1 Taiwan

1.1 Two East Asian Wars and Colonized Taiwan

Modern Taiwanese historyFootnote 1 is outlined by several wars of differing character. First, Japan asserted military force in Taiwan in 1874 (Mudanshe Incident), almost immediately after the Meiji Restoration. Next, the 1884 Sino-French War burst into northern Taiwan. The Qing Dynasty changed its ruling policy for each of these wars, and though it had previously prohibited intrusion by Han Chinese and disbanded effective control in the lands of aborigines in the southernmost Laongqiao Peninsula as well as the eastern low mountain region and central mountain range, it started to aim for actualization of effective rule in those lands. In the former, administrative organizations (Hengchun county and the Beinan district) were installed. In the latter, a campaign of military coercive pressure and punitive force was deployed, but it met with harsh resistance and successes were scarce.

Furthermore, during a period lasting a half of a century starting towards the end of the nineteenth century, two wars between China and Japan occurred, and this changed the very international ownership of Taiwan. As a result of the 1894–95 First Sino-Japanese War, Taiwan (the island of Taiwan and the Penghu Islands) was ceded to Japan. And as a result of the 1937–45 Asia–Pacific War, it was incorporated into the Republic of China. The half-century between those changes was Taiwan’s half-century as a colony under the rule of Japan.

1.2 Two Wars for Colonization

When Taiwan was ceded to Japan through the Treaty of Shimonoseki between Japan and the Qing, Japan decided to install the Government-General of Taiwan in order to govern their new territory. The Government-General began functioning on June 17, 1895, in Taipei. However, as soon as armed forces started pushing south of Taipei, they faced armed resistance in each region. From then onward, in order to establish control over the entirety of Taiwan, two colonial wars were necessary. That is to say, war was required to quell resistance from both the flatland Han Chinese society and the aborigines of the mountainous areas.

The backdrop to all of this was the nature of Taiwan society that had formed up to that point. Taiwan was originally an island inhabited by aborigines belonging to the Austronesian-speaking group, but from the seventeenth century onward, migration and land cultivation began by Han Chinese from a region centering around the southern part of Fujian on the Chinese continent facing Taiwan across the sea, and rice paddy development advanced from the western plains to the northeastern Yilan Plain up to the early nineteenth century. Rice produced in Taiwan was transported to mainland China, and through the eighteenth century, Taiwan became a food supply base for Fujian across the water. After the Zhu Yigui Uprising broke out in southern Taiwan in 1721, the Qing Dynasty drew a segregation line and employed a policy of prohibiting border-crossing and land cultivation by Han Chinese. However, the effect was weak, and land cultivation by the Han Chinese advanced to the geographical limits of farmable land.

During this time, aborigines living in the western plains (the Pinpu-zu people) assimilated the majority of cultural elements from the Han Chinese, who were growing in predominance, and were buried in the culture of Han Chinese society.Footnote 2 However, the Qing Dynasty was not able to implement effective rule over the central mountain range and eastern aborigines. In other words, when Japan took control of Taiwan, there were two different societies existing there. Those two societies were the traditional Han Chinese society stretching from the western plains through northeast Taiwan and the mountainous aborigine society that was not successfully included under state rule. Linkage between these groups did exist through trade, but they were both separate and distinct societies.

The militarization of society in what is referred to in Chinese history as the late Qing Dynasty included the Han Chinese of Taiwan. And through factors such as the acquisition of firearms abandoned by Qing forces, that militarization also extended to the mountainous area aborigines as well. This bolstered the fierceness of armed resistance to intrusion by Japanese military and police forces. Regarding the Han Chinese, it took seven years to quell the last armed group. And even after this, several armed uprising attempts and attacks on police departments occurred, the final of these being the 1915 Tapani Incident.Footnote 3 Concerning the mountainous area aborigines, in 1903 the police division set forth a policy of overseeing mountainous area governance. From 1906 onward, full momentum was infused into a decisive military campaign mobilizing the police and the army to quell aborigine resistance mainly in the northern area. And in 1915, a sufficient level of completion was finally attained.Footnote 4

1.3 The Dual Colonial Governance of the Government-General of Taiwan

The Governor-General of Taiwan engaged in governing invested with the tyrannical power of not only possessing administrative authority, but also legislative power limited to the Taiwan region and even some judicial power as well. Until 1919, only military officials were appointed to the office of the Governor-General, but subsequently the system of only appointing military officials was abandoned, and civilian officials were appointed. However, from 1936 onward, military officials were once more appointed.Footnote 5

The colonial administration system that was established was a dual system corresponding to the inherent social and cultural duality of the Han Chinese and aborigine split in Taiwanese society and the duality of the process of quelling the two types of resistance. In the mountainous aborigine region, as stated above, a special system was installed in which the police oversaw governance. That region was called banchi (aborigine territory) and that system of governance was called riban (aborigine administration). The approach was distinctly different, both institutionally and regionally, from the approach employed in the Han Chinese region, in which the majority of the population resided. The former duality of Taiwan rule by the Qing Dynasty that placed the mountainous aborigine region outside of effective rule switched to an administrative and legal duality within a unified state rule that extended over the entire island of Taiwan.

Generally, in traditional China the governing structure of the state usually did not exist below the xian (county) level, and the duties of the xian were limited to taxation and processing legal actions. The linkage between a highly differing state and society was the regional elites and their groups. In Qing Taiwan, countryside imperial examination certification holders and former bureaucrats called xiangshen (local gentry), powerful merchants, and landowners performed the public duties for basic level regions called districts or villages in the position of informal officials called zongli. In Taiwanese history, this way of local rule is called xiangzhi.

Though the Government-General of Taiwan did first establish official administrative agencies, gai sho yakuba (township/village governmental offices), to maintain safety and security, it revived the traditional baojia system of community organization and placed those organizations under the management of police outposts. Part of the staff at township and village governmental offices and officials in the baoja was appointed from among individuals belonging to the regional elite class. However, their authority progressively decreased. Thus, the past xiangzhi system was modified, and switched to a dual governing approach in which spaces were controlled by township and village administrative organizations and people were governed by baojia and the police outposts.Footnote 6

The Han Chinese residents living in the flatlands were forced to face modern state rule that was different from the pre-modern era empire, but the mountainous area aborigines were experiencing the very concept of state rule for the first time in their semi-agricultural, semi-hunting preliterate society. Aboriginal lifestyle revolved around collective units called she (tribes) according to Qing Dynasty records. The she also determined whether to make peace or fight in clashes with other nearby she, vying over hunting territory as well as encroachers from outside such as the Han Chinese. When the aborigines were successfully suppressed militarily, the Government-General of Taiwan installed police outposts in strategic spots in the banchi territory. She autonomy switched over to direct control by the state.

Regarding the land, in 1896 the Government-General declared all mountainous land with no written certificate to be state-owned. Subsequently, when flatland land surveying was completed, surveying extended to the forests and fields as well, and in the 1930s, approximately 260 thousand hectares of land called “land reserved for aborigines” was demarked to ensure land for aborigines to live in forests and fields that were designated as land required for economic development.Footnote 7 Regarding the people, in practice they were placed under the discretion of the police, which was the riban administration, with no establishment of policy regarding whether aborigines would be granted legal personhood or not.Footnote 8

1.4 “A Meiji Restoration Without Parliamentary Governance” and the Birth of the “Parliamentary Governance” Dream

Taiwanese historian Wan-yao Zhou (2014, pp. 140, 142) summarized the modernization that Taiwan experienced under colonial rule by commenting, “You can look at it as a foreign version of the Meiji Restoration, but it did not have parliamentary governance.” Furthermore, she asserts that because there was no “parliamentary governance,” “Colonized people did not have the right to make decisions regarding their own language, culture, and history.”

Regarding this “Meiji Restoration without parliamentary governance,” we will take a look at the construction of soft and hard infrastructureFootnote 9 that became the base for modern state governance and a capitalist economy.

The integral factor in soft infrastructure was assessing information on people (individual registration and population) and land (land registration and geography). Concerning individual registration, koko chosabo (household survey records) were created using the police network which was integrated into the basic level and the baojia organization was used to create a system that was intended to be updated routinely.Footnote 10 Concerning population, in 1905 a census was conducted using modern methods for the first time in the flatland general administration region.Footnote 11 By this time, the Government-General had attained an administration competency that could accurately execute these tasks.

Decisively important regarding land was the land survey work executed in the western planes from 1898 through 1905, and the creation of maps based on the triangulation employed in that work. Regarding the former, successively in each region as their armed resistances were successfully suppressed, land rights were declared, land surveying and official rights confirmation were conducted with the right holders present, and the land tax system was also revised. Furthermore, in 1905 land registration rules were established, and the transfer of land ownership rights now required registration with the government.Footnote 12

This land survey work was also important financially as part of the effort to establish a base for tax revenue from land, but in terms of economic growth as well, it also possessed the significance of dramatically improving the trade environment concerning land.Footnote 13 And in fact, after this basic system was organized, capital from mainland Japan was quickly injected into the sugar production industry through guidance from the Government-General. In the 1910s, the modern sugar production industry grew into a core thriving agro-industry for colonized Taiwan. Furthermore, concerning map making in this period, 37,869 “village maps” and 465 “district maps” were created, and these maps displayed authority in the subsequent maintenance of regional administration.Footnote 14

For hard infrastructure, construction of a longitudinal railway linking port cities in the north and south (Keelung and Kaohsiung) held major significance. Construction of the longitudinal rail started in 1898, and though it halted temporarily due to the Russo-Japanese War, the entire line was usable in 1908. This overcame the barrier to supply distribution from north to south that had been hindered by the rapidly rushing rivers flowing to the west from the central mountain range. Together with this effort, various kinds of roads, light rail, and kaisha-sen (company lines installed by sugar production companies to transport sugarcane for making sugar) were interlocked into the transport network, and the Taiwan western plains experienced a transportation revolution in a short period of time as Taiwan was integrated into a single market. Moreover, the markets thus integrated were connected to the economy of mainland Japan via Keelung Port and Kaohsiung Port, which were renovated to become more modern. Initially sugar was the main item sent to Japan, but when a food shortage began during World War I, horaimai rice (a type of Japonica rice developed in Taiwan) also became a shipped product.

While the colonial modernization imposed by Japan did not exceed the boundaries of “A Meiji Restoration without parliamentary governance,” it is also not the case that there were no proponents voicing a need for “parliamentary governance.” After World War I, with the propagation of trends in thought at the time advocating national self-determination and democracy as well as the Taiwan Han Chinese academic elite coming to the forefront of society amidst the improvement of the Japanese modern school education system, multiple political and social movements arose. Movements such as the Petition Movement for the Establishment of a Taiwanese Parliament,Footnote 15 which attempted to interfere with the tyrannical power of the Governor-General of Taiwan, and the cultural enlightenment movement of the Taiwan Cultural Association, which attempted to promote cultural and national identity among Taiwan residents, sprung up. In the mid-1920s, conflict between sugar production companies and farmers over the price of sugarcane as a raw ingredient sparked a farmer’s movement, and in 1926 the Taiwan Farmer’s Union formed. 1927 saw the formation of the Taiwan People’s Party, the first political party in the history of Taiwan. The Taiwan Communist Party formed as a small group in Shanghai that next year. It soon infused itself into the Cultural Association and the Farmer’s Union. However, these movements underwent pressure around the same time as the 1931 Mukden Incident and organizational social movements mostly dissolved.

After World War I, Japanese colonial rule policy changed to one of “the principle of extending the homeland institutions and regulations to the colony” in which the laws and systems of mainland Japan (naichi) were given precedence over laws and orders based on the legislative power of the Governor-General of Taiwan. Together with the progression of Japanizing law and systems in Taiwan, bestowing of the same suffrage allowed to Japanese citizens in Japan was also envisioned. However, backing for bestowing suffrage was ultimately the opinion of Japanese state elites, and what the Government-General accepted, after a fashion, before the outbreak of the Asia–Pacific War was only limited suffrage towards regional administration.Footnote 16

Riban Rule as the “Iron Fist of Civilization”.

Conversely, for the mountainous area aborigines, it would be closer to say that they did not experience colonial modernization as much as something that can be compared to the “iron fist of civilization” imposed by a modern state. The “iron fist” was direct rule by the riban police and the “civilization” component was the teaching of writing and farming methods to “barbarians,” the normalizing of a currency-based economy in their culture, and the transformation of their population into a “peasant class” that had the ability to pay taxes. To that purpose, aborigine youth schools for teaching children in aborigine settlements were installed. Police officers served as teachers, teaching things such as simple Japanese language and agriculture methods. Meanwhile, traditional customs such as headhunting and indoor burial were prohibited as barbaric and unclean practices. Moreover, firearms and ammunition were controlled by police outposts, and this became a factor in the decrease of opportunities to hunt, leading to the decline of a unique culture and set of social norms that had been deeply tied to hunting.

According to Matsuoka (2012), these kinds of policies aimed to dissolve the unique administrative character and ultimately place the banchi under the general administration system as just another region within the system. However, in reality, Japanese rule came to a close with the demarcation between the banchi and Han Chinese region regulated even stricter than ever.Footnote 17

1.5 The Asia–Pacific War and Colonized Taiwan

Together with the amplification of the Asia–Pacific War, Taiwan was also deeply caught up in Japan’s military efforts. The military mobilization of the Taiwan people began with dispatchment of military porters and civilian personnel (miscellaneous labor and translation among armed services) to the Chinese battle theater after the Marco Polo Bridge Incident. After the outbreak of the Pacific War, Japan expanded this to an army enlisting system in 1942 and then added a navy enlisting system the following year. During this time, Taiwanese women, on a level estimated to be approximately several thousand, were sent to places like China to serve as “military comfort women.”Footnote 18

Additionally, aborigines were recruited from 1942 onwards, and inserted into the war in places such as the Philippines and New Guinea eight separate times. Their courage inspired Japanese forces to promote them as the “Takasago Volunteers.”Footnote 19 The sons of aborigine settlement warriors who had once fought against intruders into their living environment were now being sent to fight in battle theaters as colonial empire soldiers.

In 1944, the war situation worsened, the depletion of new recruits became a serious problem, and Japan feared a Taiwan landing invasion by U.S. forces. Thus, the Japanese government decided to lay down a conscription system in Taiwan as well and began implementing it in April the following year. Simultaneous to that decision, the House of Representatives election law was implemented for Taiwan, and it was announced that the right to vote in national elections would be granted in return for asset resources. This was a part of what can be called an “improvement in treatment” in return for the systemization of the appropriation of the lives of colony residents.Footnote 20

1.6 The Demise of Japanese Control and Two Wars in Postwar East Asia

In truth, around this time U.S. forces changed their strategy from a Taiwan landing operation to an Okinawa landing operation. Instead of a landing push, in the autumn of 1944 bombing raids of major Taiwan cities commenced, and in May of the subsequent year the Government-General building was destroyed.Footnote 21 On August 15, the “Jewel Voice Broadcast” given by the emperor played in Taiwan as well, and the war concluded. Japanese rule finished without Taiwan ever advancing from its structure as “a Meiji Restoration without parliamentary governance.”Footnote 22

The Republic of China had been promised in the “1943 Cairo Declaration” by the leaders of the U.S. and the United Kingdom that Taiwan would be returned to Chinese control. Therein, moving forward, the Republic of China inherited Taiwan from Japan as a condition of Japanese surrender and simultaneously integrated Taiwan into its republic. All Taiwan residents, except for the Japanese who had been ordered by the Allied forces to return to Japan,Footnote 23 became citizens of the Republic of China and residents of the Taiwan Province. However, this did not signal the end of a wartime system for Taiwan residents. Conflict continued due to internal clashes within the Republic of China and the Cold War that spilled over into East Asia as both coalesced at the Taiwan Strait. Chiang Kai-shek-led Republic of China forces that were torn apart in civil conflict, government officials, and a massive influx of refugees flooded into Taiwan, and Taiwan was once again placed under a wartime framework.

2 Southeast Asia

During World War II, almost all regions in Southeast Asia were placed under Japanese control and influence, but the format and level of power exercised was different in each case. Because the declaration of war at the commencement of the “Greater East Asia” war on December 8, 1941, was initially issued towards the United Kingdom and the U.S., and then to the Netherlands, military invasion by Japanese forces was limited to the colonies of these three countries (the Dutch East Indies, the Philippines, Burma, British Malaya and Singapore, and British Borneo). In these regions, Japanese forces eventually accumulated victories, overthrew the colonial regimes, and then subsequently laid down military rule (military administration) and exercised almost complete sovereignty (Defense Ministry Institute 1985).

Meanwhile, France had been put under the control of Nazi Germany and given a puppet regime, and because Japan did not see France as an enemy, it did not militarily invade its colonies in Southeast Asia (three Indochina countries corresponding to current Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia). However, in reality Japan had already been applying pressure before the outbreak of war and had won the right to station Japanese forces. Through the Japanese army actually stationed there, Japan interfered with French rule. This control format was referred to as joint Japanese-French control. In a similar fashion, East Timor was a colony of the neutral nation Portugal, so while Japanese forces did avoid a direct attack there, they dispatched occupation forces and interfered with internal governance. Towards Thailand, which was the only independent nation in Southeast Asia, Japan sought an alliance, and pressured Thailand to declare war against the United Kingdom, the U.S., and the Netherlands (Yoshikwa 2010). Furthermore, Japan also dispatched Japanese occupation forces into Thailand as well and executed all sorts of pressure on the Thai government.

As seen in these cases, while the format of control and level of power was different for each area, all 11 countries in present day Southeast Asia were placed under some sort of Japanese control and stitched into the Greater East Asia Co‑Prosperity Sphere. In this chapter, we will consider the format of Japanese control centering mainly around the cases of British, American, and Dutch colonies that were placed under Japanese military rule.

2.1 Military Rule

Military rule entails temporarily exercising sovereignty and implementing administration over occupied territory during wartime until the war concludes. In the Southeast Asia Dutch East Indies (current Indonesia), the Philippines, Burma (current Myanmar), British Borneo (current Malaysia and Brunei), British Malaya (current Malaysia), and Singapore, military personnel in the Japanese force units that militarily occupied each region exercised military rule. The large Dutch East Indies was divided into three parts, with Java Island placed under singular 16th Army control and Sumatra Island initially grouped with British Malaya and Singapore under 25th Army occupation. The remaining islands, such as Celebes Island (current Sulawesi), Borneo Island (current Kalimantan), New Guinea, Maluku, and the Lesser Sunda Islands, were placed under naval control (Kishi and Nishijima 1959). As stated above, British Malaya and Singapore were initially grouped with Sumatra into one occupied territory, but in the subsequent year of 1943, they were split off from Sumatra to become their own occupied territory. Also, British Borneo, which is present day Malaysia, was its own occupied territory. The Philippines and Burma were placed under the oversight of the 15th and 28th Army, respectively.

In regions wherein military rule by army was enforced, official offices called gunseikanbu were installed as administrative organizations, and the chief-of-staff for the occupation forces stationed there served as the military superintendent (gunseikan). Other important posts were held by military personnel, but most key bureaucratic positions were filled by administrators dispatched from Japan, and local officials who had been serving in the colonial government previously were kept on staff unless they had particularly strong anti-Japanese sentiment. Japan also used existing administrative agencies as much as possible (Kishi and Nishijima 1959).

However, citizens of the colonial ruling powers or of any Allied nations were eliminated as enemies and placed in detention camps. However, in the early days, when staff dispatched from Japan alone was insufficient, citizens of enemy nations were kept on staff as exceptions in order to utilize their specialist skills.

Japanese military personnel and bureaucrats were not very familiar with the Southeast Asian environment, so in order to make governance proceed as smoothly as possible there, one unified policy they took in all occupied territories was to befriend local leaders who had powerful influence on the locals. In most cases, nationalists who had been at the forefront of the anti-colonial struggle were considered to be the perfect choice. For example, in Indonesia, Japanese representatives befriended Sukarno and Hatta (Kishi and Nishijima 1959). In the Philippines, they befriended Laurel and Aquino (Ikehata and Jose 1999, pp. 21–58). In Burma, they befriended Ba Maw (Nemoto 2007).

And in Malaya, they befriended anti-British Malay youth who received educations in the Malay language and not in English. And in all occupied territories, in efforts to galvanize and educate the local population, they placed these ethnic nationalists between the public and the Japanese forces and made the nationalists face off directly with the public in an attempt to minimize unrest.

Below, we will take a slightly more detailed look at the kinds of specific governing policies that were implemented under the above-mentioned basic framework.

2.2 Economy Policies

The true goal of the occupation of Southeast Asia by Japanese forces was to acquire important national defense resources to facilitate the continuance of war on the Chinese front that had already started in the 1930s. Prewar Japan had relied on imports from the U.S. for most of its natural resources, including petroleum. However, the U.S. was critical of Japan’s invasion of China, and in 1939, it levied economic sanctions on Japan and restricted exports. After those sanctions began, Japan tried to shore up their shortages through trade with places such as the Dutch East Indies and initially made repeated attempts at diplomatic negotiation. But the effort ended in failure. Therein, with other international relations also serving as motivating factors, ultimately Japan came to the decision to attempt securing resources by absorbing the resource-rich Southeast Asia through military force. In that sense, places like the Dutch East Indies, Malaya and British Borneo, which were rich in resources including petroleum and iron-ore, were the most promising occupied territories. But in addition to that, to actualize food self-sufficiency, places like Burma and Indochina, with their high rice production, were also vital (Kurasawa 2012).

Japanese forces confiscated all enterprises and resources owned by citizens of enemy nations in occupied territories, like oil fields, ore mines, farmland, and factories, then entrusted business management of those enterprises over to Japanese companies and brought over staff from those Japanese companies. In this way, many Japanese citizens came to southern occupied territories to engage in economic activities.

Because trade was restricted to within the Greater East Asia Co‑Prosperity Sphere and the previous trade structure completely collapsed, major change was enforced onto the production structure. For example, the production of cash crops such as sugar, coffee, tea, and rubber experienced a decrease in importance due to a loss of exporting channels. Meanwhile, difficulties arose in the securing of manufactured products that had previously been procured through importing, and some daily essentials now had to be made regionally through the self-sustaining efforts of locals. The most classic example of this was clothing. Places like Indonesia and the Philippines had been procuring most of their cotton thread and cotton fabric through import from places like India, but because this source grew cold, locals began cultivating raw cotton and worked hard to secure a supply of cotton thread (Ikehata and Jose 1999, pp.171–195; Kurasawa 1992).

Meanwhile, in addition to supplying foodstuffs such as rice to Japanese citizens in Japan, it also had to be supplied to the large number of Japanese officers and soldiers stationed in the various southern regions. Thus, demand grew, and production increasing campaigns were put into place in each region. However, because the produced rice was coercively sequestered for the Japanese forces, the producers themselves faced rice shortages. These kinds of agricultural structure changes had a major impact on farmers (Kurasawa 1992, pp. 89–136).

Moreover, roads and railways were destroyed in combat, and air bombing and marine safety could not be ensured. This diminished delivery capacity. As a result, in some regions necessary goods built up in an unneeded surplus of stock while other deficient areas were experiencing extreme supply shortages. In this way, locals suffered shortages of food, clothing, and other items necessary for daily living (Kurasawa 2012).

2.3 Labor Force Requisitioning

Amidst these developments, another factor that caused further suffering for locals was the semi-compulsory requisitioning of labor force by the Japanese forces. This was a labor force mobilized mainly for Japanese force military purposes such as military facility construction, airfield construction, and road and railway construction. They were referred to using the Japanese word for laborer: romusha. This requisitioning was the most severe in Java Island with its high population density. Locals there were shipped off the island to other various regions. One famous effort was the injecting of a large labor force to cut away the jungle and construct the Thai–Burma Railway connecting Thailand and Burma. Most romusha were made to work in secluded places with poor working environments and a lack of sufficient food and medicine, causing many to lose their lives. Additionally, because romusha were left behind when Japan pulled out at the end of the war, this became notorious as being the most draconian of the policies during the Japanese military governing period (Kratoska 2006; Kurasawa 1992, pp. 180–241).

2.4 Educating and Galvanizing Locals

In the enforcement of these kinds of harsh policies, Japan’s ultimate goal was not to make locals follow their orders through sheer force, but rather to educate and enlighten them, lead them to understand Japan’s purpose for fighting and gain their heartfelt cooperation. Furthermore, Japan attempted a policy of integration out of an arrogant desire to instill its sense of values and cultural system as the “Leader” of Asia within its “little brothers” in Southeast Asia with their inferior standard of living and culture, and to raise them up to the same level as Japanese citizens. To this end Japan installed a propaganda department within its military administration (gunseikanbu), gathered top cultural producers from Japan such as authors, painters, and musicians, and had them come up with propaganda slogans and propaganda material. In addition to print media, Japan used all other kinds of media as well, including radio broadcasting, movies, theatrical performances, kamishibai paper theater, and posters. The core concept for propaganda was that Japan was fighting for the prosperity of Asia, and ultimate Japanese victory would bring happiness to Asia as well. In other words, based in the logic that Japan and Asia were a collective linked by a shared destiny of coexistence and co-prosperity, Japan appealed to what should be done to actualize this (Goodman 1991; Kratoska 1998, pp. 122–153).

Furthermore, under the idea that school education was also necessary to strengthen the locals, the content of education was used to instill in local populations the same outlook as Japan. To this end, the curriculum included Japanese history that emphasized the nobility of Japan and moral education based in Imperial ideology. Moreover, the Japanese language was seen as necessary to learn the Japanese spirit, and educators also worked to popularize it as the common tongue linking the various East Asian peoples (Kurasawa 1992, pp. 343–367).

Above this sort of educational effort, attempts were made to set up organization to inspire cooperation with Japan among locals. For example, Jawa Hokokai (the Java Service Association) was established, and locals were taught to devote all of their activities and spirit to Japan. Local ethnic leaders who were cooperating with Japanese forces were placed at the head of these organizations and galvanized locals (Kurasawa 1992, pp. 334–339).

One noteworthy factor regarding the enlightenment and education of locals is that Japanese forces respected local religions and did not attempt to force Shinto upon communities. In fact, they even used local religious leaders to galvanize locals into cooperating with Japan. Particularly in places like Indonesia and Malaya where Islam was the major religion, Japanese forces used the logic that the Greater East Asia War was a holy war against Christianity in an attempt to gain their cooperation. (Kurasawa 1992, pp. 368–418).

2.5 Military Training

The spirit of “giving your all for Japan” linked to a campaign urging occupied territory locals to defend their land on their own in preparation for the return of Allied forces. Physically healthy youth participated in seinendan (youth organizations) formed in their territories and received fundamental military training including marching and how to use weapons such as bamboo spears. Additionally, some locals were employed as heiho (an auxiliary soldier) in Japanese force units stationed locally under the title. They received the same military training as Japanese soldiers, and some units were even dispatched to the theater of war where they experienced actual fighting (Kurasawa 1992, pp. 308–321).

Furthermore, in Sumatra, Java, and Malaya, military organizations independent from Japanese forces called giyūgun (volunteer forces) were formed, and they received even higher-level military training. In the case of Indonesia, which declared independence after Japan surrendered, these trained youth became the core of the newly established national military and fought a war of independence against the Netherlands (Kurasawa 1992, pp. 322–333).

2.6 Surveilling Locals

Japan was constantly aware of, and on guard against, the danger that locals could be secretly conducting anti-Japanese activities in linkage with Allied forces. The Japanese military organization called kenpeitai, which means military police corps, instilled fear into the locals. To even more thoroughly surveil enemies amidst daily living, in Indonesia and the Philippines, Japan introduced the tonarigumi (neighborhood association). This organization played an important role in controlling society within Japan domestically as well at the time. All local households living nearby were grouped together and made members of their neighborhood tonarigumi. Through the method of holding everyone in the group accountable if even one member committed an offense, the tonarigumi system prevented not only spying and anti-Japanese speech or actions, but they also prevented acts in violation of economic policies such as concealing or illicitly selling goods (Kurasawa 1992, pp. 242–252).

2.7 The Independence Problem

Right before invading Southeast Asia, Japan used media, such as Radio Tokyo broadcasts, to issue messages claiming that it would free Asia from Western colonial rule. However, after subjugating the region, the word “independence” was prohibited, and freedom of political action and speech was stolen from the populace. However, in 1943, “independence” was allowed for the Philippines and Burma. Because the Philippines and Burma had already been granted a certain degree of autonomous governing before the war, and occupation by Japan was actually antithetical to this, the idea was, Japan attempting to continue complete control any further would actually backfire. Of course, the “independence” that was created in this way was completely a puppet regime, and Japanese forces continued to remain stationed there, strictly controlling the new administrations behind the scenes (Nemoto 2007; Ikehata and Jose 1999).

Independence was not permitted at that time in Indonesia, Malaya, Singapore and Borneo, and dissatisfaction increased among local residents. The war situation grew gradually disadvantageous for Japan, and when living conditions worsened for Indonesians, sporadic anti-Japanese outbursts started erupting in the various regions. In order to loop in cooperation for Japan from Sukarno and contemporaries and stop these outbursts, some concessions had to be made. Therein, in September of 1944, future independence in Indonesia was promised. However, in Malaya and Singapore, when the policy of permitting independence in Indonesia was announced, independence was not allowed due to the perception of a “low standard of living and level of culture,” and they were left unchanged.

In Indonesia, the Commission on Inquiry into Preparatory Measures for Independence was formed in May 1945. Within the committee, blueprint on the possible framework and philosophy of the future Indonesian state were discussed, a constitution was drafted, and preparations for actualizing independence advanced at a rapid pace.

However, on August 15, Japan accepted the Potsdam Declaration by Allied forces and agreed to surrender. Based on this Declaration, the status quo at the time of surrender had to be maintained. As a result, the entire plan for independence was cancelled, but Sukarno and contemporaries overcame the opposition of Japanese forces and declared independence on August 17 (Kishi and Nishijima 1959).

In the three Indochina countries that Japan had ruled jointly with France, because France was released from German control on June 1944 and was thus no longer a nation allied with Japan, in March of the following year Japanese forces, instigating local nationalists, sparked a coup d’état to oust France from the region, and established a regime in Vietnam that was independent in name only. Meanwhile, the Viet Minh under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh, which was already against both France and Japan, had been expanding its power through the continuance of secret guerrilla activities. When the Japanese forces were defeated in World War II, the Viet Minh declared independence in September 1945 and commenced combat with the colonial ruling power of France, which did not accept this declaration. Then, in 1954, it ousted France from the northern part of Vietnam and achieved independence there.

In Indonesia, an independence declaration was also not accepted by the controlling Netherlands, but nationalists there achieved complete independence after pushing forward their long-cherished desire in a four-year conflict. This was not a Japanese-made independence by any means, but instead an independence won by the sheer strength of the ethnic nationalists there.

Because the Allied forces nullified the “independence” of 1943 in the Philippines and Burma, the leaders of those puppet regimes escaped to Japan before the arrival of Allied forces but were later returned by the Allied forces. Control of these two countries was reverted to their previous colonial masters, after which both countries eventually achieved independence under new leaders in 1946 and 1948 respectively.

The Japanese occupation is frequently cited as having accelerated the move towards independence for Southeast Asian countries, but the truth is, there is no direct causal relationship therein. However, it also cannot be denied that the anti-West sentiment was inspired and strengthen by a Japan that shared common enemies.

3 Annexation of Korea and Japanese Colonial Rule

On August 29, 1910, the Japan-Korea Annexation Treaty took effect, Imperial Korea lost sovereignty, and Korea was subsequently a colony of Japan for 35 years until August 15, 1945.Footnote 24

For a governing institution, the Government-General of Korea was installed. The Governor-General, who served as the head of that government, was a new official post directly subordinate to the emperor. The Governor-General was selected from among acting generals in the army and navy (the Governor-General military attaché system) and possessed sweeping powers such as the power to issue decrees and the power to lead army and naval forces. Also, Japanese forces that had been stationed in Korea since before the annexation remained stationed there.

Most staff in the Government-General and affiliated offices were Japanese, and all-important positions were filled with Japanese. Most Koreans were only present as marginal bureaucrats. The discrimination of treatment between Japanese and Korean staff remained until the end of the colonial period.

The colonial era is divided into three major periods: 1910 to 1919, 1920 to the early 1930s, and the late 1930s onward. First, we will trace a brief outline of the general flavor of colonial Korea following those period divisions.

3.1 The 1910s: “Martial Policy” and “Assimilation”

Governance of Korea in the 1910s is referred to as Budan Seiji (martial policy), and this was due to Government-General rule strengthening the military character of governing. Together with the aforementioned Governor-General military attaché system and the power of the Governor-General to lead the army and navy, what strengthened the military character was the existence of a military police system. In this system, the military police, who would normally only handle military police matters, were responsible for normal police functions together with the civilian police and became the central core of police organization. Military and civilian police duties ranged over a wide scope, from the suppression of racial and independence movements to general administration such as identification registration procedures, road repairs, and agricultural improvements. The military and civilian police system took on the structure of executing sweeping authority (Matsuda 2009a, b).

Through land survey projects, the Government-General established the base for land tax collection and aimed to construct the foundation for financial administration of the colony. As a result, through the buying and selling of land and requisition of land owned by the previous government, land owned by Japanese people increased (Miyajima 1991a, b).

In addition to this, in the realms of farming, commerce, industry, and finances, Korea became subservient to Naichi (the Mainland). Thus, the lifestyles of common Korean people were coercively changed, discrimination between Koreans and Japanese deepened, and sentiments of backlash and dissatisfaction accumulated.

In order to “Japanize” the Korean populace, the Government-General valued primary school education and particularly used the normalization of “Japanese language studies” in their main goal of cultivating good subjects who were loyal to the emperor. However, throughout the entire colonial period, a compulsory education system was not established in Korea, and the rate of Japanese popularization dropped. “Japanizing” was definitely not an easy task.

The development of national and independence movements within Korea became extremely difficult. Independence movement hubs transferred abroad, and new activist hubs formed in places like Jiandao, Russia’s Primorskaya Oblast, China, Japan, and the U.S. This network operated the March 1st Movement.

In 1918, U.S. President Wilson’s invention of the principle of self-determination sparked hope for Korean independence in independence movement activists and intellectuals. An international independence movement network activated, and in addition to preparations being laid for independence movement activities in the various regions, it majorly influenced religious leaders and students within Korea. Korean religious leaders drafted a declaration of independence, and on March 1, 1919, they distributed it. Additionally, students and residents in Seoul held a demonstration in the city and clashed with police and soldiers. Subsequently, the movement spread throughout the entirety of Korea and to the Manchuria and Primorskaya Oblast regions. Regionally, violent actions spread among the populace in opposition to forced changes in lifestyle customs and daily discrimination, and clashes occurred everywhere (March 1st Movement).Footnote 25

3.2 The 1920s to Early 1930s: Rivalry Between “Cultural Policy” and Nationalism

After the March 1st Movement, the Government-General majorly changed its governing policy to a Bunka Seiji (cultural policy). It abolished the Governor-General military attaché system that had been the core of the “martial policy,” and supreme command of the army and navy stationed in Korea by the Governor-General was also dissolved. This allowed civilian officials to serve as Governor-Generals. However, moving forward, civilian officials did not actually serve as Governor-Generals even after the shift to a “cultural policy.”

Other characteristic policies were adopted as well. Clampdowns on speech, publishing, assembling, and associating were eased. This led to an expansion of opportunities for racial and social activism among Koreans. Furthermore, the previous military police system was abolished and switched to a normal system.Footnote 26 The police became involved in cracking down on independence movements and surveilling the daily lives of Koreans.

Concerning education, the Government-General advanced a policy of strengthening primary school education and aimed to increase the number of primary schools. Moreover, regarding higher education, the government took the approach of transplanting the Japanese imperial university system to Korea, and in 1924 the Keijo Imperial University opened.

Regarding agriculture, an increase in rice for shipping to “Mainland Japan” was planned (the Rice Production Increase Plan). This was an approach to resolving the rice shortage in Japan, most notably symbolized by the rice riots that occurred in 1918. In this sense, there was no change in the structure of subservience to Japan.

From the 1920s onward, large changes occurred in Korean society. Urbanization advanced, and urban mass culture grew and expanded.Footnote 27 However, due to deviations in the normalization of lifestyle infrastructure and differences in economic levels, many Koreans were alienated from accepting these urban culture elements.

Meanwhile, in farming villages, Korean landowners and independent farms failed, and the amount of tenant farmers increased. Tenancy disputes revolving around tenant farming rights started occurring frequently. The impact of the agriculture crisis flowing from the 1930 Showa Financial Crisis extended to Korea and exhaustion spread through farming villages, pushing this trend forward even more. The farm retirement trend accelerated. Koreans who had given up their farms went to places like Japan and Manchuria and moved to urban areas to take whatever work they could fine. To reenergize farming villages that were suffering from fatigue, in the 1930s the Government-General deployed the Campaign for the Advancement of Farming Villages. However, this did not achieve a sufficient effect. Meanwhile, in northern Korea the government advanced industrialization, attracted Japanese capital into Korea, and attempted to absorb the surplus farming village population as workers to construct infrastructure needed for that industrialization and as marginal laborers for companies.

The Japanese government and the Government-General aimed to nullify the nationalism of the Korean people that came out of the March 1st Movement, but instead, opportunities for national and social activism among Korean people spread. Thus, they were forced to continue responding to Korean nationalism moving forward.

After the March 1st Movement was thwarted, ethnic nationalist affiliated movements preaching for the cultivation of actual power became energized (Robinson 2015a, b).Footnote 28 Within the ethnic nationalism movement, a living improvement movement and farmer education movement grew. Concerning the aforementioned cultural movement as well, it was mostly promulgated by ethnic nationalist intellectuals. Additionally, socialist movements were also energized, and activism diversified. Some socialist movement examples are movements to guide farmer tenancy disputes and create the Communist Party of Korea. Furthermore, along with the expanding of socialist activities, linkages were explored between ethnic nationalist leftwing adherents and socialists, and Shingan-hwe was formed as a united front organization.

Independence activity occurred abroad as well. In April 1919, the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea established the Shanghai French Concession. In addition, Russia and the Manchuria region became the largest foreign hubs for the independence movement. And activity had continued from the from the 1910s onward. Moving forward, an intense resistance movement would continue until the 1940s.

Entering the 1930s, racial and social movements reached their high tide. But as a Japanese advance into mainland China became possible after the 1931 Mukden Incident, crackdowns on nationalism became strict and the Government-General began to press intellectuals to change their ideologies.

3.3 The Late 1930s Onward: Towards a Wartime Framework

Jiro Minami was installed as Governor-General of Korea in August 1936. In order to prepare for a Chinese invasion, he aimed to strengthen integration with the Japanese “populace” by constraining the Korean nationalist identity, mobilizing Koreans towards war, and unifying Korea and Manchuria. Then, when the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out in July 1937, Minami promulgated the “Unity of Japan and Korea” idea and deployed a “Japanization policy” to galvanize Koreans to the war effort. He enforced shrine visiting, Kyujo Yohai (worshipping the Imperial House from afar), and reciting of the Kokokushinmin no Seishi (Oath of the Imperial Subject) at schools and the workplace. Moreover, he infused the Kokutai (National Polity) concept through the introduction of a special army volunteer soldier system and established a system of executing military drills. And by revising the education system, he unified the Korean school system with Japan, changed the previously compulsory Korean language studies to optional curriculum, and increased the importance of “Japanese language studies.”Footnote 29

In February 1940, Soshi-kaimei (enforced change of family system and name from a Korean to a Japanese name) was established (Mizuno 2005). In place of the traditional family system in which the paternal “colloquial family name” was passed on to children and husbands and wives would each use their separate family name, Koreans were now made to establish an official family name serving as the title for the family register and apply that name equally to the husband, wife, and children. his was a policy that forced a change in the family system. Registering an official family name was enforced systemically. Changing names was optional, but there were many cases in which Koreans were forced to use a Japanese style name.

In January 1938, peace negotiations between Japan and the Chinese government broke down, decisively signaling that war would be a prolonged affair. The National Mobilization Law was issued in Japan in April of that year and in the following month in Korea. Based in this law, the Korean Federation for National Spiritual Mobilization was formed in July. It was integrated with the administrative agency as a supplementary institution to the Government-General. Furthermore, under this, Patriotic Units were established, comprised of about ten households as a public implementation organization for the Japanization policy. In addition to striving for the normalization and thorough implementation of the aforementioned Japanization policies, these units were set up to be mutual surveillance groups in which community residents surveilled each other. In October 1940, corresponding to the Imperial Rule Assistance Movement in Japan, the Korean Federation for National Spiritual Mobilization was renamed and revised into the Korean Federation of Total Warfare. In Korea at this time, war mobilization that made use of the mass culture formed in the 1930s was also implemented.

When the Asia–Pacific War commenced in December 1941, Japanese troop deficiency became a clear reality, and urgency was placed on the construction of a system to mobilize Koreans as a means to enhance and supplement war strength. In May 1942, the implementation of a conscription system in Korea was approved by the Cabinet. Actual conscription began after alteration to military service laws in July of the next year.

In addition, a special youth training system to deploy preparatory education to turn preschool children into soldiers and military industry laborers, the special naval voluntary soldier system, and the student volunteer soldier system were also unfurled, and mobilization for student war participation among Korean volunteer soldiers commenced.

Following the prolonging of war, the labor force within Japan became severely depleted. Therein, the Japanese government formed a plan to mobilize labor in Japan and its outer territories through the issuance of the National Mobilization Law and the 1939 National Requisition Ordinance. Initially through the format of “recruiting” (which was actually coercive) and later through the format called kan-assen (government-coordinated recruitment), Korean laborers were forced into grueling work in land and lumber, coal mines, and ore mines (later expanded to metals, chemicals, aircrafts, transport, etc.) (Tonomura 2012).

From 1941 onward, many Koreans were pressed into civilian work in the military and mobilized to places like China, Southeast Asia, and the southern sea islands. In 1944, mobilization commenced for both student and female labor. Furthermore, there were also “comfort women” for the Japanese military who were made to interact sexually with officers and soldiers at Japanese military brothels that had been constructed with direct and indirect assistance by the military in Japan, China, and Southeast Asia from the Second Sino-Japanese War onward.

From among the ranks of Korean intellectuals who had previously served in leadership positions in national and social movements, there were many intellectuals cooperative to Japan who took an accommodating stance towards the country. They placed their hopes in being allowed to retain ethnic autonomy by cooperating with Japan, but those hopes ended in disappointment. Meanwhile, there were also movements that directly resisted Japanization policy. These included the energizing of activity by socialists, resistance to the culture of shrine visiting, and the spreading of rumors among common citizens (Miyata 1985).

Up to its final days, Japanese colonial rule would come to a close without ever resolving its contradictions.