00:00How did the Kuomintang justify its authority over Taiwan after 1945, and how do historians
00:06view this early period of their rule in Taiwan? The KMT, of course, will say that it's the one
00:13that got the mantle of authority and rule for China. It was free China, after all, until the
00:20early 1970s. It had a seat on the UN. It was one of the four great policemen and part of the UN,
00:26and given that charter and the mandate, and it was then allowed to retake Taiwan after the Cairo
00:32Declaration in 1943, and then the handover in 1945. That handover was a lot more dubious, I think. If
00:39we look at recent scholarship by Taiwanese historians like Chan Sui Lian, who in her new book,
00:46Taiwanese Political History, really kind of questions how solid KMT rule was over Taiwan
00:54in the initial years, and the Americans and the Brits were pretty unhappy with it and kept talking
00:58about maybe we should remove it because there's such tremendous corruption. But, of course, the KMT
01:05then wants to say they came in. They recolonize, in a sense, they re-synecize the Taiwanese to what
01:14they're supposed to have been, and that takes years. Could you tell us what the reaction was
01:19of early Taiwanese independent supporters when the KMT took over in 1945, and how did the KMT treat
01:27them? There's, of course, the other issue in Taiwan, which is those who want Taiwan to be
01:32independent. They were there in the late years of the Japanese colonial experience, but also in the
01:40early years when the KMT came in. They didn't want the KMT. They already felt that they were different
01:44than the Chinese nationalists, and they saw the corruption on the Chinese continent. They want
01:49to be independent, and they felt that they had gained that right by having experienced Japanese
01:54colonialism, but having advanced nonetheless. They also have to then be crushed by both the mainland
02:01Chinese interpretation of history, but also then the KMT, who cannot tolerate, it's not a multi-party
02:06universe. It's a one-party system.
02:08Now, you've written extensively about how Japan framed its empire in the early 21st century,
02:14but I wonder, could you tell me what narratives circulate in Japan about this 50-year period of
02:20colonial rule over Taiwan?
02:22There is a relatively commanding presence of conservative opinion in Japan that looks at the
02:28Taiwanese colonial experience as having trained and fed enough advancement to the Taiwanese so that
02:38they would become democratic by the 1990s, so that if they hadn't experienced Japanese colonialism,
02:44you wouldn't have the strong, robust, democratic machinery that you have in Taiwan today.
02:51They want to kind of take credit for that, and I think really we kind of see four different
02:57interpretations of that evolution and that history that are still in competition,
03:03that are all in competition in Taiwan, but then also regionally as well.
03:08Well, you know, I think that's a very important thing because it's something that's in there.
03:09I mean, I think you know what to do here in Japan but I think that's going to be the best
03:10to this whole thing.
03:12You know, what would I say?
03:13I think that's the most important thing about that being at the same time of a national
03:16of Californiaаксимia, so that I think that's a shot in the country that everybody takes so far
03:21to me, so that the same thing that I've really done is really a good idea.
03:22I really think that it's a great idea that I think that when you're fighting it as well,
03:24you know what is the most important thing about, and you know what you're thinking about.
03:26And that's so what happens, and that's a great idea that I think
03:27is that you're going to see a lot of times, but how can I assess it?
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