Thread:Vcharng/@comment-1915363-20151231130249/@comment-26574811-20151231160004

Oh my god, this is gonna be veeeeery lengthy.

Let's.... start with some background knowledge. I'm from Taiwan, occupied by Japan from 1895 to 1945. Taiwan was returned to the Republic of China after Japan's surrender. But in 1949, ROC lost a civil war, and chose to retreat to Taiwan (instead of Hainan Island). In around 1970~1980s, the People's Republic of China (communist China) began to gain international recognization.

Taiwan is formed by four major demographic groups: benshengren, waishengren, native Taiwanese, and other immigrants. They will be explained later.

Taiwan was first ruled by native Taiwanese people, then by Dutch EIC, briefly by Spanish, and then, the Ming dynasty of China, and subsequently, its successor, Qing dynasty. During the Qing dynasty, lots of immigrants from southeastern China came to Taiwan, and became the first group of ethnicly Chinese people here.

Then, in 1895, when Qing lost the first Sino-Japanese war, Taiwan was given to Japan, which marks the beginning of the Japanese rule, until 1945. After 1945, the ROC government brought another group of Chinese immigrants to Taiwan (especially during and directly after its defeat in 1949). Now, there are two groups of Chinese immigrants in Taiwan, and they started to diverse.

The first group, that is, the decedents of those who came during the Qing dynasty, became known as benshengren (本省人, lit. "people who belongs to this province"), and those who came after 1945, waishengren (外省人, lit. "people who came from other provinces") Currently, benshengren takes about 75~80% of the population, waishengren around 10~15%, and the rest are natives and others.

Now, during, and directly after, the Japanese rule, the Taiwanese people then (that is, excluding who will later become waishengren, as they are still in China) generally still consider themselves as Chinese. This can be proven from the Yoizuki Incident in late-1945, where Taiwanese ex-soldiers who were conscripted by Japan argued that they belong to the winning side of the war (Allied/ China), so they should not be transported with other Japanese soldiers on their way home.

But then things start to change. In 1947, the Feburary 28 incident erupted in Taiwan, causing tensions between the waishengren-dominated government and the benshengren civilians. Furthermore, the ROC government established a series of policies that, in terms of currency and land policies, robbed the originally rich people and land owners, in order to settle ROC soldiers retreated from mainland China. Now, these ex-rich and ex-land owners were those who gained success under Japanese rule, so it's not incomprehensible that these people started to miss Japanese rule, and of course, they are all benshengren.

As time goes by, the nolstagia for Japanese rule gradually infected the whole benshengren population (remember, that means 75~80% of Taiwanese population), with the help of martial law by the ROC government that kinda reminded benshengren of the Japanese rule during WWII. With the PRC becoming recognized worldwide, they started to doubt their identity as Chinese, and started to formulate a thought of establishing a Republic of Taiwan instead. This is later known as the Taiwanese independence movement.

The martial law was lifted in late 1980s, and the restriction of formulating new political parties are lifted as well. These people formulated a number of new parties against the long ruling party, the nationalists, or KMT.

In 1995, on the first democratic presidential election, the candidate from KMT was elected, he's name is Lee Denghuay (李登輝, with a Japanese name 岩里政男, Iwasato Masao). He is later known as the "Father of Taiwanese independence Movement", as he made KMT to fall apart, established the first solid pro-independence organizations, and directly caused a pro-indipendence party, known as DPP, to come to power in 2000. In a way, you can say Lee betrayed KMT.

After eight years in power, the DPP fell out of the office in 2008, after a corruption scandal. And KMT came back into power for the next eight years. But during this period (2008~2016), KMT began to bring the nation into a closer relationship with PRC, in order to acquire economic benefits and better international support. This have triggered very fierce reaction in the benshengren group, and they began to radicalize in 2011-2013.

I will give two examples, on before, and one after, the benshengren radicalization:

1. "The Ai-Nori incident"

In 2007, a Japanese TV show that features travel and dating called Ai-Nori, came to Taiwan. As a former colonizer, the crew randomly picked a Taiwanese resident to ask her of her opinions about Japanese rule, she was unfortunately one of the sympathizers. When this episode aired in Japan, it faced fierce protest from Taiwanese students who were studying in Japan. The interview was cut when the episode was aired in Taiwan later.

2. ChthoniC's "Kou Gun"

"Kou Gun" (lit. "the Imperial Army", the most positive way in Chinese and Japanese to describe Japanese Armed Forces before 1945) was a 2011 single from a Taiwanese band called " ChthoniC", who is extremely nostalgic to Japanese rule. It describes, from the band's view, the life of a Taiwanese who was conscripted by the Japanese during WWII. This song became increasingly popular around 2013-2014

Part of its lyrics can be roughly translated as such:

Far away the seagulls flew

We went overseas as they guide us to

The shining ray that the Rising Sun threw

Represents the ambition our men brew

It went uniforms and fleshes through

Above the spirits the bloodied badges stood

With the clouds of white, and sky of blue

Standing in our minds, the banner of war should bloom.

Let me know if you have further questions, I try to explain as much as I can.