The online TaiwanPlus news agency reported recently that a new memorial had been unveiled in southern Taiwan to commemorate the thousands of Taiwanese youths who volunteered to help the Japanese war effort in the second world war. It is estimated that some 30,000 Taiwanese died while fighting for Emperor Hirohito’s Imperial army during the Pacific War. Some of these troops would have fought against Chinese soldiers on the mainland of China – a counter intuitive fact, you might think.
The departure of the Japanese was regretted by many, leading to the popular expression, ‘Dogs go and pigs come.’
The story of the memorial goes to the heart of the peculiarities of Taiwan’s history and indeed its geography. First, it should be made clear that the Taiwan Straits are not an equivalent of the 22 mile wide English Channel. The distance from Fuzhou in Fujian Province to Taiwan’s capital Taipei is 160 miles – about three quarters the distance from Dover to Paris.
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