En glish country gentleman, or a Spanish administrator in the Philippines
was influenced by the lifestyle of a hacienda owner, the higher- level Japa-
nese administrators in Taiwan adopted the lifestyle of a Meiji bureaucrat.
In Japan it was widely understood that a bureaucrat occupied a position of
re spect and remained somewhat aloof from the common people ( kanson
minpi). But the Japa nese officials were also a disciplined group who took
their work seriously and performed their work conscientiously. In addition
to the high- level bureaucrats, who had been trained at Japan’s best middle
schools and universities, there were also large numbers of Japa nese settlers
in Taiwan who had been trained at vari ous specialized technical schools.
All major businesses in Taiwan were owned by the Japa nese, though
some business owners had Taiwanese partners, and all the major Japa nese
zaibatsu (Mitsubishi, Mitsui, Sumitomo, and Yasuda) were active in Taiwan.
Japa nese companies had monopolies in salt, camphor, and tobacco. To en-
courage more trade with Japan, Taiwan’s trade with mainland China was
taxed but its trade with Japan was not. In response to peasants’ complaints
about cruel absentee landlords, Japan forced the landlords to sell their land
and to buy government bonds with the income they received from the sale.
To eliminate opium use in Taiwan, the Japa nese first made opium produc-
tion into a national mono poly so as to control the supply, and after they had
control over opium cultivation and sales, they closed down both operations.
In 1900 an estimated 165,000 opium addicts lived in Taiwan, but by the time
Japan had completed its program, opium had essentially been wiped out.
The standard of living in Taiwan rose rapidly under Japa nese rule, and
by 1945 it was, on average, much higher than that on the Chinese main-
land. The Japa nese in Taiwan set up stores and businesses similar to those
on their home islands; most businesses in Taiwan were operated by Japa-
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The Colonization of Taiwan and Manchuria, 1895–1945
nese settlers. Western visitors to Taiwan in the 1930s praised its economic
successes. Goto Shimpei and Nitobe Inazo, with their fluency in both
German and En glish, became welcome participants in international organ-
izations and were respected for their achievements in Taiwan.
The Japa nese greatly expanded public education in Taiwan, far more
than the Eu ro pe ans expanded education in their colonies. Study of the Con-
fucian classics, which had been part of an elite education for a small group
of Taiwanese youths before the arrival of the Japa nese, was largely replaced
by a “scientific education.” Isawa Shuji, a Ministry of Education official who
had been sent for advanced training to Bridgewater Normal School in Mas-
sa chu setts in 1875, was charged with establishing a modern educational
system in Taiwan that would produce good Japa nese citizens. The teaching
of Japa nese language began immediately, so that elementary schools could
quickly change to the use of Japa nese throughout the curriculum. In early
1896 the first group of thirty- six young Japanese- language teachers, all gradu-
ates of Japa nese normal schools, arrived in Taiwan, and their numbers
would expand rapidly. Local Taiwanese teachers, after intensive training in
Japa nese language, taught in Japa nese and used Japa nese textbooks. By 1944,
71 percent of Taiwan’s elementary- school- age children would be in school,
a far higher attendance rate than the rate in mainland China at the time.
All classes were taught in Japa nese.
In 1915 Japan opened middle schools in Taiwan, and in 1928 it opened
Taihoku Imperial University ( today’s Taiwan University) in Taipei. The
Japa nese living in Taiwan attended these middle schools and the university,
as did able local students. The best local students, especially in fields such
as medicine, went on to study at Japa nese universities, including Tokyo Im-
perial University, after completing university in Taiwan. In the 1930s, some
2,000 Taiwanese students were attending universities in Japan.
After Goto Shimpei was transferred from Taiwan to Manchuria to di-
rect the Manchurian Railway, a number of Taiwanese administrators were
also sent to Manchuria as bureaucrats to help jump- start government ad-
ministration there. Migration from Taiwan to Manchuria increased after
1931, when Manchuria became a Japa nese puppet state. After Japan invaded
China in 1937, some Taiwanese who knew the Chinese language were as-
signed to mainland China to work as administrators under the Japa nese
occupation.
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china and japan
In general, throughout their occupation of Taiwan the Japa nese held the
higher positions in government and business and the Taiwanese occupied
the lower positions. However, after the start of World War II many Japa-
nese men who had been working in Taiwan’s government or business of-
fices were recruited into the military, so a considerable number of Taiwanese
bureaucrats and administrators were promoted to higher positions in gov-
ernment and in Japanese- led businesses. Some, such as Li Denghui (Lee
Teng- hui), later president of Taiwan under the Guomin dang, who had
studied agricultural economics at Kyoto Imperial University, even became
officers in the Japa nese Army. The Japa nese had intended to transform
Taiwan’s youth into Japa nese citizens, and to a remarkable extent, the better-
educated Taiwanese young people, even after the war, worked and spoke to
each other in Japa nese.
Manchuria under Japa nese Rule, 1905–1945
In 1904 when Japan attacked Rus sian ships and launched the Russo-
Japanese War, many Japa nese strategists did not plan to make Manchuria
the center of Japan’s expansion plans. Rather, they wanted to focus on
Fujian. Fujian at the time had a much larger economy than Manchuria; it had
long carried out trade with Nagasaki; it was close to Taiwan, which the Japa-
nese had just colonized; its dialects were spoken in Taiwan; and it could be
a useful stepping- stone from Taiwan to expand business elsewhere along
the China coast. But at the end of the Russo- Japanese War, when Japan ob-
tained rights to the South Manchurian Railway and the Liaodong Penin-
sula (an acquisition Japan had been denied by the Western powers in the
previous de cade), Japa nese leaders began to make the most of their new pos-
sessions. They were soon putting far more resources into Manchuria than
into Fujian, and Fujian was already losing out as a dynamic economic base
to Ningbo, Shanghai, and other areas along the Yangtze River. Manchuria
was a vast and relatively undeveloped area. It also had a relatively small pop-
ulation during the Qing dynasty, as the Manchus until late in the nine-
teenth century prohibited non- Manchus from settling in their homeland.
Once the Japa nese acquired rights to the South Manchurian Railway,
they took advantage of opportunities to clear the land and to open up the
mines. The railway the Rus sians had just built provided access to the sparsely
. 182 .
The Colonization of Taiwan and Manchuria, 1895–1945
settled areas. Just as Americans going West in the nineteenth century were
pioneers in the new open spaces, the Japa nese went into Manchuria for the
great development opportunities the new territory could provide.
The Japa nese started the Russo- Japanese War because of concerns about
their security. They feared that Rus sia, after completing the Trans- Siberian
Railway, expanding settlements in Siberia, constructing a railway in Man-
churia, and building a port on the Liaodong Peninsula, would soon domi-
nate the region, creating unending security threats. With its far larger pop-
ulation and greater resources, Rus sia also threatened Japan’s economic
interests not only in China but also in Korea, across the border from Man-
churia. Work on the Trans- Siberian Railway, the world’s longest railway,
had begun in 1891 and by 1903 passengers could, with a boat ride across Lake
Baikal, travel from St. Petersburg to Chita, then south to Vladivostok, all
without leaving Rus sian territory. With Chinese approval, in 1903 the Rus-
sians also completed and then managed the Chinese Eastern Railway—
creating a shortcut from Chita through Manchuria, passing through Harbin
to Vladivostok, a route several hundred miles shorter than the one going
from Chita to Vladivostok on the Rus sian side of the border.
Some leading Japa nese strategists had hoped that Manchuria, following
the U.S. open- door policy for China, would not be colonized by any one
foreign country but would be opened to all countries, including Japan. The
thinking was that if companies from all countries, including Western na-
tions, acquired a stake in the area, the combined efforts of those countries
could contain Rus sian advances.
But other countries did not make major investments in Manchuria. The
Japa nese sent in large numbers of troops, and within a de cade Japan was
building on the territorial rights it had acquired on both sides of the Man-
churian Railway and on the rights to the Kwantung Leased Territory in the
southern part of the Liaodong Peninsula, including Dalian and Port Ar-
thur (Lushun). Its overseas investments were centered not in Fujian or
Shanghai but in Manchuria.
Like nineteenth- century Americans who saw a chance to create their
own future in the wide- open American West, many Japa nese settlers— poor
second and third sons in rural Japan who would not inherit farmland and
did not face good economic prospects at home— were attracted to the op-
portunity to open up the relatively unsettled areas in Manchuria. Much of
. 183 .
china and japan
Manchuria was comparatively sparsely populated when the Japa nese began
arriving. The Japa nese appropriated land for their army bases, for their ad-
ministrative offices, for their businesses, and for their farms. There are no
precise figures available for how much they paid for the land, but to the local
Chinese, the Japa nese were invaders who either took their land without
paying for it or “bought” it at below- market prices. It is estimated that by
the time of the Second Sino- Japanese War in 1937, some 270,000 Japa nese
mi grants had settled in Manchuria as farmers.
After 1931, when Japan took control of all of Manchuria, it expanded its
investments in the region’s mines and machinery factories. Unique among
the colonies around the world, Manchuria became an industrialized colony,
run by bureaucrats trained in Japan, where the dominant issue discussed
at universities was how to modernize a country. Some in Japan, such as the
wise essayist Ishibashi Tanzan (see Biographies of Key Figures), suspected
that Japan’s great industrial pro gress in Manchuria ultimately would fall
victim to the rising tide of Chinese nationalism. However, Japa nese officials
in Manchuria responded to growing Chinese nationalism not by leaving the
area but by calling for more troops to defend their businesses and the local
settlers. The Japa nese regarded the industrial development of Manchuria
as a glorious symbol of Japan’s position as a modern nation. However, by
World War II Manchuria would become a quagmire, requiring more troops
and more police to keep it under control. Japa nese residents who hoped to
return from Manchuria were unable to do so until Japan was defeated in
the war.
The Russo- Japanese War, 1904–1905
The possibility of war had begun to concern the Japa nese by 1898, when the
Rus sians took over Port Arthur on the Liaodong Peninsula. In the Rus-
sian port of Vladivostok, ships were frozen in the sea for two to three months
each winter, but in Port Arthur they gained a year- round warm- water port.
The Chinese Eastern Railway, completed in 1903, created a link to Port
Arthur that, with the Trans- Siberian Railway, gave Rus sia direct rail trans-
portation from Moscow all the way to Port Arthur and then, by boat, to
the Pacific. The Rus sians, like the Japa nese, were intent on modernizing to
catch up with Western Eu rope. They began building Port Arthur into a
. 184 .
The Colonization of Taiwan and Manchuria, 1895–1945
modern port as well as a European- style Western city, with new architec-
ture based on up- to- date Eu ro pean models.
When the Rus sians completed the 550- mile southern spur of the Chi-
nese Eastern Railway, linking Port Arthur and Harbin and passing through
Changchun, Shenyang, and Anshan, the Japa nese worried that nothing
would stop Russia— which had a population of 130 million, compared with
Japan’s 46 million— from expanding into Korea, where Japa nese investments
were growing. During the Boxer Rebellion of 1900, the Rus sians had moved
some 100,000 troops into Manchuria, and after the rebellion was quelled,
Rus sian troops remained in Manchuria’s three provinces, Heilongjiang, Jilin,
and Liaoning. Japa nese officials proposed to their Rus sian counter parts that
Japan would recognize Rus sian interests in Manchuria if Rus sia would rec-
ognize Japa nese interests in Korea, but the Rus sians initially refused. In
April 1902, in line with discussions among Western countries to cease the
carving up of China into diff er ent foreign- dominated territories, Rus sia
changed its policy and agreed to remove its troops from Manchuria by the
end of 1903. However, on May 15, 1903, Czar Nicholas ordered that other
foreign interests should also be removed from Manchuria. He then began
a rapid buildup of Rus sian troops, quickly moving them into the area along
the Yalu River, the border between Manchuria and Korea. Japa nese saw
this as a threat to their interests in Korea.
In response to reports that Rus sia intended to keep other foreign inter-
ests out of Manchuria, high Japa nese officials met in June 1903 to hear a
report on the new military situation and to decide on a response. Major
General Iguchi Shogo presented his analy sis of what Japan faced: Rus sia’s
military resources were far larger than their own, and with the use of the
Trans- Siberian Railway, it could gradually bring in far more people
and re-
sources. Given these advantages, time was on Rus sia’s side; if Japan did not
move quickly, it would be too late to protect Japa nese interests in Korea.
Major General Iguchi said Japan could not be certain it would win a war
with Rus sia, but he argued that they had no choice but to launch a surprise
attack. If Japan won, Manchuria would be neutral territory and Japan would
maintain its rights in Korea. While officials debated their response, Japan
continued to strengthen its military and began to expand its spying activi-
ties in Rus sia and on Rus sians in Asia. Most Rus sians, like the Chinese
earlier, believed that Japan, as a small island country, could easily be defeated,
. 185 .
china and japan
and they had scarcely both ered to collect information on the Japa nese mil-
itary. Few Rus sians had any idea of Japan’s strength.
Japanese Troops Invade Manchuria
On February 8, 1904, knowing that Rus sian troops would be celebrating a
holiday, Japan launched a surprise attack on their ships at Port Arthur and
at Inchon, Korea. The Rus sians were completely unprepared, and damage
was extensive. For the Japa nese, the first six months of fighting after that
went better than expected, largely because the initial blow to the Rus sian
Navy had inflicted such heavy damage. But the Rus sians then sent in a large
number of troops and ships, and the battles continued for more than one
year, on sea and on land, in Korea and in Manchuria. The Japa nese had re-
peated difficulties in their effort to bottle up the Rus sian fleet in Port Ar-
thur. Losses were heavy on both sides. Ariga Nagao estimated that some
80,000 Japa nese were killed in battle or later died of their wounds in hos-
pitals. But in the end, Japan’s superior information, the high level of literacy
and discipline among Japa nese troops compared with Rus sian troops, and
Japan’s short supply lines, especially compared with the months it took for
Rus sian Navy ships to reach East Asia, proved decisive in the Japa nese
victory.
The Japa nese captured Port Arthur by the end of 1904. When the Rus-
sian Revolution broke out in January 1905, it sapped the energy of the Rus-
sian Army. Nonetheless, in May 1905 Rus sia’s Baltic Fleet was on its way
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