Who are Japanese Taiwanese? The Chinese disinformation that fixated on the ties between Taiwan and Japan
Who are Japanese Taiwanese? The Chinese disinformation that fixated on the ties between Taiwan and Japan
Since July, false information concerning Taiwan and Japan's relationships and history has been disseminated widely on Chinese-language social media platforms. Two narratives emerged as the most prominent: one claims that millions of Japanese descendants still live among Taiwanese, while the other twisted recent events to illustrate that the Taiwanese government and society have a strong bond with Japan, betraying their Chinese lineage. Although these information pieces have circulated among Taiwanese social media users, they have gained more traction in China, where a Chinese political analyst even publicly promoted some of the assertions in an interview with the international mainstream media.
As nationalism has grown in China over the last decade, Japan, which invaded and occupied some parts of China in the 1930s and 1940s, has emerged as a primary target for Chinese nationalists. The Chinese nationalists' hostility toward Japan is also reflected in the misrepresentation of Taiwan, which was a Japanese colony for fifty years from 1895 to 1945. Some of the false claims attempt to explain the roots of Taiwanese independence by blaming "the millions of Japanese descendants living in Taiwan" for pushing for Taiwan's independence (the number of Japanese descendants in Taiwan is exaggerated, and the allegation is false); others condemned Taiwanese for forgetting Japan's brutality against Chinese by inaccurately presenting cultural events in Taiwanese society.
False claims about the first narrative, which alleges that millions of Japanese descendants have resided in Taiwan as Taiwanese, first surfaced about ten years ago. The earliest retrievable Facebook post was published in 2014. According to the author of the post, who claimed to be an "old Taiwanese professor," more than 300,000 Japanese living in Taiwan at the end of World War II renounced their Japanese nationality and obtained Taiwan citizenship in 1945 when Japan terminated its colonization of Taiwan. The post then stated that currently, the "Japanese Taiwanese" population has increased to more than one million (other versions of this disinformation indicate the population has reached 2, 4, or 6 million). Most notably, the author asserted that the Japanese Taiwanese are enthusiasts who push for Taiwan's independence from China.
This claim has also circulated on Chinese social media since 2015. Chinese officials and scholars have taken part in promoting this inaccurate claim. The most recent case is that Victor Gao, a political analyst and a former translator for the late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, reiterated during an interview with the BBC that Japanese account for 10% of the Taiwanese population, and "many of the diehard Taiwanese separatists include these Japanese Taiwanese." Gao further underlined that the Japanese Taiwanese need to sign a pledge to show their loyalty to China after Taiwan and China's reunification.
Since January 2024, another article of a similar fake statement regarding "Japanese Taiwanese" has also gained traction. The article, titled "A Statement of a Member of the Plains Indigenous Peoples [一個平埔族人的自述]" (Note 1) told the inaccurate story that the Japanese fought with pro-Japanese Taiwanese against the Chinese Nationalist government during a historical conflict, the "228 incident," in 1947, hoping to regain control of Taiwan. Although they lost the battle, several descendants of the Japanese became influential Taiwanese politicians, forming a "New Tide faction [新潮流派系]" within the Democratic Progressive Party and carrying on the secret mission to "save Japan."
The Taiwan FactCheck Center (TFC) has found these assertions false. First and foremost, various academic studies have shown that just about 1,300 Japanese remained in Taiwan after World War II. The majority of Japanese, approximately 320,000, were sent back to Japan. The Japanese who stayed were primarily women who married Taiwanese. According to statistical estimates, there are currently nearly 6,000 descendants of these Japanese who lived in Taiwan after the war. The claim that there were millions of Japanese descendants exaggerated the number (Note 2).
The TFC also determined that the claims misrepresented historical events. The "228 incident" was a clash between local Taiwanese and the government led by the Chinese Nationalist Party, which ruled Taiwan after Japan's occupation. The 1947 uprising occurred because the Taiwanese were dissatisfied with the corruption of the Nationalist government and the decline in numerous aspects of the Taiwanese economy and society. In contrast to the false claim, the Japanese were not involved in the 228 incident. Furthermore, the "New Tide faction" politicians mentioned in the disinformation are not "Japanese Taiwanese." Instead, some faction members are descendants of Chinese migrants who arrived in Taiwan following the Nationalist Party's retreat from China due to the Chinese Nationalists' defeat by the Communist Party.
While the assertions of the first narrative fabricated data and twisted historical events, the claims of the second narrative misrepresented recent events to provoke hatred towards Taiwanese and Japanese people. For instance, one of the false claims was that temples in Taiwan held celebrations to honor militarism and conjure the spirits of Japanese soldiers who died in battle. The post included a video showing individuals worshiping in front of a temple adorned with flags with Japanese names. While the event occurred in Taiwan, the context is more intricate: it pertains to Taiwanese folk religion that respects and provides solace to the spirits of the deceased rather than glorifying militarism. Furthermore, it was not a scenario of summoning spirits but rather a religious festival where temples in the community worshiping a variety of gods and goddesses celebrated together.
A screenshot of a Weibo post, which included a video, claimed that Taiwan is "conjuring the spirits of WWII Japanese militarism."
Another claim alleged that a Taiwanese local government removed a statue honoring Taiwanese comfort women, who were females forced into sex slavery by the Japanese forces during World War II. The disinformation piece further said that the Taiwanese government had asserted that the Taiwanese comfort women worked for the Japanese voluntarily rather than being forced into slavery. In addition, another false information piece circulated during August claimed that Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te delivered a speech in front of a Japanese-style rising sun flag during his visit to the Kinmen Islands, which serve as Taiwan's frontline defense against China. The posts questioned the flag in the background and claimed it was "too ridiculous!"
These claims are incorrect. The piece about comfort women failed to mention that the statue was removed due to the change in private ownership of the land where it was located. The Taiwanese government has never made the statement that Taiwanese females volunteered to work as comfort women for the Japanese military. The flag that appeared in the background of Lai's speech was the flag of the Kinmen Defense Command, although the white rays on the flag resembled the ones on the Japanese rising sun flag.
Screenshots of Facebook posts, including a picture in which Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te was giving a speech in Kinmen. The posts questioned how Lai could speak in front of a Japanese rising sun flag.
The aforementioned false claims about "Japanese Taiwanese," Taiwanese admiration of Japanese militarism, and Taiwaneses’ pro-Japan attitudes have spread in both Taiwan and China. Interestingly, they have been more widely circulated and elicited more emotions in China than in Taiwan. For example, disinformation about a considerable number of Japanese descendants living in Taiwan and advocating for Taiwanese independence has been disseminated over the last ten years. This summer, the rise of the "Japanese Taiwanese" claims corresponded with the months when China remembered several significant events in which it fought against Japan's aggression (Note 3). The false assertions had already been prevalent prior to the BBC interview with Gao. In other words, Gao's talk reflected the long-standing misconception in Chinese society that "Japanese Taiwanese" are pushing for Taiwan's independence.
On the one hand, this disinformation, as well as others that criticize the Taiwanese for being pro-Japanese, were the result of the misconception and sensationalism to attract attention from online nationalists; on the other hand, they incited even more outrage among Chinese social media users. Comments such as "We will keep the [Taiwan] land but not the people [留岛不留人]" and "Let's unite Taiwan with force [武统台湾]" shown up under Weibo posts.
Compared with the reactions among Chinese social media users, the Taiwanese have been less inclined to subscribe to these narratives. The dissemination of claims of both narratives was limited to groups and accounts that favored reunification with China or committed supporters of the Kuomintang (Nationalist Party). The reason that most Taiwanese are relatively indifferent to the disinformation claims is probably that Taiwanese people are more familiar with the island's history than the Chinese and are less affected by the Chinese nationalist sentiment displayed in the narratives.
Note 1: The Plains Indigenous Peoples also known as "Pingpu People [平埔族]," who are groups of Indigenous peoples in Taiwan.
Note 2: See the master thesis by Chiou-Ping Chang of the National University of Tainan. Chang, C.P. (2022). Analysis on the disposal of Japanese people in Taiwan in the early postwar period: Take marriage as an example (1945.9-1947.5). https://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/cgi-bin/gs32/gsweb.cgi?o=dnclcdr&s=id=%22110NTN...
Note 3: For example, the "918 incident" occurred on September 18, 1931, and the "Lugou Bridge incident" (also known as the July 7 incident) occurred on July 7, 1937. Many historians of Chinese history regard the former as the beginning of Japan's aggression toward China, while the latter was another key event that led to a full-fledged war between Japan and the Republic of China. See 余英時. (2022, September 16). 余英時:為什麼說「九一八」才是中日戰爭的起點? 聯經思想空間 Linking Vision. https://www.linking.vision/archives/14727
Wei-Ping Li is a research fellow at the Taiwan FactCheck Center. Yun-Kai Hsu (fact-checker at the Taiwan FactCheck Center) contributed to this analysis.
