Notes on Why Taiwan: (3) 19th-20th century

Continued: On Chinese elite's indifference toward Taiwan in 19th and 20th century

June 2, 1895, Taiwan was ceded to Japan.

"Taiwan, it seems, was not simply 'lost' to Japan, but expunged from the ruling elite's mental map of China (p.69)."

"However, despite vigorous resistance to Japan's occupation that persisted on Taiwan for five months after the cession of the island, Qing court disavowed interest in the fate of the island, turned its back on local efforts to fight Japanese occupation, and resumed diplomatic relations with Japan on June 22. Whether the Qing foreign policy establishment perceived no responsibility or was simply overwhelmed by a sense of futility in the face of Japan's superior military power is hard to know (p.69)."

"Harry Lamley argues that the Qing was willing to let Taiwan go so long as it was ensured that the Liaodong peninsula remained part of China. There is also a myth, concocted perhaps by Li Hongzhang's detractors, that Li had all along aimed to rid the Qing of Taiwan because it was a difficult place to administer. This theme is highlighted in the recollections of the man who, in 1895, had been Japan's Vice-Foreign Minister, Hayashi Tadasu. Hayashi [a typo as 'Hitashi' in the original text] wrote that Li had shrewdly 'surrendered nothing which he was not prepared glad to get rid of, except the indemnity. He always considered Formosa [Taiwan] a curse to China... (p.188)'"

"In Japan, Liang [Liang Qichao, a leading Chinese intellectual who took part in the 100-day Reform in 1898] was sought out by a leading Taiwanese activist who hoped to receive advice about a strategy for resisting Japanese colonialism. Rather than to offer encouragement that resistance should be supported by the Chinese government, Liang preached moderation and made clear his view that Taiwan should not expect support from China (p.188)."

"Nevertheless, 'no Chinese government - Qing Empire, Nationalist Republic, or Communist Soviet - had a realistic chance of restoring sovereignty over the island, and no leader of these entities made Taiwan a major issue in domestic politics or relations with Japan. Simply put... few politicians even considered the island, much less devoted resources to its return (p.70, Wachman quotes from Steven Phillips).'"

Till the end of the WW2 was expected, China claimed the ownership of Taiwan.

"The decision to claim Taiwan was made sometime in 1942, after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 and the declaration of war by the United States. The entrance of the United States into the war and the prospect of a transition in the balance of power in Asia may have encouraged China's leaders to envisage for the first time that Japan would be defeated (p.70)."

"Before that moment, though, the public attitude of Chinese Nationalist leaders toward Taiwan can only be characterized as indifference (p.70)."

Detailed evidence of the indifference is offered below.

"When in September 1900, Sun visited Taiwan, local opponents of Japanese colonialism were still locked in an armed struggle against Japan, and yet Sun apparently did not make any efforts to meet with activists on Taiwan who were fighting to alleviate colonialism (p.71)."

"Sun apparently regrets, but does not contest, the cession of those territories in the first list. There, Taiwan is equated with Burma and Vietnam, neither of which have been the subject of anything more irredentist than comparatively limited boundary disputes (p.72)."

Dr. Sun Yet-sen in a 1923 interview with New York Times considers China and Taiwan as different entities.

"If Taiwan had then been viewed by Sun as part of China, he might not have spoken of a difference between Taiwan's master and China's. He might have specified that in Taiwan, China had one master, but on the continent it had several. He did not do this, though, because it seems he did not view Taiwan as part of China's territory (p.72)."

"Dai Jitao, one of Sun's confidantes, wrote in march 1925, that twenty days before Sun died he spoke of three measures Japan should take to reestablish the confidence of people in China and East Asia. According to Dai, Sun advocated that japan grant complete autonomy [initial emphasis] to the peoples of Taiwan and Korea. Had he viewed Taiwan as Chinese territory, he might have expected that Japan return the island to China (p.73)."

Chiang Kai-shek did not claim Taiwan until 1938.

"It is noteworthy that he said, 'we must enable Korea and Taiwan to restore their independence and freedom, and enable them to solidify the national defense of the Republic of China (emphasis added).' That is, Taiwan and Korea- freed from Japanese occupation- were depicted as enhancing the security of China (p.75)."

Till 1942 there was the pledge that Taiwan should be emancipated and returned to the "mother country".

In 1943 in Cairo Crucible, Roosevelt pledged Chiang to take back Taiwan but Robert Dallek considers it "an outgrowth of Roosevelt's tender manipulation of Chiang Kai-shek (p.77)."

"Evidence of new thinking about Taiwan came from a variety of sources. Owen Lattimore, Roosevelt's adviser to Chiang Kai-shek, reported in August 1942, 'if any western power wants Formosa, the Chinese will claim it, but otherwise they may not insist on possessing it, since they lack the sea power to hold it (p.79)."

In 1943 Chiang published China's Destiny.

"Taiwan is among those territories that Chiang sees as offering a buffer, 'safe-guarding the nation's existence.' (p.80)"

As to elites of Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the attitude is not much different.

CCP was founded in 1921 and in 1922 CCP released a manifesto stating seven major tasks.

"[5] Use the free federal system to unify China proper, Mongolia, Tibet, Muslim Xinjiang in order to establish a Chinese Federal Republic (cited from Wachman, p.83)."

"It is noteworthy that Taiwan was not mentioned. Perhaps the CCP elite also accepted that the Treaty of Shimonoseki was binding and Taiwan's loss permanent (p.83)."

In 1928, Taiwanese is listed as one of the "minority nationalities" among Mongols, Muslims, Koreans, Miao, Li, and peoples of Xinjiang and Tibet.

"While the CCP was later to emphasize that Taiwanese are not a separate nationality but are Chinese, in the first decades of its existence, 'the CCP never referred to the Taiwanese as [brethren] (dixiong), or [the offspring of the Yellow Emperor], or [compatriots] (tongbao).' When they were not categorized by the CCP as a national minority, Taiwan's population was associated with the same category as the Koreans and the Annanese [Vietnamese], all oppressed peoples. (p.83, Wachman quoted Hsiao and Sullivan, The Cinese Communist party and the Status of Taiwan, p.448)"

"A Central Committee notice of that era calls for the reassertion of Chinese sovereignty over Shandong and Manchuria, both then held by Japan. However, Taiwan-- also a Japanese colony at that time-- was not even mentioned (p.192)."

"However, rather than include Taiwan in 'the nation,' the CCP entreats adherents to 'Unite with the people who are opposed to Japanese imperialism (the laboring masses in Japan, the Koreans, the Taiwanese, etc.) as our allies, unite with all peoples and nations sympathetic toward the Chinese national liberation movement, and establish friendly relations with all peoples and nations who opt for a well-considered neutrality in the anti-Japanese war (p.84, Wachman cited from 'Wei kang-Ri jiuguo gao quanti tongbao shu', published in 1935).'"

"Early in his career, Mao Zedong associated Taiwan with Korea and Vietnam (p.84)."

Mao said this in an interview done by Edgar Snow, 1936:

"It is the immediate task of China to regain all our lost territories, not merely to defend our sovereignty south of the Great Wall. This means that Manchuria must be regained. We do not, however, include Korea, formerly a Chinese colony, but when we have re-established the independence of the lost territories of China, and if the Koreans wish to break away from the chains of Japanese imperialism, we will extend them our enthusiastic help in their struggle for independence. The same thing applies for Taiwan (Cited form Wachman, p.85)."

Zhang Guotao, Liu Shaoqi, Deng Xiaoping, and Zhou Enlai, all leading elites in CCP, expressed similar stance (p.87-89).

In a 1941 document, CCP made it clear that China should "recover all our lost territories by fighting to the banks of the Yalu River and driving the Japanese imperialists out of China", but kept quiet in the cast land ceded to Russia in 1858 and 1860 (p.89).

"The association of the people of Taiwan with those of Korea and Vietnam, not with those of China, is a characterization that consistently appears in the formal statements of China's communist leadership (p.90)."

"One cannot avoid the conclusion that the CCP and its principal leaders neither viewed the island of Taiwan as China's territory nor felt that it was necessary to incorporate Taiwan into China following the defeat of Japan (p.90-91)."

CCP changed its attitude toward Taiwan in 1942, and possible reasons are:

1. The Comintern considered Taiwan as Japanese colony and believed it deserve "complete independence" like all colonies. Taiwan Communist Party (TCP), therefore, was an affiliate Japanese Communist Party in Comintern, and not CCP. This stance might influence CCP. In 20s and 30s CCP challenged some doctrines of Comintern but it didn't try to contest on the inclusion of Taiwan. Comintern was abolished in 1943 (p.94).

2. Some Taiwanese went to China and advocated for the restoration of Taiwan as a province of China. "Where the TCP was devoted on the independence of Taiwan after the defeat of Japan, the noncommunist activists were urging the ROC government to restore Taiwan's status as a province of China, following the defeat of Japan (p.96)." These pro-China Taiwanese felt frustrated to learn the indifference from the Nationalist Party, and CCP might consider this to be a chance to extend the rivalry with the Nationalist (p.97).

"That the CCP changed its stripes on the matter of Taiwan independence strikes Michael Hunt as characteristic of a party that was focused on expedience, not consistency. He writes that sympathy expressed early in the CCP's history for the weak and oppressed peoples was discarded when inconvenient for the party to uphold this line. Simply, the party operated unapologetically out of political opportunism (p.98)."

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