War memories are complicated: How the post-war Taiwanese society has dealt with memories of World War II
Author: Dr Atsuko Ichijo, Kingston University, UK, a.ichijo@kingston.ac.uk
Abstract:
The paper investigates the complexity in the relationship between war memories and national identity in the case of Taiwan as it provides a deeply complex contest in which war memories, nationalism and national identity interact. Taiwan was punt under Japanese colonial control in 1895 as part of the postwar settlement of the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-95). The Japanese government made strenuous efforts to ‘Japanise’ Taiwanese, the people of Japan’s arguably first and ‘model’ colony and by the outbreak of the Pacific War in 1941, there was a level of identification with Japanese in Taiwan. However, in 1945, Japan unconditionally surrendered and the Republic of China reclaimed the island putting an end to the Japanisation programme. Prosecution of collaborators with Japan also started. Up to this point, the Taiwanese case could be similar to any post-colonial society going through the aftermath of war either as a victor or loser in terms of how war memories are formed and communicated, and how they would interact with nationalism and national identities. However, the conflict between the newly restored authority and many Taiwanese whose experience of WWII was different from the former came to surface in 1947 in a form of the February 28 Incident. In the meantime, as a consequence of the Civil War in mainland China, the defeated Nationalist government relocates to Taiwan in 1949 while the victorious Chinese Communist Party took power in Beijing. The Nationalist government then declared martial law and pursued a policy of oppression and persecution called the White Terror which continued till 1987 when martial law was lifted. Since then, Taiwan has been going through rapid democatisation and intergenerational justice is one of the major issues. In this context, memories of WWII produce a diverse range of narratives about who Taiwanese are according to a multitude of positions one has in post-war Taiwanese society. The paper sketches these diverse relationships to shed light on the complex ways in which war memories work.