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fukuman
Wonder Wit
Joined: Sep 18, 2003
Posts: 3699
Status: Offline
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 Posted:
Feb 22, 2005 - 11:34 AM |
 
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| Post subject: Unify taiwan back to - Japan |
LF should love this
"Japan and Taiwan draw closer together
TAIPEI Japan's record in most of Asia in the first half of the 20th century sowed hatreds that still persist: gruesome biological experiments on civilians in China, forced labor in Korea and Indochina, the rape of tens of thousands of women following the occupations of Nanjing, Hong Kong and Singapore.
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Taiwan's experience under Japanese colonial rule was much better. And the lasting fondness of many Taiwanese for Japan is helping to make possible closer relations between Taipei and Tokyo this winter.
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It is a growing closeness that increasingly upsets Beijing.
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Japan, to the anger of Beijing, joined the United States on Saturday in describing peace in the Taiwan Straits as a "common strategic objective." The Japanese Diet has also voted to exempt Taiwanese citizens from visa requirements that still apply to visitors from mainland China.
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Despite strong objections from Beijing, Japan issued a tourist visa late last year to Lee Teng-hui, a former Taiwan president and an outspoken advocate of the island's independence.
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Lee is widely viewed in Taipei as speaking better Japanese, which he learned in the colonial era, than Mandarin.
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"We don't have any kind of resentment against the Japanese people and, on the contrary, we have a good feeling toward them," said Foreign Minister Chen Tan-sun of Taiwan. "This is sometimes hard for outsiders to understand."
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Japan and Taiwan have similar concerns about China's double-digit increases in annual military spending.
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And while Taiwan has been worried for years about the growing number of Chinese missiles aimed at the island, Japan has recently been alarmed by Chinese submarine activity in waters claimed by Tokyo.
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Japan made Taiwan a showcase before World War II, trying to persuade elites in China and southeast Asia to reduce their resistance to Japanese military and economic domination.
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The Japanese police ruthlessly stamped out dissent in Taiwan and financed colonial rule partly by selling opium at steep markups through a government monopoly. But the Japanese also built many of the island's railroads, sugar mills and irrigation dams, bringing some of the first industries to what had been one of the most backward regions of China.
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"They decided to treat the Taiwanese better than other Asian peoples," said Shaw Yu-ming, a history professor at Chinese Culture University in Taipei.
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The Japanese occupation of Taiwan in 1896 was relatively bloodless, because the island had been ceded by China at the end of the Sino-Japanese War, although Japanese troops did put down a series of small uprisings in the early years of colonial rule.
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After the Nationalists fled to the island in the late 1940s from the mainland after losing China's civil war to the Communists, Japan gave refuge to many activists who favored greater democracy and independence from the mainland.
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Some of those activists went on to help found the Democratic Progressive Party of Chen Shui-bian, Taiwan's president since 2000.
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Japan is the top destination overseas for Taiwanese tourists and many older native-born Taiwanese, like Lee, still speak Japanese and the local Taiwanese tongue better than Mandarin.
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Taiwan's political elite celebrate their annual National Day banquet at the former residence of Japanese colonial governors; the presidential palace in Taipei, an imposing brick structure, is the former governor's office, rebuilt after heavy damage from American bombs during World War II.
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Japanese rule may also benefit by comparison with early Nationalist rule: In the so-called February 28 Incident in 1947, the Nationalists massacred tens of thousands of people, mainly from the island's intellectual and social elite, for fear that they might be communist sympathizers or resist Nationalist rule." |
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Edgewood
FooSlinger
Joined: Jan 28, 2004
Posts: 3906
Location: Colonial Shanghai
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Feb 22, 2005 - 01:03 PM |
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I say that Taiwan should be reunited with Japan. Give back to the Taiwanese that which is theirs. |
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Conlige suspectos semper habitos |
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Andreas
Board Royalty
Joined: Feb 27, 2004
Posts: 6441
Location: 31 N 121 E
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Feb 22, 2005 - 03:06 PM |
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Definitely an interesting article and thought. |
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If it has tits, tires, or a transom, there's gonna be issues! |
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Edgewood
FooSlinger
Joined: Jan 28, 2004
Posts: 3906
Location: Colonial Shanghai
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| Posted:
Feb 22, 2005 - 10:39 PM |
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It's never been any secret that, in the event of foreign invasion (ie China), the first aircraft overhead Taipei would be USN fighters and JASDF F-15's out of Okinawa.
The ground would be covered with the wreckage of the Chinese[] Air Force. |
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Conlige suspectos semper habitos |
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