explained here, and South Korea, which was a little less well executed, but the threat of Communism so high still enacted. South Korea had and has huge agricultural tariffs (as I understand Japan still does too). Those high tariffs made it easy for farmers to make a profit from very small plots of land but also kept people down on the farm longer - putting less pressure on the cities - and also ensured high agricultural output. South Korea is size of Indiana, with a population of 50 million AND 70% mountains - yet it still grows enough, if barely, rice to feed itself - which ultimately is the first role of government (to make sure the local people don't starve).
It is a shame that Latin America's upper class were not forced to move off the land and quit being rentiers. It's also ashame that America's wealthy are buying up all the land and real estate. The U.S.'s future looks a lot like Latin America's past.
Singapore meanwhile replaced farmland with public housing & factories (as the latter was more profitable) & probably retrained the farmers to work in factories
Having a bunch of poor know nothings running your farm land is not optimal, and land reform is almost always due to Leninist intra-elite competition: people within the elite know they can gain the upper hand by exploiting resentment within the lower class not because they are oriented to do what is good for society in general. Land reform is a side effect of development and political instability
The peasants in the usa are being driven into debt slavery by the oligarchs. The oligarchs don’t give a damn. New poor can be imported easily from Central America.
@@TheThreatenedSwan what are you smoking?
@@TheThreatenedSwan These nations all had high levels of literacy, the Japanese going back to the Bakufu. In the post war era, in addition to land reform, there was an extensive effort made to educate farmers on improved methods, along with improved grains. The focus of post WWII policy in Japan, then Taiwan, then South Korea, was to get these economies moving again, so the early efforts at economic growth and industrialization were focused on work with what was already there, especially agriculture. In Japan this meant fertilizer as part of a broader build up of chemical industries. The first role of every government is to feed the people. The transfer of ownership of land from rentiers to farmers/tillers, along with improved methods and use of fertilizer saw huge increases in agricultural output in the early post war years. Ownership breads an intensity of husbandry. (See "Planning for Change: Industrial Policy and Japanese Economic Develpment 1945-1990).
The policies pursued by these governments weren't based upon any form of ideology, but mere pragmatism/common sense. There was a bias towards fostering competition, creation of employment and wage equality: ethics/decency/morality/values are a middle class characteristic, the rich don't need'em (Trump, Et al) and the poor can't afford'em - (this was demonstrated in the movie: "It's a Wonderful Life" circa 1946 [a primer in American civics], so was a well known notion even back then.), also desperate people do desperate things, leading to crime/depression/drugabuse/homicides, etc... Consequently non-tradeable jobs such as retail and service sectors in Japan were incredibly inefficient, while tradeable jobs in sectors subject to intense competition leading to incredible levels of efficiency and comparative advantage in short spans of time.
I think the mistake in your assessment is to take an ideological view of civics. Ideology, no matter what stripe (Commies or Nazis), adhered to, leads to nihilism. This is because ideology attempts to answer questions before they occur - eventually reality serves up a context that renders the ideology absurd. They are generally proffered by social pretators with an agenda up their sleeve: you are sold the pretense, but you also buy the conclussion. In the case of Nazi, they sold German patriotism, but at the other end of that was global war, and wholesale genocidal murder, eventually leaving Germany in a smoldering ruins, divided and occupied by its enemies. Communist sell "fairness", but they bought two famines within 10 years and unbelievable cruelty. It is important to also point out that Anglo-Saxon civics is based upon pragmatism (as it emerged out of the Common Law, and then made the jump to politics) and compromise. As Oliver Wendal Holmes said: Judges created law, they were free to choose from the market place of ideas (cafeteria style) and did so and selected so pragmatically," (paraphrased) such that Anglo-Saxon societies are a "patchwork quilt" of ideologies - each used where the make the most sense, and otherwise ignored. The geniusness of that system is why Anglo-Saxonism emerged from a small part of a small island off the coast of a small continent to become a global phenomenon.
The post war economic development efforts were sound common sense efforts to do what worked and ignore what did not. Private property was not thrown out. It was used to make farmers more productive. Land owners were bought out, and they, in turn, grew much much wealthier thru taking leadership roles in industrialization. But wealth concentration and consolidation/mergers was seen as antithetical to success and wage equality and competition were seen as virtuous. Japan has 8 car companies, the US 3, the Japanese are more competitive despite coming from a smaller market. Japan has maintained high levels of employment, wages and lifestyle, and low levels of crime for many years.
Taiwanese look favorably to Japan and the thumbnail you used still stands today as their Presidential Office. Traveling to other cities in Taiwan like in Alishan Forest (Chiayi) and Taichung and you can still see old Japanese-era buildings that were still being used today
there are still Japanese era buildings in Dalian, China like the train station still being used by Chinese. nothing exists in Korea though. that alone tells me how the Chinese view us.
Well, I had posted, and then accidentally deleted an entire thread about the fact that some 100,000 Taiwanese had served in the Japanese military during WWII.
Most of these were conscripted and were lower level foot soldiers or laborers or worked below decks in the ships of the Japanese navy.
I remember reading somewhere that there was one Taiwanese who was a POW camp guard during the war who was tried for war crimes after the war because of his cruelty to the POWs.
The brother of Lee Teng-hui died during WWII while in the Japanese navy. This became public knowledge in 2007 when Lee Teng-hui decided to pay his respects to his brother at the Yakusuni shrine to the war dead. This was controversial because some 14 executed war criminals are also enshrined in the Book of Souls at the shrine as well as another 1,068 convicted war criminals from WWII.
In the book "Embracing Defeat", an account of the postwar aftermath after the surrender of Japan, it describes how Taiwanese in the Japanese military were instantly re-classified by the allies as Chinese and sent back to Taiwan (Taiwan became part of China again as a result of Japan losing WWII) while Japanese POWs had to stay in POW camps longer.
OK, I managed to rescue some of the replies in the thread to my original post, so I'm going to re-post them here:
ty m
you may also want to read 《零下六十八度：二戰後臺灣人的西伯利亞戰俘經驗》(Minus 68 degree Celsius: The Siberian POW experience of a post-WWII Taiwanese) (probably only available in Chinese) by 陳力航. It basically described the story of the author's grandfather who was a Taiwanese soldier working for Japan in Manchuria and later became a POW in Тайшет. The collision of mutiple identity throughout his experience is an interesting microcosm of Taiwanese as a whole.
V.D.
There were Korean soldiers too, who were Japanese then, who were convicted on charges of cruelty to POWs.
Gandalf Greyhame
Yes, there were Koreans in the Japanese armed forces also, including I read somewhere, one who was a kamikaze volunteer pilot. Don't remember if this guy actually flew a mission and crashed his plane or not. A lot of kamikaze pilots survived because they were being reserved to fly against the invasion fleet against Japan, an invasion that never came.
V.D.
As for the shrine, it enshrines many normal ppl too who died in the war, including non-Japanese ones. They seems not able to separate the criminals from them for some religious reasons IIRC. I think they should be a bit more flexible on this.
Deletion of that entire thread came about because I was trying to post a reply to V.D. while I was on a VPN. TH-cam hates VPNs and that is how it punishes you.
So, here's my reply about the Yakusuni shrine:
I didn't originally go into all the details of the Yakusuni shrine, since it was sort of peripheral to my post about Taiwanese who served in the Japanese military, but here's some more pertinent details from wikipedia about the shrine:
"The shrine was established in 1869, in the wake of the Boshin War, in order to honor the souls of those who died fighting for the Emperor.
The shrine lists the names, origins, birthdates, and places of death of 2,466,532 men, women, children, and various pet animals.
Japanese soldiers fought World War II in the name of Emperor Hirohito, who visited the shrine eight times between the end of the war and 1975. However, he stopped visiting the shrine because of his displeasure over the enshrinement of top convicted war criminals. His successors have never visited the shrine.
The enshrinement of war dead at Yasukuni was transferred to military control in 1887. As the Empire of Japan expanded, Okinawans, Ainu, and Koreans were enshrined at Yasukuni alongside ethnic Japanese. Emperor Meiji refused to allow the enshrinement of Taiwanese due to the organized resistance that followed the Treaty of Shimonoseki, but Taiwanese were later admitted due to the need to conscript them during World War II.
[During WWII era] Enshrinements at Yasukuni were originally announced in the government's Official Gazette so that the souls could be treated as national heroes, but this practice ended in April 1944, and the identities of the spirits were subsequently concealed from the general public. The shrine had a critical role in military and civilian morale during the war era as a symbol of dedication to the Emperor. Enshrinement at Yasukuni signified meaning and nobility to those who died for their country. During the final days of the war, it was common for soldiers sent on kamikaze suicide missions to say that they would "meet again at Yasukuni" following their death.
After World War II, the US-led Occupation Authorities (known as GHQ) issued the Shinto Directive, which ordered the separation of church and state and forced Yasukuni Shrine to become either a secular government institution or a religious institution independent from the Japanese government. Yasukuni Shrine has been privately funded and operated since 1946, when it was elected to become an individual religious corporation independent of the Association of Shinto Shrines.
The GHQ planned to burn down the Yasukuni Shrine and build a dog race course in its place. However, Father Bruno Bitter of the Roman Curia and Father Patrick Byrne of Maryknoll insisted to GHQ that honoring their war dead is the right and duty of citizens everywhere, and GHQ decided not to destroy the Yasukuni shrine."
In the case of Taiwan. From 1937 to 1942, the military recruitment system for workers. Volunteer system from 1942 to 1944. Conscription system after 1944
@@gandalfgreyhame3425 || They seems not able to separate the criminals from them for some religious reasons IIRC. I think they should be a bit more flexible on this.
IMO this is just the nationalists in the countries who suffered from the Japanese occupation. The Commons are always the ones suffering from the words of the Above. A single stoke means dozen of thousands dead, but all is but numbers to the Top people ordering such actions.
Just because the shrine is a Tomb of Glory for the known arseholes of the imperial military doesn't mean we don't pay respect to the hundreds of thousands poor souls who thought it's for the righteous.
people who has no alternate voices due to censorship and walled garden can only listen to the "official" source, if the source tells them eating shit is good for yourself, they probably would too.
In those days, living standard in Taiwan was higher than Japan.....In many aspects, it's still true today especially in food.
Great vid. It’s great to get a deep dive into history outside the anglosphere. Really enjoying your work 😀
Thanks!
You forget to point out that, during the Japanese colonization, Taiwan's rice consumption per capita is decreasing because Imperial Japan needs more food to feed its people. The agricultural production is growing, but the population is growing too. Taiwan people are still hungry, especially farmers.
My grandfather is a son-in-law（入贅）and a tenant farmer（佃農）, who benefits from Farmland Rent Reduction (三七五減租) and Land to Tiller（公地放領）. My maternal grandfather（外祖父） is a land owner, who lost some land during Land Reform. As my parents (both born after WWII) told me, cannot get enough food during their childhood. My grandfather has 4 sons and 2 daughters, and my maternal grandfather has 4 sons and 3 daughters. Famers' land won't increase, but the family population will. The whole family has to work harder to get food and clothing, even kids have to share housework after school. During the Japanese colonization, my maternal grandfather hides several bags of rice in piles of straw, to prevent the Japanese to find them. If they find hidden rice, Japanese police will use clamps（夾棍）to beat farmers, even to make them incontinence（失禁）.
He mentioned it in passing. He said the Japanese forced Taiwanese to eat other things such as sweet potato and took exported the rice.
Health data seems to contradict your claims. You can't grow taller and longer-living people on regular famines. If there were indeed still food shortages during that time, those must still have been far less severe than what happened before.
And to be fair, a life expectancy of under 30 is pretty horrific.
@@nvelsen1975 At the end of World War II, it was really hard for people in Taiwan to get rice. It was not in such bad situation in the early years, people could still consume rice, there are even many afternoon tea cafes (冰菓室/喫茶店) in the street of Taiwan. Until the WWII in Asia heated up, In 1938, Japan Empire published the "National Mobilization Law" and changed its economic status to total war mode and imposed stricter martial law. In 1940, the "Rice Control Act" banned the free purchase of rice by the entire nation (including the Japanese archipelago and Taiwan). Although the war would end in 1945, it was undoubtedly a very difficult childhood for teenagers and children that time.
During this period, crop failures continued in the Tohoku region of Japan (due to cold damage).
Children were eating radish as a substitute for rice.
Human trafficking was also occurring as a measure against food shortages
And there's the daily dose of KMT's sympathizer (which is still common in nowadays Taiwan despite the party having killed thousands of Taiwanese people during Chiang's dictatorship)
Great video essay. Also, NTU was started as a imperial japanese university during the colonial era.
Def an interesting blend of Chinese and Japanese flavors, always a treat to go back everytime and explore my parents homeland.
This is a rarely discussed topic.
A real gem!
Thanks for posting!😁
he has admirable intellectual honesty
@@StephenMortimer indeed! Though I disagree with his take on Trump, but to each his own! 😆
@@willywonka4340 I DON'T AGREE WITH YOU I voted TRUMP and will again
@@StephenMortimer
Omg! You are so blind
@@StephenMortimer I think you misunderstood what I meant. I voted for Trump, and will do so if he runs for 2024. Asianometry had an upload on his take of Trump, it was rather scathing to say the least, but I expected that from left-leaning tech folks. I don't agree, but I'm not going to let his opposing political view to bother me, though I think they've been mislead (same can be said about us on this side from their perspective)! 😆 🤣
FJB, FTW!✌️🤟😁
My Taiwanese acquaintances in America report that their elders looked favorably upon the colonial period. It is noteworthy that nobody on the island has ever lived under Communist Chinese rule or economic system.
Collaborators with imperialists and oppressors looked favorably upon the colonial period? Who would have thought?
Your last sentence is fucking obvious, but I'm more curious that you probably wrote it in order to gain favour from like-minded individuals. What's the point that you are trying to drive home with your last sentence? A reminder, the Communist Party of China governs mainland China, while the Kuomintang (Nationalist Party of China) and the Democratic Progressive Party are the 2 major political parties of Taiwan. Another reminder, mainland China's current economic system is different compared to the pre-economic reform period. How is China's economy capable of challenging, and inevitably surpassing, the economy of the USA, if you think China's economic system is imperfect or weak?
I wonder how the native Taiwanese think of that period too? Fondly?
@@charlesk22 No, during colonial period Japanese were quite brutal towards Islander rebels. These in favorable view are probably descendants of colonists.
@@bichengan I mean, they already surpassed us in gdp ppp, and I think they’re gonna surpass us in pure gdp by what? 2030 at the latest. Writings just on the wall man
I have been bingewatching asionomatry and it's so fascinating. While all this important history was happening I was entirely unaware of it, and much more recently I've been wondering how it all came about. Finding this channel has allowed me to learn more about these amazing developments than I ever thought possible. Thanks!👍🤓
Edit- I was referring to the semiconductor industry, as I wasn't around as early as this presentation is about.😏
This story somewhat reminded me of one book by Hernando de Soto that I read in the supermarket, his main idea is to give the poor the rights for their land. Funny enough, he was the main economic adviser during Alberto Fujimori presidency and was the main ideologist behind his economic reforms.
A great take of an unmentioned chapter of history.
I really applauded your dedication and insight into so many relevant topics today.
From insights in production to economic reality and political decisions.
18:05 dedication to grandpa is heartwarming.
Thanks
Love the pictures from the old times and yours from now, they provide a great view into the "has been" and "still is".
I'm curious, where did you do your research to make this video? Would you care to credit your sources so we can find out more ourselves?
16:56 Hell of a way to gloss over the White Terror and subsequent forty years of martial law
also hell of a way to gloss over what happened to the Taiwanese comfort women and how Taiwanese were conscripted to be cannon fodder basically
"In 1895, Japan acquired Taiwan island from the Qing Empire as their first colony."
The First Sino-Japanese War ended April 17 of 1895 with the Treaty of Shimonoseki which not only ceded Qing control of Taiwan but also included 16,534,500 pounds of silver taels in indemnities to Japan.
I don't know if this is Taiwanese education looking favorably on Japanese culture or my being Korean but "acquired" sounds more like a peaceful transaction and sounds off without the context of war.
I’d say it’s you being Korean. No one will try to whitewash what japanese dod during their „naughty” years, but it’s 2022 now. Japanese people who did all the bad to Korean people and Chinese people are a history mostly (maybe few and I mean few, still live) gone.
I’m from Poland and I should hate every single living citizen of Germany because of what they did in the past, during WWI and WWII.
People need to learn to let the past go because past is past lol.
Japanese brainwash through education for 2 generation in 50 years span, after WWII KMT also indoctrinating anti-communist education to Islanders. Now from anti-communist propaganda adopted by DPP ruling government evolved into full-on anti-China indoctrination.
Yes they now try to soften their view on Japan because they are anti PRC... There is a lot of fake history in Taiwan - and Japan as I'm sure you know as a Korean.
@@Huangiao yes I agree, it was not different from the US "acquiring" Spanish territories such as Guan and the Philippines. The US still owns Guam to this day.
@@Huangiao I don't know why this would be a "unorthodox" interpretation as you describe what happened without embelllishment. But without context, people make different assumptions and extrapolate.
For instance, the Japanese proclaiming to fight for Joseon independence happens after they raid the royal palace in 1894. In 1895 they kill the Queen and in 1896, Gojong runs to the Russian legation which leads to the Russo-Japanese War, fought over control of Korea.
And of course, Taft-Katsura Agreement outlines the understanding that the US would take the Philippines as long the it does not interfere with Japan taking Korea.
My point is that I don't understand why historical context wasn't added into the video when it would have been so easy.
A large part of why Japanese culture is so influential in Taiwan is based on an assessment made from comparisons drawn with the Qing and KMT rule in Taiwan, which somehow is not mentioned.
In both South Korea and Taiwan, the most prestigious flagship university of each country has their origins in the Imperial Japanese University system. SNU in Korea started out as Keijo Imperial University and NTU in Taiwan started out as Taihoku Imperial University. In both countries, these universities are seen as being a notch above the next top universities and have produced a disproportionate number of political leaders, CEOs and professionals.
Thank you. I have always been keenly interested in the history of the Asian Pacific region.
An acquaintance of mine was the child of a U.S. missionary in Taiwan. He tells stories of Taiwan being tremendously "backwards" and poor still in the 1970s and he and his siblings dreaded going back each time after visiting the States even in the early 1980s. I visited Taiwan a couple of years ago and was impressed by the country. Hard to square his stories and memories against the current reality.
West was also backwards in the past. Westerners needs to get off their high horse
@@user-pd9ju5dk5s No one said anything to the contrary. You need to get that chip off both of your shoulders.
Taiwan was backward comparing to the West at that time, but they were definitely better than Mainland China, Koreas and South East Asia .
it's not a country
@@danman6358 Formally, no.
East Asians themselves were colonizers at times within South East Asia And Oceania yeah.
Technology transfer was the big difference between the european and Japanese colonial motives, Or atleast in this case.
Yes Japan transferred western technology to Taiwan. Then the USA kicked them out 😂😂
@@nick21614 Nothing wrong with that as Japan kicked out the Qing after winning the war.
@@johnl.7754 Sure, even allied forces got kicked out of Indonesia. I see that as fair too.
Yawn. The British and French empires did much the same. The Japanese development Taiwan's agriculture, but not so much its industrial capacities. That would be competition for domestic industries. The British and French left behind modern infrastructure and technology. They also discouraged industries that would be competition. Pity that you let racism and petty nationalistic thinking cloud your judgement.
@@Bunnyroo7 I would say it's the same everywhere, they only transfer the stuff they can benefit. i.e. manufacturing to China.P.R.C, TGV to Korea (which korea reverse engineered to the current 3nd gen 430km KTX train)
thank you for this, had no idea about any of this !
I loved this one
You should have made it a 4 part series
Interesting to see that Taiwan basically experienced an economic boom before the ROC moved there in 1949, I always assumed it was the retreat of the ROC that started the indistrialisation of the island nation.
Regardless, the photos in this video were nice. If you told me it was Amsterdam the 19th century I would have believed you, with the architectural styles matching and all.
It is my understanding that one of the biggest "gifts" Japan gave to Taiwan are the water resevour and dam systems. When I was in Taiwan I walked on one of those massive Japanese-built dams. Hope to visit there again one day. Taiwan has such an impressive combination of mountain vistas and dense urbanisation intertwined among another, as someone from the Netherlands it is really a sight to behold.
Imperial Japan built lots of infrastructures in both Taiwan and the Korean peninsula. There is a dam in North Korea that Japan made then and still works even now.
I'm from Indonesia, and I agree colonial era irrigation infrastructure is amazing
In central Java, I saw and amazed by this "siphon tunnel" working as "flyover" for 2 crossing waterways
The locals said it was made by the Dutch, so it should be at least almost a century old!
Yes, because prior to the massive irrigation/dam system they built Taiwan was funny enough experience lack of water for agriculture due to bad detention rate of water despite locate in subtropical region and being an island.
The KMT had massive war debts from WW2, resulting in hyperinflation brought over from Mainland China which evaporated the wealth of the elites in Taiwan.
That is a fair treatment of the history and its lasting impact. I went and visit Taiwan for a month and I observed the positive influence of Japan's colonial era. History as always is complicated and even with the most brutal invasions often there are silver linings that endure.
I had no idea you are borned Taiwanese. I assumed you are a westerner expat. As always I enjoy your excellent work.
Come on. You want to call them silver linings. All these countries that were colonized could have achieved all those development and advances if the nation that colonized them traded with them fairly and made business ventures and financial investments instead of outright taking over the country and exercising total control over the lives of the people.
An amazing exploration of the topic. I have always found it difficult to fully understand the Japanese imperial impact. Knowing the obvious stories of repression and colonialism, but seeing the benefits of infrastructure, industrialization, and land rights. I’m glad my children can inherit such a fruitful legacy.
The problem is that there is still a legacy of hatred and bitterness as well, especially in Korea and China. And although my country has definitely moved on from it, it can be irksome whenever Japanese try to avoid blame for what they did. They did bad and unlike Germany they never really acknowledged it- at best they just said, "isn't that enough? We didn't do it, and if we did, it's in the past, and we're already bombed by nuclear so we don't need to apologize because we've been punished already."
You're right the whitewash was perpetrated and is perpetrated in behalf of many Asia Pacific nationalists who stood in opposition to other perceived threats. I would love to see more accurate education of the history of the period and aknowledgement similar to the educational reforms in Germany around the topic in Japan and throughout the region.
Really? Because all asians here in the West and in places not being Japan can cry about is muh oppression and colonialism and completely ignore the benefits it wrought for them.
There are few things in the world that are purely positive or purely negative. You just have to look at things in a balanced light and make your own rational decisions.
@@mrniceguy7168
You're right, but most of the time if you talk about to positives of colonialism, especially European or American colonialism (Philipines), you get lynched by hordes of angry racists.
Some of the earlier academic works are downright painful to read; a whole chapter ragging on and on about how evil all white people are, before they go 'But we can conclude this railway the British built, is still the economic backbone of the country'.
Well told History. Well done.
From what my parents' generation told us, the rule by Japanese was hard but very much in orderly and civilized manner. When Chinese KMT fled to Taiwan, its treatment to Taiwanese was brutal, lawless and inhumane. Many Taiwanese that used to resent Japan's rule, suddenly turned into appreciating and thankful to Japan, after comparing to what KMT was doing (the way they told me, KMT was like thiefs, killed, raped and robbed many Taiwanese). In my own dad's words: it felt like a civilized society suddenly was under cruel barbarians' hands.
That feeling and attitude passed down to my and later generations. Today Taiwan is not only the most friendly country in the world toward Japan, Taiwanese are also the people other than Japanese that understand and appreciate Japan most.
It shows clearly in the reaction when we learned the news of Shizo Abe's death.
Taiwan was used as a model colony for Japan hence why it did not suffer the worse of the Japanese atrocities.
@@coolspot18 "The wealth and poverty of nations" by David Landes points out: Korea and Taiwan both were Japan's colonies and they thrived after WWII. For British colonies, Singapore was doing very well; Malaysia, India and some were ok; and some were poor. All colonies of other European countries such as France's, Spain's were all doing poorly.
His conclusion: Japan did the best job in colonizing; Britain did all right; all others did terrible job.
When Japan colonized Taiwan and Korea, it did build the infrastructures, industries, setup modern systems, education and rule by law. Britain did some. Other colonizing countries pretty much just exploited.
So who is better CCP or KMT? I live in mainland China and I keep saying if they want reunification so much it should be win-win, they get something they want, and the other side gets something they want, so for example, the two countries get reunified but under KMT rule.
@@hufficag It's like asking "which is better for your health, poison or dioxin?". You should know about CCP. KMT is a little bit less evil. But most people with sanity and ethics won't choose either of them.
And the fate of Taiwan (or China) should be decided by all the Taiwanese (or Chinese) people, not by any political party. I can assure you, the vast majority of Taiwanese are not interested in the idea Taiwan merging with China. Note that I don't use the word "reunion". Taiwan has never been part of PRC, what reunion is there?
@@hufficag KMT is a joke.
Really great video and a beautiful tribute at the end.
I am always impressed by your deep knowledge and insight. I appreciate your analysis on the relationship between Taiwan and Japan. Taiwan and Japan are allies and good friends now, but so many biases and misinformation are going on the internet, and it's hard for me to know the actual influences at the time.
We need ppl like you to educate on inner workings of Asia. Also please make something about daily life in Asia, what traditions, believes are still presented here? What modern asian family is in this time?
What about the 200k Taiwanese man impressed into service during WW2 to fight against the Americans? 30k of them were KIA (likely much more). I don't know anything about what tasks they were given, but it was likely they had more dangerous and menial roles than the Japanese.
Forced conscription was a common and brutal technique of the Japanese empire.
By the late 1930s militants had gained the upper hand in Japan. The relative liberalism of the Meiji and especially Taisho eras was done away with. Repression was the order of the day, in Japan and the colonies. Taiwanese, Korean and Ryukyuan people were seen as more expendable but it wasn't as if the militants were particularly good to Japanese people, either.
@@Bunnyroo7 To put it in perspective, they even threatened to kill the emperor on multiple occasions because he disagreed with their militarism.
@@Shaker626 Yes. There were (are) many who thought that the fact that Konoe Fumimaro had become PM was proof that the Imperial family and the Japanese aristocracy were all in on the militarism. In reality, Konoe became PM only because several PMs had already been assassinated by the militants and his status made him less likely to be targeted for that. That was not the "normal" Japanese government. They effectively hijacked the Japanese State.
'The whole thing was a win win for everyone involved'......... not quite the full story there buddy.
What a wonderful outro sir. I watch this channel speciailly to get an honest take of what for me is foreign politic. This channel is awesome. I am into the tech topics as well, and they also have political ramifications....
Another excellent episode, thank you!
Great video, thanks. Do you have one about the effects of the land reforms implemented in Japan by the US occupation after WWII?
Yet another thought-provoking video! Mahalo!
3:05 there is no aboriginal population left anywhere south and east of whats today china.
turned both Taiwan and Japan from Australian aboriginal related peoples into east asian rice farmers. A complete and total population replacement.
Chinese replaced the southern peoples too
Once again, another great video. One thing I notice in your videos is you never edit in background music while your talking and I think that is a good choice. I notice alot that in other informative/educational TH-camrs, that they will add in background music that will usually improve the quality of their videos. You don't do this and your videos are still great and engaging.
Agree, no music is best music in this case.
The people of the Ryukyu Islands (now more commonly known as Okinawa) would disagree that Taiwan was Japan’s first colony. They were an independent kingdom before being invaded by the Satsuma clan in the 1600s and then formally annexed and made a prefecture in the Meiji era (1879).
I would say the Ryuukyuu's are related to the Yamato Japanese as much as the Bai's are related to the Han Chinese.
@@GL-iv4rw except that the PRC officially recognizes the Bai as a distinct ethnic group; Japan has tried to systematically erase Okinawan indigenous identity, officially refers to the language as a dialect of Japanese in contradiction of most linguists, etc.
@@GL-iv4rw Big mistake. Ryukyu's traditional culture is more related to Han Chinese, especially in term of language and clothes. After imperialist Japan occupied Ryukyu, they killed everyone who spoke Chinese and keep classical Chinese culture.
@Laotree
Only a Chinese troll could come up with such BS. And I do not care if the Chinese troll Laotree hails from China, Malaysia, Taiwan or anywhere else. "The Ryukyu islands are actually ours". I heard this enormity in the 1970's from a young Chinese Nationalist holed up on non-Chinese Taiwan. The US stole Taiwan from Japan in the mother of all unequal treaties, the SFPT . The US unloaded their "good" Christianized Chinese on Japanese Taiwan. Those arrogant and ignorant 阿Qs have been brainwashing themselves into believing that they own Taiwan. But the US never ceased to oppose to the Chinese of both persuasions that the international status of former Japanese Taiwan remains "unsettled". Japanese renounced Taiwan. The Chinese do not have Taiwan. Not even the Taiwanese enjoy the sovereignty of Taiwan. And they won't as long as they assume themselves Chinese. Now you know enough to use your own brain and name the power who controls Taiwan since Japan renounced it.
often seems this guy who makes this channel just reads wikipedia or some pro western source that whitewashes things
Great video man. I like the historical context.
You need to mention to whom the benefits of the exports went, the general population or the appointed agents of colonial government? What was the price for the exports, was it fair market price?
Nice to see the other side of the usual arguments.
As a tangential side note, I'll add that the US Constitution could have been framed more honestly:
In place of "We, the people... etc", they could have written "We, the rich people of the colonies, feel we're not being given a fair crack of the whip by the established rich people in the home country...etc".
Thank you for covering this topic in detail. I know this period of Japanese occupation but never get into the detailed ones like yours
Your content is top notch (particularly on Asian cultures, economies, history etc) and super underrated 👌🏽😎
Well done report! At university I did a report comparing the development of Taiwan vs the Philippines, which was really interesting. Taiwan was colonised by Japan from 1895-1945 (50 years), while the Philippines was colonised by the US from 1898-1946 (48 years) - similar era and period. The Philippines was initially far more prosperous than Taiwan, but then Taiwan's growth quickly outstripped the Philippines. This vid would have been so helpful at the time I was writing that report!! What I basically discovered was that the Taiwan land reform policies were able to happened because the KMT coming from the mainland, meant that they did not own the land, and they had taken the industry from the Japanese so they also had no ownership of that. So the people in power did not have a personal stake in the policies they made. The land reform realigned the people with the economy - those who worked the land now owned the land. Those who had owned the land were now putting their educations into running industry. While those who controlled the government were not risking their own land or industry. But in the Philippines, there were a few very wealthy families, who owned the land & industry and they also ran the government. These Philippine elites were not about to risk any policies that would shake up things and take their stake in the country/economy - they wouldn't gamble their own fortunes to benefit the whole country. So Taiwan took off, and the Philippines stagnated.
Interesting comparison
1:53 I know the misleading caption is Wiki's fault, but there have never been any sugar railway north of Taichung as sugar production was concentrated in Central and South Taiwan.
The pic was taken nearby the Huwei Sugar Factory in Yunlin, Taiwan's only remaining sugar factory which is still served by railway, notably during the winter harvest seasons.
I learned something today!
Thanks!
Japan and Taiwan will be together forever. Together they will rule the world.
Uhhh....
I generally liked this episode but I think the title is a bit misleading because the last roughly 1/3 is about the KMT land reforms that benefited a huge swath of Taiwan's population, and this wasn't a Japanese thing.
Also, I really feel like the Taiwanese comfort woman issue got totally glossed over in the end (but glad you at least mentioned it, some people even deny it ever happened). These poor women have been conveniently forgotten even in their own homeland because it doesn't fit with the current ruling party's narrative. Japan's colonial rule was much more brutal than how many Taiwanese people currently remember, and I personally take issue with this.
Regardless, thank you for your videos.
He was explaining how the Japanese system led to land reform. How it was organized before and how changing it led to changes in Taiwan's development.
Every single society since the history of mankind has had whores or as you call them comfort women.
Whether by force or not. There is not one society that doesn’t have them now. Even in our “awakened” world you can get a whore to do anything you want from the North Pole to the South Pole on any continent for any price.
Comfort women or whores will always be around and they play just as much a part in shaping the history in any region as the people that pay them.
It’s not good or bad it’s just a fact of life.
If you think that for some reason Japanese or Taiwanese should be held to a higher standard than the rest of the world you are delusional.
Every colonial rule was much more brutal than anyone really likes to remember. But for the places where the effects of colonization has left the countries devastated to this day there is, obviously, a greater will to remember. Places where the decolonization went smoothly and/or left the natives better off in the end obviously want to focus on the positive. And colonization or not, a hundred years ago EVERY country was a brutal asshole. Genocide, torture of war prisoners, military plunder, etc, was just more water under the bridge. It wasn't until after WWII that everyone was going "Uh, how about we stop this madness?".
Japan's colonial rule has been largely glossed over in modern Taiwan because KMT's rule greatly overshadows it. The negative impact of Japan's colonial rule while brutal, is quite simply no longer visible/tangible, whereas the KMT's remains fresh in the memory of many and still has a significant impact on Taiwanese society today. Hence, it's quite fair that the current focus is on rectifying the wrongs of the past KMT regime.
Korean prostitutes have no evidence or testimony by their families, and there is nothing but testimony by the person himself, but recently, "comfort women", which was the established theory in Korea as "red Wednesday", was forced. All the stories were false, and the book "The prostitute was making a lot of money. The prostitute was a voluntary prostitute" was released and recorded the best seller. Also, in "Anti-Japanese Tribalism," which also recorded a bestseller in South Korea before that, several scholars cite a huge amount of grounds and evidence such as U.S. military records and assert that "comfort women are voluntary prostitutes." I am. Last year, Professor Ramseyer of Harvard University completely denied the compulsion of comfort women, saying, "Lee Yong-soo and several other comfort women changed their story after deciding to demand money from Japan." "After claiming to have left the house, I changed the word that I was forcibly taken in 2002 and 2007," he points out the contradiction.
Ive recently found this channel and find the content fascinating and informative. Great work?
What a great channel! Wish you success 🙌
Thank you, it was a great video.
Land Reform in Taiwan Post World War II...who said it had to be "Communist"? Well said Asianometry! Well said! Human Rights and Social Justice don't always have to be dismissed as "Communist" as opposed to McCarthyist propoganda, though they are commited to be in denial, Land Reforms worked for Taiwan and it also worked for Japan! And that's that!👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍 And the colonialism parts too... a double edged sword...
Very interesting...hello from NZ, that was a nice tribute at the end.
My in-laws were educated in Japanese and so were most of their friends and relatives from the same era . When they met they either spoke Taiwanese or Japanese although they made an effort to speak mandarin with me and others who didn’t speak Taiwanese .
After Chiang Kai Shek took over , schools started to teach in mandarin exclusively and forbade the students to speak their native language within schools boundaries.
That changed in the nineties especially after Lee Deng Hui was elected president to replace the late Chiang Jing Guo .
your channel is infinitely, infinitely, infinitely interesting.. extremely sophisticated and well-researched.. I was a supporter on patreon until very recently. alas, my country's economy took a nosedive and I was forced to stop that support, very very reluctantly...
Is it possible for you to make a similar program on japanese colonialism in korea? (I know, it is a hornet's nest)
Is it possible to make a program that compares japanese colonialism to british colonialism in india? (an another hornest's nest)
Would you mind if I asked which is your country?
@@adhirbose9910 Turkey..
@@sahhaf1234 oh. Gr8 country, gr8 history, met a few turkish people myself, very cultured and sophisticated. But the current government is....
@@adhirbose9910 gr8 country, gr8 history, currently going down the drain very quickly and very deservedly..
British colonialism in India was more akin to the Belgian occupation of the Congo than the Japanese in Taiwan. The British robbed the country dry and had policies that led to multiple famines, killing millions.
Amazing video
Would you be able to do an episode on Iran? I think a discussion of their weird modern economy could be interesting!
Thank you. Great presentation. I live in Taiwan and knew a lot of this data but always good to extra facts and have them connected with other facts and what the later effects were.
As shown by the research of Ching-I Huang and Shao-Yu Jheng, an inclusive banking institution was established in Taiwan under Japanese colonial rule (1895-1945), which later boosted the Chinese Nationalist government’s capacity to promote postwar rapid industrialization. as decentralized, bottom-up banking system in colonial Taiwan allowed local elites to establish commercial banks to service farmers and entrepreneurs, resulting in extensive bank networks. This historical banking system played a crucial role in the post-war big-push policy which financed rapid industrialization by nationalizing the banking sector, because these commercial banks, even after being nationalized, continued to operate and expand new branches around the colonial bank networks in postwar Taiwan. Townships with more nearby prewar bank branches tended to grow faster during the period of postwar rapid industrialization.
Reference:
Huang, Ching-I and Jheng, Shao-Yu, Inclusive Origins of Rapid Industrialization: the Persistent Effects of the Colonial Bank Networks on Taiwan’s Economic Miracle (December 10, 2021). Available at SSRN
Not making much sense.
Even with a banking system, what if no cash flows?
I AM NOT ASIAN I AM BLACK BUT I HAVE ALWAY SEEN JAPAN AS A SPUNKY ISLAND NATION WHOSE EXPERIENCE IS A MODEL FOR AFRICAN NATIONS
Africa is very far from Japan, Western colonialists had been also blocking ut to reach Africa, and we couldn't even get to India, blocked by Indian betraying troops owned by colonialist Brits but I believe that the incident we shot and sank the British battleship Prince of Wales gave Africans the energy to get the freedom from colonialists.
@@Funica11 true
Absolutely fascinating... Huzzah and thank you.. 😊
That is fascinating piece of history. And a lovely sentiment about your grandfather.
I can imagine how losing Taiwan affected the Japanese food supply chain at the end of WW2, based on the data presented. Great video.
I don't know if it matches your yt channel's main focus, but could you talk about the crisis in Sri Lanka?
he actually did 3 months ago
@@Banom7a Oh ok, maybe yt didn't recommend the video to me. Thanks.
It is evident that most crises are related to corruption by the leaders and their peers. In Asia, all crises are related to mega-corruption. BRI projects also create corruption and most blame China, not themselves. The IMF is always involved in profit by making loans. Malaysia Dr. Mahatir was an intelligent man, he saved Malay from being the west victim. Watch out for history may return, remember the big collapsed Thai Bath in 1989?
A very informative program on the Japanese period and especially the land reform program instituted by the KMT after 1949.
It would be much appreciated if you could include your sources in the description.
“acquired” is such a lightweight word, China lost a war with Japan and lost its territory, not willingly gave up. It’s like saying Russian acquires Donbas.
Chinese rule over Taiwan was also recent. In fact they did not conquer it until after the Ming started to get conquered by the Qing, in the 1640s.
So when Japan took Taiwan in 1895, China had only been ruling it for more or less 250 years.
@@ianhomerpura8937 Your view of history needs to be shorten to 1648 when the treaty of Westphalia was signed. While “rule recently” might be correct, sovereignty didn’t exist before that. The world was ruled by Kings and Churches. Dutch and Spain were in the island, so thus Chinese and Japanese traders and pirates. USA wasn’t even formed then and Mexico still owned California and Texas. Everything would be different if the European powers were expanding their territories like that of Russian, instead of just colonizing and taking treasures back home.
@@ianhomerpura8937 Not that I think Taiwan is still rightfully Chinese or anything, but how the hell do you think the 1640's was "recent?" And 250 years is still more than the entire lifetime of the US so it doesn't mean much.
"acquire" is a neutral word. there is no connotation at all to anything besides one having received something in whichever way. Russia did acquire Donbas. It says nothing at all to how it was done.
Interesting wonder if the Japanese management policies were different in Korea than in Taiwan which warranted the sharp difference in relations afterwards.
There's was more resistance in Korea and therefore more repression
@@Nathan-jh1ho Maybe because Korea was a country while Taiwan was a small part of China.
The Koreans take pride in being the one to have granted technologies to Japan, which they got from China, during the 3-5 century. The narrative going in the other direction is particularly inconvenient
One theory is that Japan fought the war on Chinese soil then claimed Taiwan. Compared to Korea, the war was fought in its soil and people had to had experience with japanese atrocities.
@@doctorwilly @Will Chien Japan's annexed Korea peacefully. There has been no war in Korea since their Joseon king surrendered under Japanese rule rather than being taken by Russia. The fallen of Qing made Joseon influenced by Russian from the north and Japan. The violence happened when the pro Japanese Joseon nobel eliminated the pro Russian Joseon Nobel. It's their history pride that makes them resistant to accept the facts.
As an American this is the first I'm hearing of any of this. Very interesting. I've never really thought about who lived in Taiwan before the Chinese nationalists arrived. The bit about land reform being done in a way that aided industrialization was very informative, since that topic is usually highly politicized in most discussions.
Colonialism did not end for the Taiwanese when Japan left, in fact many would agree it got worse under Chinese colonization by the KMT, the fact that the Republic of China exists instead of the Republic of Taiwan is a disgrass to the Taiwanese, we need to stop babying the Chinese colonists and end colonialism in Taiwan once and for all.
Then just declare independence and be ready to fight for it. If you don't, then the DPP are just liars.
@@MagSnapShots I can hear China crying already.
2.28事件
I agree let all the han taiwanese return to Fujian province and return the island to the austronesian indigenous people.
@@andymetzen then make China cry by declaring formal independence. Or else Taiwan Independence will always be a hoax.
"What colonialism did for Korea" should be next.
Short version: Nothing but pain
@@andro7862 wrong. exactly why we need such a video
@@andro7862 Seoul National University and other lasting japanese legacy's says otherwise.
@@user-sx5ze8oq3kseoul national university is not the only sourse of facts
@@user-sx5ze8oq3k you trust anti-japanese racist University?
Thank you for educating me. Much of this information is new to me. Similar to industrialisation and colonisation elsewhere. But different.
This was a really great analysis. I'm very interested in Taiwan (since I'm an IT Tech and self proclaimed computer nerd since the early 90s) and this perfectly summed up why "made in Taiwan" has always had an entirely different ring to it than "made in China". Not to dunk on Chinese goods in general, but goods from Taiwan has just always been more... well.. competitive.. and somehow expresses a better understanding of the needs of their target audience. Calling modern Taiwanese culture "to some extend a mix of Japanese and Chinese" drove it home for me.
Also: Your granddad sounds like he was everything a granddad should be!
Well that's China before 1949. The fire rebels invaded and so they've been hiding in an island.
As a Taiwanese, I will say my generation of Taiwanese culture is 33% Chinese 33 %Japanese 33% American
@@jennychuang808 I think if you actually went to the US you'll realise that it's probably a lot less. Understanding Americanisms and borrowing pop-culture from them is wildly different from being culturally alike. I know an American couple who moved here (Denmark) thinking that the cultures would be "reasonably similar"... heh.. let's just say that Danes who think they share cultural traits with Americans are actually the worst at proverbially stepping Americans on the toes, making them socially uneasy or feel embarrassed. In your case I think it would be the opposite. I think in day-to-day life you'd find them tactless or at least socially insensitive (And I think you'd find Danes brutally direct to the point of being outright inappropriate).
@@andersjjensen
As a Taiwanese lives in Australia for a long time, I can tell you I am more Americanise than my Aussie friends. Especially my mindset.
Not mention, around 20 % of Taipei citizens have American passports. Maybe you should go to Taipei and check it out.
There's a misperception about Chinese goods. Their products are priced in order to gain a foothold in the highly competitive and even hostile foreign markets. Having the lowest priced product gives you an incredible advantage and lowers resistance. Achieving such low prices requires government subsidies and some compromise in materials and workmanship. Chinese products, however, generally offer the highest quality at the lowest possible cost. They can manufacture an iPhone or a $1 pair of reading glasses and everything in between, including Bentley.
Japan and Taiwan, on the other hand, started out manufacturing low quality products. Their products priced in the midrange, but the quality was at the lower end. Their early products weren't a great value. It took them decades to achieve their enviable status today, eventually allowing them to command a premium.
The railway rails are still made to the more narrow Japnese specs today
It's interesting to note that you consider the comfort women a minor issue almost an afterthought even though the Japanese are well known to have made this a huge problem across Asia from Korea to China and the Philippines, although I'm not certain the extent to which Taiwan was affected to be considered a side note. The other issue that has attracted the ire of the Japanese neighbours is the issue of War shrine controversy. Hopefully, Taiwanese can relate to the problem and recognize the significance of the Japanese leadership gesture in honoring the Japanese war shrines despite all the controversies around it. On a similar note, I'm sure Algeria benefitted immensely from the contributions of French colonization's of their country, but many have also seen the other destructive side of the relationship.
I mean most younger Taiwanese regards the comfort women issue as their grandparents volunteering for it.
As a Taiwanese, I didn't hear many of the ancestors have propagated the hatred of comfort women to the next generation, and if the hatred for the KMT is not so heavy, then the hatred of Japan is even more long time ago.
In other countries it might be serious, but not in Taiwan.
Freedom is vastly greater than a few comforts for a few. F all that word salad justifying colonialists.
@@hirokokueh3541 R u for real ? Do u really wanna compare historical atrocities vs war crime shrine snubs or comfort women ? I don't think anything done by all the Chinese dynasties can compare with the horrors by the Japanese during the WW2. So, either you come from the same lineage and willing to turn a blind eye or you accept the responsibility of recent history and apologize publicly and stop those war shrine nonesense and stop erasing all those historical events from the Japanese schools. I don't see Germany trying to brush aside the significance of their past role in ww2 , so why is the Japanese allowed to do so with the blessings of the Muricans as well as the West ?
@@hirokokueh3541 Well you did come across as trying to vilify the Chinese as worse than the Japanese and you had to be called out on this stupidity. Also , I don't think u speak for all the Taiwanese. Maybe the English speaking Taiwanese , but that hardly represents all the Taiwanese. If you grew up unaware of the atrocities committed by the Japanese, then all u can come up with is all the atrocities committed by the Chinese while ignoring what the Japanese hv done in recent memory. Is there a group of Taiwanese trying to whitewash the crimes of Japanese ? That's what u sound like. A good analogy is to hv a group of Murican natives trying to defend and whitewash all the crimes committed to their own native ppl until near extinction by the white ppl as they look around for another scapegoat to deflect from the actual crimes.
Once you’ve been ruled by the KMT, Japanese colonization doesn’t seem so bad
Tankie...
Guess you prefer being ruled by the CCP. They will come very soon.
Brilliant! Well- Stated! Imagine I grew up in a family with complications of two different values from Japanese colonialism and Chinese regime. Been through so-called racist in these days. Sometimes, it is difficult to present your identity to the public. There is no such right or wrong answers to it. Take lessons, move on, and love each other. When you know it is your home, please develop and take care of it. Where you could see during the colonial empire and late 1980. Let go hatred. Hope we will see the glory again!
Most Taiwanese I meet seem to have a positive view of the Japanese people and culture. One Taiwanese told me the Japanese intended Taiwan to be a model colony of sorts, a place where Japanese could retire to at the end of their working careers.
I find this strange, like historical Stockholm Syndrome
@@LancesArmorStriking maybe anti-japanese criminals think that
@@LancesArmorStriking I think there has been just too much trauma to the Taiwanese people as a whole (all groups that make up the current day Taiwan), that people in Taiwan generally are over whatever grievances past Taiwanese had with past Japanese. This, coupled with the present day existential threat from China, make it almost impossible to really hold on to past grudges that are irrelevant to present day Taiwan.
@@Cyberpunker1088
I think their fundamental sense of identity has been changed.
They've gone from seeing themselves as a part of China to apart from it.
Similar to how Ruthenia was Polonized until it became Ukraine and Belarus.
Or how Britain forcefully divided India and created 2 new identities to keep a once united people fighting one another.
When there's a signed treaty indicating that territory is being ceded by one country to another country, the territory is no longer "occupied."
Exactly... we should tell this to the South East Asian and the Indian too as their territory belong to the Queen.
it is now "conquered".
Great vid
This is the same thing that is done in Korea.
There are still railroad tracks, schools, and buildings in Korea that were built by Japan. At that time Korea was poor and had no schools.
It was Japan that created the school system.
Interesting you mentioned comfort women. I worked in Korea and Taiwan. Yes Korea was treated badly and rage for CW runs high. But I interviewed a few Taiwanese cw. They stated the Japanese treated them and the country well so they did it for there country and duty. No regrets. One thing you leave out is the many other nations like Dutch who colonized Taiwan before Japan.
Really mentioning other countries so that you can make japan's atrocities not look bad
@@RandomVidsforthought I care about what the citizens living there think. You wont see Japanese culture or businesses in Korea. But will Taiwan. Citizens felt like a province vs an enslavement camp in korea. And Taiwan has been ruled by many nations before Japan
You can barely call what the Dutch did "colonization" though. They basically just established a trading post on the island. There was no attempt to use it for much of anything beyond trading with China. It was the Qing and subsequently Japan who actually treated it as a colonial holding.
@@bobjones2959 I hear ya. I just going by what Taiwanese told me when I lived there. Its actually a country that has a very complex history.
The issue of CW is so complicated that Taipei had a great museum devoted to them. Though it closed in 2021, it looks like it will reopen in a new location. According to their oral history, some of the comfort women were already sold by their impoverished families at incredibly young ages as maids or prostitutes. While sexual violence has existed in military history since time immemorial, the comfort women were victims of their society as well as the brutality of colonialism.
Excellent!
When do we get an episode of Asianometry?