A 16-year-old Taipei schoolgirl surnamed Chen has little time for the searing anti-Japanese rhetoric commonly heard across the Taiwan Strait in China.
"Japanese things are cool," the teenager said, smiling pertly amid the glitter of a Japanese inspired photography shop in Taipei's trendy Ximending entertainment area. "Japanese fashion, Japanese music, they're all really neat."
Chen's enthusiasm is emblematic of the pro-Japanese sentiments in this country, and differ sharply from the prevailing mood in China.
Despite 50 years of often brutal Japanese colonial rule from 1895 to 1945 and a clear understanding of Japanese atrocities during World War II, many Taiwanese see Japan as a source of political and cultural inspiration.
In China, many believe Japan has failed to adequately atone for its colonial-era aggression against its Asian neighbors -- especially China itself.
Japanese leaders are routinely caricatured in the Chinese press with unflattering buckteeth and Hirohito-style metal-rimmed glasses, and Chinese broadcasts are rife with portrayals of rapacious Japanese soldiers despoiling the pristine Chinese countryside.
Just last Sunday Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan (孔泉) accused Japan's foreign minister of glorifying aggression after he said Tokyo's 50-year colonial rule over Taiwan was responsible for the high education standards there.
Amid tension on this and the war aggression issue, foreign ministry officials from Japan and China were due to hold talks yesterday and today in Japan.
Huang Fu-san (黃富三), a historian at Taiwan's Academia Sinica, ascribes the differing attitudes toward Japan among Taiwanese and Chinese to their differing experiences under Japanese rule.
In China, he says, World War II Japanese forces engaged in widespread brutality, while in Taiwan, Japan's colonial administration brought stable government, rapid economic development and excellent educational opportunities.
"The Japanese operated quite effectively here," he says. "Taiwan had the highest primary school enrollment rate anywhere in Asia outside of Japan itself."
Wu Zhiou-feng, 77, remembers the Japanese colonial period with great fondness.
"Things were good then," he said. "The political situation was settled and while things were tough economically we always got along."
Wu and many other Taiwanese of his generation favorably contrast the Japanese colonialists to the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), who arrived in Taiwan from China in 1945.
But right from the start many Taiwanese disliked their new masters, regarding them as corrupt, overbearing and uncultured.
"Soldiers took many things from us," Wu said. "Including our young women."
In early 1947, riots broke out after soldiers beat an elderly Taiwanese woman for illegally selling cigarettes near Taipei's main railway station.
Fearing a loss of control, KMT dictator Chiang Kai-shek (
Huang sees the 1947 events as a turning point in modern Taiwanese history.
"It drew a clear wedge between the Nationalists and the local Taiwanese, and deepened our appreciation of Japanese rule," he said.
In Ximending, shops with Japanese names like Gaiku and Nanajyoutatsu sell imported Japanese goods including clothes, food and images of Hello Kitty.
Lin Jyun-ye, 31, who sells Japanese fish balls, says Japanese products are trendy for many of his customers.
"I don't know what it is, but the kids really like them," he says. "They buy whatever is sold."
Taiwan is home today to about 10,000 Japanese.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is maintaining close ties with Beijing, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday, hours after a new round of Chinese military drills in the Taiwan Strait began. Political parties in a democracy have a responsibility to be loyal to the nation and defend its sovereignty, DPP spokesman Justin Wu (吳崢) told a news conference in Taipei. His comments came hours after Beijing announced via Chinese state media that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command was holding large-scale drills simulating a multi-pronged attack on Taiwan. Contrary to the KMT’s claims that it is staunchly anti-communist, KMT Deputy
RESPONSE: The government would investigate incidents of Taiwanese entertainers in China promoting CCP propaganda online in contravention of the law, the source said Taiwanese entertainers living in China who are found to have contravened cross-strait regulations or collaborated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) could be subject to fines, a source said on Sunday. Several Taiwanese entertainers have posted on the social media platform Sina Weibo saying that Taiwan “must be returned” to China, and sharing news articles from Chinese state media. In response, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has asked the Ministry of Culture to investigate whether the entertainers had contravened any laws, and asked for them to be questioned upon their return to Taiwan, an official familiar with the matter said. To curb repeated
Myanmar has turned down an offer of assistance from Taiwanese search-and-rescue teams after a magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck the nation on Friday last week, saying other international aid is sufficient, the National Fire Agency said yesterday. More than 1,700 have been killed and 3,400 injured in the quake that struck near the central Myanmar city of Mandalay early on Friday afternoon, followed minutes later by a magnitude 6.7 aftershock. Worldwide, 13 international search-and-rescue teams have been deployed, with another 13 teams mobilizing, the agency said. Taiwan’s search-and-rescue teams were on standby, but have since been told to stand down, as
RSS