The Japan-Taiwan Relations

The Japan-Taiwan Relations

<Taiwan Society Today>

I have watched the movie”Cape No.7” so many times before. I remember it was a very popular movie in 2009 in Taiwan. When I watched the movie, I was quite surprised that even though this movie describes the historical matter between Japan and Taiwan from Taiwanese point of view, the way they express Japan and Japanese people were quite different from other Chinese, Korean, or even Japanese movies which talked about the Japanese colonial period. In this Cape No.7, there are two love stories between Taiwanese people and Japanese people going on simultaneously. Even though it already passed about 60 years since Japanese left Taiwan after the Second World War, their love hasn’t end and another love story in the younger generation started. I think this implies that Taiwan still considers Japan as a good partner and friends even now and in the future.

I myself have lived in Taiwan for 2 years and more. I felt that Taiwanese people are very nice to Japanese people. I have been helped by many nice Taiwanese people in Taiwan. Especially when I went to Taiwan in this March, I realized their love toward Japan very clearly. Since I flew to Taipei on March 6 from Sendai airport, I was in Taipei when the earthquake and Tsunami occurred in Japan. Therefore, I could see and feel how Taiwanese people tried to support Japan in real.

Their reaction was very big and their actions were so quick. Many people were doing charity activities for Japan in everywhere. They even made 4-hour-charity TV program, and collected donation. As a result, Taiwan donated more than 5 billion and 7 hundred million Japanese yen. I was watching the TV program on time in Taiwan, it was very heartwarming.

However, after I came back to Japan, I found that most of Japanese people don’t know what Taiwan actually had done for us. It was because that the Japanese government gave pressures on broadcasting companies not to tell about it to Japanese people too much. It is said that they concerned about Japan-China relationship. For the government, the Japan-China relationship always comes first rather than Taiwan.

As I already mentioned in the last discussion session, the cross-strait relationship is changing time by time. I am on my way doing the research for my East Asian Studies seminar about A comparative survey about the Taiwan-younger generation’s public emotion toward the Mainland China based on their self-identification, and the comparison of their sense of intimacy and credibility to following major five foreign countries: the US, Japan, the Mainland China and Korea. I am still collecting the questionnaire, but when I looked at the results which I have collected so far, I noticed that the Taiwanese younger generation has better image toward the mainland China while they still having the Taiwanese identity. This was very surprising for me.

Thinking about Japan-China relationship is of course important. Yet, Japan must think about how to make Japan-Taiwan relation better and fair more seriously.

I decided to contribute to the Japan-Taiwan relations as a Japanese teacher in local level as a soft power in the future!!