Taiwan Church News
3313 Edition
August 24 – 30, 2015
Editorial
Know Taiwan’s Real History
While Taiwan government spent a big budget of money celebrating the 70th anniversary of ROC victory in the war of resistance against Japan, to everybody’s surprise, former Taiwan President Lee Teng-huei fearlessly asserted that “Taiwan had never attended the war of resistance against Japan”, when he was asked in a exclusive interview by the famous Japanese magazine – “Voice”. Lee’s statement highlighted the history facts that Taiwan was once a Japanese colony in Mr. Lee’s youth. And both Lee and his elder brother, Lee Teng-chin, had voluntarily joined Japanese army to fight for Japan the mother country. A simple historical fact told by Lee became a big fuss among the enraged President Ma Ying-jeou and KMT candidate of the President in 2016 – Ms Hung Hsiu-chu. Ma Ying-jeou even blasted Lee’s retrospective remarks had “betrayed Taiwan, humiliated the people and insulted himself”.
Ruled by various colonial regimes. like the Dutch, Koxinga’s force, the Qing Dynasty and the Empire of Japan, the destiny of Taiwan is always grimly hard. Especially, up to now, a complacent ideology like “the Chinese orthodox culture” still haunted the Taiwan people so much that a true subjective history of Formosa becomes almost invisible. The words designated as “the Chinese (culture)” is not too much different from the word like “China”. In fact, both words refer to the same content but only expressed differently in rhetoric. The thoughts of building “a new and independent country” and raising “a subjective consciousness”, pursued by some awakened forebears, are therefore eclipsed or manipulated by the hegemonic China ghost.
The statement, that Lee Teng-huei was a Japanese when he was 22-years-old, is in fact a true historical description out of question because Taiwan belonged to Japan in that historical period. It was very natural for the Taiwanese then to possess a Japanese nationality. In the same vein, it was a betrayal of history to sweep aside those Japanese-ruled calendar names, like “Dai-sho” or “Sho-wa”, in order to flatter an ROC historical narrative and calendar overwhelmingly. For example, instead of saying their opening year were “the 12th year in Dai-sho era” or “in 1923″, many local old shops across Taiwan are still got used to claim their business initiated from “the 12th year in ROC era”. This is utterly an anachronism, as the ROC calendar was actually a foreign stuff compared to Dai-sho calendar then!
In the pursuit for Taiwan subjective consciousness, Presbyterian Church in Taiwan(PCT) keeps marching forward as a campaign leader in Taiwan society. No other things can explain such passion more than PCT’s deep insight and enthusiastic love toward this beautiful island. Though in 228 massacres and in 1950s’ white terror, there were innumerable trauma, horrors, persecutions and humiliations on this suffered land, it is due to God’s blessings that PCT could still hold onto the initial love, committed to this land and descended from those pioneering missionaries, like James Laidlaw Maxwell, George Leslie Mackay and Thomas Barclay, making visible the direction of future ministry.
In the grace of God, we are appreciated that the words of God, preached in different kinds of languages: be it the Taiwan Peh-õe-ji, the Chinese or the versatile aboriginal languages and revealed through the history of Israel, enabling us to confront boldly against our real histories in the past. In our pilgrimage to establish our subjective consciousness, may God’s promise come true in Taiwan. Though Taiwan is a small island with limited strength, let us build it up as a new and independent country with infinite potentials!
