Too little effort has been made in Taiwan to research the role the country played in the Pacific Theater of World War II, wasting an opportunity to establish wartime history from a Taiwanese perspective, academics said at a seminar yesterday.
“There are many relics, preserved or faded away, and stories, told or untold, in Taiwan that preserve the memory of war, but most people often talk about World War II like it happened elsewhere,” National Chengchi University historian Tai Pao-tsun (戴寶村) said at the seminar, which was focused on history in Taiwan between 1941 and 1949.
Nine theses were discussed at the seminar, which was organized by Taiwan Extra-Patriot Veterans Association (TEPVA) for the second consecutive year and is aimed at promoting academic research on the nation’s recent war history.
Many of the thesis authors, including Tai, lamented that most of the information cited in their studies came from either the US or Japan — a result of Taiwan’s inadequate preservation of relics, documents and oral history as well as the education system implemented by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government after it took over Taiwan.
If not for these reasons, it would be hard to explain why some young people today would think that it was Japan, rather than the US, that bombed Taiwan during the war and why few are aware that the Presidential Office building, known at the time as the Office of the Governor-General, suffered a direct hit and extensive damage in a bombing raid in Taipei in 1945, they said.
Tai and Tu Cheng-yu (杜正宇), a doctoral candidate of history at National Cheng Kung University, said conducting more research into Taiwan’s history during the period would help people understand more about the nation’s role and strategic significance in the war, as well as Taiwanese’s lives during the Japanese colonial period.
The authors intended to demonstrate the value of more research by covering a wide range of topics in the seminar, including the US’ bombing of the Okayama Airfield — now known as Gangshan (岡山), Kaohsiung — Japan’s deployment of special attack speed boats in Taiwan and Penghu, the recruitment of student soldiers in 1945, Japan’s invasion of the islands in the South China Sea, as well as the KMT government’s recruitment and kidnapping of Taiwanese to be soldiers to fight in the Chinese Civil War.
According to statistics from the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, more than 30,000 Taiwanese soldiers were killed in the Pacific War, 15,000 of whom are listed as missing in action.
Hundreds of thousand of Taiwanese were directly or indirectly involved in the war, said Lee Hsueh-feng (李雪峰), who was among 8,000 Taiwanese boys between the ages of 12 and 14 who went to Yamato City in Japan’s Kanagawa Prefecture in 1943 to build fighter planes.
More than 300 of those boys died during the Allied bombing of Japan and never returned home, Lee said, adding that the more one knows about war, the more he or she understands that peace should be cherished.
The period between 1943 and 1949 for Taiwanese was probably so unique that it would never be replicated again, Lee said.
“Some of us fought for Japan, some for the KMT and some for the Chinese Communist Party. And some did more than one,” Lee said.
‘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