As next year’s presidential election draws closer, certain media outlets have started up their activities to glorify or discredit the candidates. On one hand, Hung Tzu-yu (洪子瑜), the father of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential hopeful Deputy Legislative Speaker Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱), has been glorified for being a victim of the persecution that took place during the White Terror era, while on the other hand, Tsai Chieh-sheng (蔡潔生), the father of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), is being called a “traitor” and a “subject of the Japanese empire” as he is being condemned for having helped the Japanese air force repair their aircraft and helping the Japanese attack the Chinese.
No ethnic group in Taiwan was able to avoid the White Terror era, so people should feel sympathy for every innocent victim, and they should all be absolved of any guilt.
Looking at Taiwan’s history, labeling Tsai Chieh-sheng and other Taiwanese “traitors” and “subjects of the Japanese empire” for having been placed in a tragic situation not of their own doing, and then accusing them of selling their souls and lacking a Chinese outlook on history is cruel and evil, and manifests a lack of humanity.
From the perspective of international law, the Qing emperor ceded Taiwan “to Japan in perpetuity” — particular attention should be given to these two words, “in perpetuity” — and then Japan, at its unconditional surrender at the end of World War II, renounced its claims of sovereignty over Taiwan.
The period between these two events spanned half a century, and during this time, Taiwan was an inalienable part of Japanese territory.
Looking at these events from the perspective of those who were sold out and caught in this tragic fate, Taiwanese have every right to complain, and unless it can be proven that the Treaty of Shimonoseki does not exist or that it was made up by the “Japanese devils,” in the eyes of the Taiwanese, the unapologetic Chinese perpetrators have no leg to stand on.
This means that during World War II, when Tsai Chieh-sheng and innumerable other Taiwanese were helping the Japanese repair their aircraft, and fought the Chinese together with them, and when they were sent far afield to the South Pacific to participate in a blood bath with the Allied forces, they were simply fulfilling the duties that a citizen owes to its nation.
It was no different from people in Hawaii helping the US repair their aircraft or fight the Japanese, or from people in China helping the Chinese air force repair its aircraft or fight against the Japanese. The point of departure for all these people was that they were protecting their homes and their nation.
Furthermore, toward the end of the war, when wave after wave of US B29 bombers and other aircraft were sent to Taiwan on air raid missions, they were not attacking the soil of their Chinese ally, they were attacking the territory of their Japanese enemy.
These are true and objective facts of history, regardless of whether people accept them or approve of them.
Chang Kuo-tsai is a retired National Hsinchu University of Education associate professor and a former deputy secretary-general of the Taiwan Association of University Professors.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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