Taiwan under Japanese Colonial Control: Sport as a Component of Cultural Conditioning, Political Domination, and Militaristic Imperialism

Abstract

Taiwan was ruled by Japan for fifty years from 1895 to 1945. During this time Japanese imperialism in Taiwan embraced politics, economics, culture, education and lastly but far from least, sport. Imperial cultural imperialism was regarded as having the power to shape a positive image of Japan in Taiwan. Japan cultural imperialism therefore inter alia through the medium of sport was intended to produce appreciative, supportive docile Taiwanese. Sport was an instrument of both assimilation and modernization. In reality, an enhanced awareness of national identity and consciousness was the outcome of cultural interaction not least on baseball squares. Ironically, a powerful and significant anti-Japanese resentment was furthered by the cultural imperial use of sport as an intended means of Japanese soft power persuasion with baseball playing its part. This essay will be an overview of the use of sport as a Japanese medium of soft power persuasion, cultural conditioning and colonial control.

Appendices

Appendix One: A Calculated Complexity

Modern ‘Imperialism’ became global after the European (and American) colonization of the world. Military, cultural, and economic imperialism was a stratagem to enforce subjugation by military force, to exploit resources, and eliminate the existing culture of a colonized nation. One modern American historian, Andrew D. Morris (2010) agrees that games, introduced as a colonial policy—might have given the Taiwanese an attractive glimpse of sport on the other side of the coin and thus aided the assimilation of the Taiwanese.

Of course, the purpose of implementing Japanese colonialism in Taiwan by utilizing an imperial sports culture—to substantial extent of western origin but also of eastern derivation—to ‘Japanize’ the Taiwanese was not simply as a means of seductive imperial socialization, it was also a means of military conditioning through the teaching of Japanese martial arts. The motivational imperial approach was multifaceted. This is made clear in this essay.

Appendix Two: A Japanese Voice Crying in the Wilderness

Tadao Yanaihara, (January 27, 1893–December 25, 1961) was a pious Christian and a committed liberal. He was an economics professor of Tokyo Imperial University before WWII and became the principle of Tokyo University from 1951 to 1957. In 1937, he argued that war violated justice and peace; that war not only defeated the vulnerable but destroyed the destroyer—ethically. He wrote a book, ‘Taiwan, under the Control of Imperialism’: it was officially banned. He was a severe critic of Japanese economic imperialism in Taiwan.

He argued that during the era of Japanese colonialism in Taiwan, Japanese officialdom employed police to ensure the plundering of Taiwan and calculatedly engineered education in Taiwan to sustain Japanese rule. He pointed out that the reality was that the Japanese dominated school enrollment. Furthermore, the Japanese authorities carefully controlled entry to higher education. Thus, adopting a deliberate ‘top-down’ selective approach in order to control Taiwanese education.