The Taiwan issue is a domestic issue with a complex international context. It is precisely because of the complex international context and the disturbance of several external factors that the Taiwan issue, a matter of China’s unification, has been delayed to this day without being completely resolved. Among the external factors affecting the final resolution of the Taiwan issue, the United States is the largest and most important factor, followed by Japan. Compared to the United States’ involvement in China’s civil war based on building a worldwide hegemonic system, and the extension of that involvement to the Taiwan issue, Japan’s influence on the Taiwan issue has been more complex and special. For historical, geopolitical, and practical reasons, the Japanese factor has been present in the Taiwan issue in its own unique form and goes deeply into many political, economic, and social fields in Taiwan. Since 1949, the Japanese factor in the Taiwan issue has evolved in terms of the forms it takes, the roles it plays, and the influence it exerts in different temporal and spatial contexts. Since the start of the twenty-first century, with the rapid rise of China and the intensification of Sino-Japanese competition, Japan’s inclination to intervene in the Taiwan issue has increased significantly, and the Japanese factor in the Taiwan issue has become increasingly conspicuous. The question of how to comprehensively and accurately understand the Japanese factor in the Taiwan issue and its influence on the peaceful development of cross-Strait relations and the promotion of the process of peaceful national reunification is a topic worth exploring. This article will take a multifaceted look at the Japanese factor in the Taiwan issue from three dimensions—historical, geopolitical, and practical—and analyze how the evolution of various elements refract on the Japanese factor and the synthetic effects produced, in an effort to make a more comprehensive, objective, and realistic analysis of the Japanese factor in the Taiwan issue.

I. Historical Perspective

Looking at the Japanese factor in the Taiwan issue from a historical perspective will help us trace its roots and understand, recognize, and explain the various manifestations of the Japanese factor in the Taiwan issue today and their underlying reasons. Modern Taiwan was under Japanese colonial rule for half a century. Although this history ended more than sixty years ago, Japan’s influence on Taiwanese society has not disappeared, but has been artificially activated and amplified after half a century, and the history of Japanese colonial rule in Taiwan has been affirmed and glorified. At the same time, the “Taiwan complex” of some Japanese people has been gradually “aroused,” and the right-wingers who worry about China’s rapid rise have begun to focus on Taiwan, which was once occupied by Japan. They have glorified the history of Japanese colonial rule in Taiwan, “discovered” and “uncovered” a lost “Japanese spirit” in Taiwan, and worked with the island’s separatist forces to rebuild the historical links between Japan and Taiwan. These phenomena, which emerged after the 1990s, have gradually revealed the previously hidden Japanese factor in the Taiwan issue. The long-standing presence of the Japanese factor in Taiwanese society and its growing visibility after the 1990s have its historical origin, but there is also the distinctive feature of the historically relevant Japanese factor being utilized and manipulated in a specific political atmosphere.

The history of Japan’s half-century-long colonial rule in Taiwan is a record of the Japanese invaders’ brutal suppression of the popular resistance movement in Taiwan, of colonial construction for the purpose of plundering, and of the “kominka” (Japanization or imperialization) campaign to strengthen the colonial rule.

Colonial construction. After the Sino-Japanese War [1894-1895], Japan forcibly occupied Taiwan. During its fifty-year-long colonial rule, Japan carried out predatory development and construction in Taiwan. After the occupation of Taiwan, Japan forcibly confiscated land and forests and systematically migrated Japan’s surplus rural population to Taiwan, while using the reparations forcibly taken from the Qing [dynasty] government and the high taxes collected from Taiwan for colonial construction. At the beginning of the occupation, Japan used “12 million yen of China’s 360 million yen in reparations” after the Sino-Japanese war “as Taiwan operating expenses.”¹ Besides the war reparations, more of Japan’s costs of operating and building the colony came from extraction and plundering in Taiwan. Taking taxation alone as an example, the amount of tax levied [per capita] by the Japanese colonial authorities in Taiwan was 33% more than in Japan (3 yen, 34 sen, 3 rin in Japan vs. 4 yen, 45 sen, 4 rin in Taiwan).² Japan used these taxes in Taiwan to build roads and lay railroad lines, construct ports, dams, and irrigation and drainage facilities, and carry out crop variety improvement and fertilization. This construction objectively increased agricultural productivity, and established and improved the island’s transportation system.

However, the purpose of all Japanese investment and construction in Taiwan was to consolidate its colonial rule and to carry out colonial plunder. During the Japanese rule period, Japan built several water conservancy facilities in Taiwan, among the more well-known of which is the Chianan Irrigation Waterway, i.e., Wushantou Reservoir, completed in 1930. After the completion of the reservoir, crop production in the Chianan Plain began to increase in 1933 to 1934, but most of the increased crop production was shipped to Japan at low prices. The agricultural products shipped from Taiwan to Japan accounted for 51.8% of the island’s crop production in 1939, and that year, Yochi Hatta, the Japanese who presided over and designed the Chianan Irrigation Waterway, was awarded the Order of the Sacred Treasure, Fourth Class by the Emperor of Japan for the increase in agricultural products shipped from Taiwan to Japan.³ During the Japanese occupation, Japan built roads, railroads, and ports in Taiwan, with the most direct purpose being to transport tea, rice, sugar, and timber from northern, central, and southern Taiwan back to Japan to meet Japan’s needs for industrialization and foreign wars of aggression.

Today, the Japanese colonial oppression of Taiwan has become history, but many of the facilities and buildings built to reinforce colonial rule are still standing. Some people in Japan and Taiwan have deliberately covered up the colonial history that was accompanied by repression, plunder, and exploitation, making some uninformed young people incapable of smelling the blood that remains on these constructions, and creating the illusion that Japanese colonial rule of Taiwan contributed to Taiwan’s economic development and modernization.

The assimilation policy and Japanization / Kominka movement. After 1895, the Japanese colonialists brutally suppressed the continuous popular revolt in Taiwan, but the Taiwanese compatriots did not succumb, and their successive armed protests still inflicted heavy blows on Japanese colonial rule. For this reason, Japan began to adopt “conciliatory policies,” and at the same time implemented the so-called “assimilation” policy on the island. In November 1919, the eighth governor-general, Kenjiro Den, clearly indicated in his policy priorities that “the policy of rule (over) Taiwan should be based on the Japanese spirit, treating the people of Taiwan as subjects of the empire and making them loyal to the emperor, and it is necessary to cultivate a sense of duty to the nation. Therefore, we must devote ourselves to indoctrination and inducement,”⁴ and “assimilate and integrate” through the expansion and popularization of higher education in Taiwan. However, thanks to the efforts of Lin Hsien-tang, Chiang Wei-shui, and other anti-Japanese leaders, “the Japanese imperial policy of ‘assimilation’ was not only ineffective, but also aroused the national consciousness and resistance of Taiwan’s compatriots.”⁵

In 1937, Japan launched a full-scale war of aggression against China, and at the same time included Taiwan in its war of aggression system, “asking all of the island’s residents to support the war.” In order to make Taiwanese people serve Japan’s war of aggression, “the colonizers launched the Kominka campaign that attempted to make the people and land of Taiwan ‘a true part of the imperial state'” and instill Yamato culture and a mindset of “loyalty (to the emperor) and patriotism (toward Japan).”⁶ The main points were: “abolishing Chinese columns in newspapers; promoting the common use of the national language; worshiping at Shinto shrines; abolishing or banning lunar calendar rituals, and abolishing Buddhist and Taoist temples.”⁷ After 1940, the Japanese rulers increased their efforts to promote the Kominka campaign by forcing Taiwanese to adopt Japanese names, implementing a system to identify “families that commonly use the national language,” and forcing the Japanization of Taiwanese people’s daily lives. They attempted to completely Japanize the Taiwanese in all aspects, from ideology and religious beliefs to language and living habits. The Japanese colonialists’ imperialization campaign was widely and persistently resisted by the Taiwanese people. “Most of the Taiwanese people pretended to support Japanization, while in private they maintained their traditional habits and actually did not change very much.” ⁸ Faced with the psychological resistance of the Taiwanese people, the Japanese colonial rulers focused on Japanizing the youth. They forced students to undergo Japanese national training, carried out activities to revere the emperor and the Japanese flag, and strengthened “imperial ideological education.”

From the assimilation policy to the Japanization campaign, Japan spent more than 20 years transforming the people of Taiwan into “true Japanese” in terms of self-identification. Over time, it cultivated a group of people who had a favorable view of Japan and were willing to serve Japanese colonial rule, and for some of the people who grew up with Japanese education, it weakened their identification with the motherland and their own national consciousness, and made them “consider themselves to be Japanese.”

Taiwan’s return and “decolonization.” When Taiwan was restored in October 1945, Japan’s fifty-year colonial rule over Taiwan came to an end, and the 450,000 or so Japanese in Taiwan, including 150,000 military personnel and their families, were repatriated to Japan. The Nationalist (KMT) government then carried out “decolonization” in Taiwan. After the KMT regime retreated to Taiwan in 1949, it further intensified its efforts to remove the influence of Japanese colonialism and eliminate colonial culture, including removing bronze statues of Japanese rulers such as Kobayama and Kodama, as well as stone monuments and Shinto shrines symbolizing Japanese colonial rule, and “banning the use of Japanese language teaching in schools, banning banned books that promoted Japanese colonial cultural ideas, and removing Japanese editions of various newspapers and magazines,”⁹ renaming administrative divisions and street names, converting some buildings that once symbolized the colonial regime to other uses, etc. However, under the special historical conditions of that time, the decolonization by Chiang Kai-shek’s administration had its limitations. Not only were the tangible traces of colonialism visible everywhere, but Japanese habits in people’s lives, Japanese ways of thinking, and a Japanese complex in their consciousness still existed widely in Taiwanese society. This was especially so in the daily life of the central and southern regions, where Japanese elements, including Japanese furnishings and habits, were ubiquitous, and Japanese words such as ojisan, obasan, and yu (hot spring) were interspersed in conversation. Colonial culture lingered in the subconscious of certain people in tangible and intangible ways. In a sense, these were the social foundations for the revitalization of Japanese elements in Taiwan and the gradual manifestation of the Japanese factor in the Taiwan issue after the mid-1990s.

Sunken dregs rise to the surface. As the island’s political ecology has changed since the start of the twenty-first century, the Japanese factor in the Taiwan issue has gradually become apparent. As to the reasons for this, at least three forces are at work simultaneously. First, there are some people who grew up during the Japanese colonial period and were deeply influenced by Japan’s assimilation policy and Japanization campaign. Most of them were born in upper-class families and received Japanese education from a young age, so their identification with their motherland and nationality was weakened and they had a special favorable feeling for Japan. After the KMT authorities moved to Taiwan, some of these people were employed by the authorities or received assistance and support, but they were discontented and resentful of the KMT authorities’ handling of provincial issues and KMT’s distrust of and lack of reliance on local people, such as Lee Teng-hui. After gaining social status and even power, these people have unabashedly shown their pro-Japanese attitude, and tried to bring the Japanese factor into Taiwan, seeking external support for their confrontation with the mainland. Second, there are “Taiwan independence” forces of various kinds. The older generation of “Taiwan independence” activists, who earlier used Japan as their stronghold for carrying out “Taiwan independence” activities. Since the mid-1990s, these “Taiwan independence” elements living in Japan became active under the stimulus of the changing political environment on the island, and have pushed for Japan’s involvement in the Taiwan issue. On the island, the “Taiwan independence” separatist forces led by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), in order to seek Japan’s assistance and support, have tried their best to curry favor with Japan and draw it in. They distort and prettify the history of Japanese colonial rule, preach the “glorious achievements” of Japanese colonial rule, white-wash the evils of Japanese colonial rule, selectively reconstruct Taiwan society’s historical memory of Japanese colonial rule, and deliberately try to instill a wrong view of history in the younger generation. Third, there are right-wing pro-Taiwan forces in Japan. Japan has long had pro-Taiwan forces, some of whom have a strong “Taiwan complex.” They were relatively reticent and low-key on Taiwan-related matters for a period of time in the past, constrained by the overall atmosphere of friendly Sino-Japanese relations. But after the mid-1990s, against the background of changes in the international environment, in Sino-Japanese relations, and the island’s political situation, their “Taiwan complex” was activated and their enthusiasm for participating in Taiwan affairs increased greatly. Feeling lost due to Japan’s growth stagnation and the loss of their sense of superiority, they seek from Taiwan, a former colony, “the qualities that Japan once possessed but has now lost, and a reshaping of Japan’s life,” and hope that Taiwan will play a role in restraining China’s rise. ¹⁰ They noisily advocate a “Japan-Taiwan with a shared future,” closely connect with the island’s separatist forces, and support and participate in “Taiwan independence” activities.

In the past decade or so, the Japanese factor in the Taiwan issue has increased significantly. This is directly related to the fact that the above three factors have floated to the surface to exert their influences simultaneously in a specific temporal and spatial context. Moreover, all of these factors are directly or indirectly entangled with the history of Japan’s colonial rule of Taiwan.

II. Geopolitical perspective

Geopolitics is simply the phenomena of international politics or international relations from a spatial or geographical perspective. Since Swedish political scientist Rudolf Kjellén first introduced the concept of geopolitics in 1899, people have defined it from different angles, with different focuses and points of emphasis. However, most people would agree with the definition that “as a field of study, geopolitics views geography as a fundamental factor that influences and even determines the political behavior of states.”¹¹ According to American political geographer Saul Bernard Cohen, “the real value of modern geopolitics is the scholarly analysis of the geographical factors that underlie international relations and influence political interactions.”¹²

When we take a multidimensional look at the Japanese factor in the Taiwan issue, geopolitics is an indispensable and important perspective. The emergence of the Taiwan issue and the failure to resolve it so far, as well as the long-term presence of external factors, including Japan, are closely related to Taiwan’s special geographical location and geostrategic value.

Taiwan’s geographical location and geopolitical role The island of Taiwan is located on the continental shelf of the southeast coast of mainland China, 75 to 200 nautical miles away from land, facing the vast Pacific Ocean. To the northeast are the Ryukyu Islands, with Okinawa about 335 nautical miles away; and the distance between it and the Philippines is 195 nautical miles. Located right in the center of the Western Pacific region, Taiwan is an important north-south hub connecting East Asia and the Pacific region. For China, Taiwan is an important barrier against maritime invasion and an important passage to the oceans. From a geopolitical perspective, it is the meeting point where land power and sea power collide in East Asia. This geographical feature has made it a bridgehead for Eastern and Western powers to enter and contain China for more than a hundred years, and thus it has become an object of their coveting and encroachment.

As early as the 17th century, when the Netherlands, Spain, and other Western sea powers expanded from the Atlantic Ocean to the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, they believed that Taiwan’s “west side faced two important maritime trading ports at the time in the southeast of the mainland—Yuegang and Nan’ao Port. By occupying Taiwan and Penghu, one could control the supply of Chinese goods and open the door for trade with China. From Taiwan and Penghu, one could sail north to Japan and Korea, and could sail south to reach various places in Southeast Asia. It is the ‘throat’ of the Pacific West Coast Passage.” ¹³ In the mid-seventeenth century, during the Toyotomi Hideyoshi period, Japan included Taiwan in its sights of foreign expansion. After the Meiji Restoration, Japan even viewed Taiwan as a springboard for expansion to the mainland. At that time, some people regarded China as “a place that must be contested in Asia,” and “a place that, if not gotten, you will be in danger, but if gotten, the circumstances will be formed for occupying Asia.”¹⁴ In Japan’s expansion road map, Taiwan, dubbed China’s “fence of the seven southeastern provinces,” became the first important place it would seize. Former Japanese Prime Minister Masayoshi Matsukata once said, “Taiwan to our country is like the key to the southern gate. If I want to advance south and expand the territory of the Japanese empire, I must pass through this gate.”¹⁵ In 1874, Japan sent troops to invade Taiwan. In 1894, Japan deliberately provoked the Sino-Japanese War. One year later, it forced the defeated Qing government to cede Taiwan, making Taiwan a colony of Japan, and then a base for Japan to invade China and Southeast Asia. It was not until Japan’s defeat in World War II that Taiwan was finally returned to Chinese territory.

The Second World War broke down the old world configuration, and after the post-war reorganization, a geopolitical map was eventually formed in which two camps, East and West, confronted each other, and the East-West Cold War began. In East Asia, Japan, being a defeated country, was occupied by the United States and eventually incorporated into the U.S.-led Western camp. The Chiang Kai-shek regime, defeated in the civil war, retreated to Taiwan and used it as a base for a “counter-attack on the mainland,” and it too was included in the Western camp. During the Cold War, the U.S.-led Western countries constructed the First Island Chain, on the west coast of the Pacific Ocean, to blockade and encircle the socialist countries in the East. From south to north, this island chain includes Indonesia, the Philippines, Taiwan, the Ryukyu Islands, Japan, and the Korean Peninsula, with Taiwan playing a special role in the U.S. East Asian strategy as an “unsinkable aircraft carrier.” It is worth mentioning that around the 1970s, with the improvement of Sino-American relations and the normalization of diplomatic relations between China and Japan, the geopolitical environment in East Asia changed, as the tensions on the west coast of the Pacific under the East-West Cold War posture eased, and the value of Taiwan’s use in the U.S. East Asia strategy weakened, but its geostrategic value did not change. From Japan’s cooperation with the United States in the United Nations in 1970 on engaging in “dual recognition” and persuading the Chiang Kai-shek administration to accept “two Chinas,” to Japan’s position on and attitude toward Taiwan during the normalization of diplomatic relations between China and Japan, the importance Japan attaches to Taiwan’s strategic position is clearly reflected. Documents declassified by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs show that, on the eve of the restoration of the People’s Republic of China government’s lawful seat in the United Nations, [Prime Minister Eisaku] Sato’s cabinet had persuaded Chiang Kai-shek’s authorities to accept the “two Chinas” arrangement. This is consistent with Japan’s long-standing idea of attempting to dismember China to remove the security threat.

The Neighbors That Can’t Move Away—China and Japan. China and Japan are two of Asia’s important countries, and are geographically close neighbors. They are also the two main protagonists in the geopolitics of East Asia, and natural rivals. China is a continental country. According to British scholar Halford Mackinder, one of the founders of geopolitics, continental states derive their power from the territories they occupy, and the magnitude of their power is proportional to the number of territories they occupy. In the eyes of geopolitical scientists, China, located on the Asian continent, with its vast land mass, rich resources, and the ability to provide energy, raw materials, and food, has all the potential of a land power state. In his 1919 book Democratic Ideals and Reality, Mackinder wrote that China, as the largest land power state in Eurasia, with a coastline spanning both tropical and temperate zones, would therefore occupy the most advantageous position in the world. He also predicted that China would be on a par with the United States and Great Britain and would eventually lead the world in building, for a quarter of humanity, a new civilization that was “neither Eastern nor wholly Westernized.”¹⁶ As an Asian continental country with a vast territory, China historically has created a splendid Chinese civilization whose influence radiated to neighboring countries in Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, Central Asia, and even as far as Iran and Europe.

Japan is located in the northern part of the western Pacific Ocean on the periphery of the Eurasian continental plate, and is separated from China by a narrow strip of water. It is an arc-shaped island nation extending from the northeast to the southwest, with a narrow, mostly mountainous land area of about 377,000 square kilometers. Japan has many bays and good harbors and is rich in fishing resources, but at the same time it is a country with a narrow land area, scarce energy resources, and frequent natural disasters. In the view of geopolitics scholars, the behavior of states is largely influenced by “spatial factors such as geographic region, natural resources, ecological status, territorial area, and population size.”¹⁷ The completely different natural geographical environments of China and Japan have not only shaped the different traits of the two peoples, but also determined the geopolitical ideologies and policy choices of the two states, which have in turn profoundly affected their relationship. In the thousands of years-long relationship between China and Japan, there has been a history of Japan learning and taking lessons from a powerful China, and there is also the experience of an aggressively expanding Japan invading a declining China. Geographic location is a constant, but the geopolitical pattern is changing because “both geographical settings and political processes are dynamic, and each influences and is influenced by the other.”¹⁸ In the changing geopolitical environment, the relationship between China and Japan is changing, and it also affects the geopolitical landscape of East Asia.

The emergence of the juxtaposition of two powers, China and Japan. In the 1990s, the Soviet Union was dismantled overnight, ending the East-West Cold War that had lasted for more than 40 years. The bipolar pattern collapsed, leaving the United States as the sole superpower to dominate the world. This was followed by the release of the political energies of major strategic forces that had been kept in check under the Cold War pattern, driving the reorganization of geopolitics in the new world. A prominent feature of the geopolitics of East Asia is the juxtaposition of the two powers, China and Japan. Post-war Japan began its full economic recovery and take-off around the mid-1950s with the help of massive U.S. purchases due to the Korean War. After less than 20 years of rapid economic development, Japan by 1968 became the second largest economic power in the world after the United States, and for a long time it played a “lead goose” role in the economic development of East Asia. Since the reform and opening up of China in the late 1970s, China has entered the fast lane of rapid economic development, with an average annual growth rate of about 10% for several decades. With its economic growth greatly boosted, it overtook Japan to become the world’s second-largest economy after the United States in 2010. At the same time, China’s foreign exchanges and interactions have been expanding, its international status and influence have been rising, and it has begun to play an increasingly important role in international affairs, especially in regional affairs. East Asia is witnessing the juxtaposition of two powers as never before.

Increasingly open and connected to the world, China, in the eyes of geopolitics scholars, “as the center of East Asia, has gradually developed a strong ocean-oriented economic base, which, combined with its continental nature, has enabled it to carve out a separate jurisdiction for geopolitical warfare with both continental and maritime dimensions.” ¹⁹ Japan, which in the recent past prided itself on being the only modern nation in Asia, is entirely incapable of adapting to China’s rapid rise. In the view of some Japanese, the effects of China’s rise not only challenge Japan’s position in East Asia, but may even threaten Japan’s strategic security. In fact, Japan’s strategic suspicions of China have been evident for more than a decade, whether in the increasingly blatant treatment of China as an imaginary enemy in official Japanese public documents or in the shift of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces’ defense focus from the north to the southwest. Sino-Japanese relations are beginning to enter a phase of rising mutual distrust and intensifying competition. In this context, Taiwan’s geostrategic importance for Japan has become even more conspicuous. Or, as the noted geographer Robert D. Kaplan argues, with regard to the First Island Chain which contained China and continued to play a role in guarding against China’s rise after the end of the Cold War, “of all the guard towers in the First Island Chain—a sort of maritime ‘Great Wall in reverse,’ Taiwan is in the highest and most central position. Once Taiwan returns to mainland China’s embrace, its role as a great maritime wall and fortress will come to an abrupt end, and the Chinese navy will immediately be in a much more advantageous strategic position. Its national energy, especially military energy, will be projected dramatically outward to an extent that is currently unimaginable.”²⁰ Japan is highly dependent on imports and exports, and sea passages are Japan’s lifeline. Taiwan is on the route Japan must take going south to Southeast Asia and on to the Persian Gulf, and is thus key to Japan’s maritime lifeline. As a result, some people in Japan claim that “if Taiwan were controlled by a country other than Japan, it would be like putting a noose around Japan’s neck that could be tightened at any time.”²¹ Maintaining a state of separation between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait is not only a requirement for Japan’s security interests, but also a strategic need for holding China’s development in check. Taiwan is an important gateway to the Pacific Ocean for China, and Japan, which has had a naval power consciousness for more than a century, naturally attaches great value to Taiwan as an important means of preventing China’s seaward development and growth. This is precisely the reason why Japan’s willingness to intervene in Taiwan Strait has increased since the twenty-first century, and thus why the Taiwan issue, which had existed relatively implicitly in Sino-Japanese relations for some time after the normalization of diplomatic relations between China and Japan, is becoming increasingly visible. The advent of the globalization era has largely changed the geopolitical structure, but in East Asia, the geopolitical friction present between the two powers, China and Japan, is intensifying. While it is uncertain how the future competition and friction between China and Japan will evolve, what is certain is that the contest between China and Japan over Taiwan will not stop, and may even escalate.

III. The Taiwan Strait from a Practical Perspective

In addition to the historical and geopolitical contexts, the Japanese factor has long been present and influential in the Taiwan issue, due to many practical realities within the island of Taiwan and around the Taiwan Strait.

Taiwan’s internal forces have assisted and wooed Japan. Since the separation of the two sides of the Taiwan Strait in 1949, the political positions on confronting the mainland—from Chiang Kai-shek and his son, who aimed to “counterattack the mainland” and “oppose the communists and recover the country,” to the governments of Lee Teng-hui, Chen Shui-bian, and Tsai Ing-wen, who have sought “Taiwan independence,” as well as Ma Ying-jeou, who advocated for “no independence, no unification, and no military force”— were very different and had vastly different policy goals, but they were nonetheless unanimous in seeking support from external forces, especially the United States and Japan, for resisting the mainland. In fact, with regard to the contrast in power between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, at no time since 1949 would the Taiwan authorities have been able to stop the Chinese government’s efforts to unify all of China without the intervention of the United States and other external forces, and the Taiwan issue would not have remained unresolved to this day. In other words, the Taiwanese authorities have always had the desire to draw in and win over Japan to counterbalance the mainland, and this is the fundamental reason for the long-lingering Japanese factor in the Taiwan issue. However, because different ruling authorities on the island have had different basic positions on cross-Strait policies, there have been clear differences of emphasis in introducing and utilizing the Japanese factor. This has, to a large degree, affected the form and extent of the Japanese factor’s presence in the Taiwan issue. The regime of Chiang and his son, who regarded Japan as their helper against the mainland, made limited use of Japan and also limited the presence of the Japanese factor in Taiwan. The Lee Teng-hui and Chen Shui-bian administrations took Japan as an important external force in their “quest for independence and rejection of unification,” pursued pro-Japanese and Japan-friendly policies, and vigorously developed Taiwan-Japan relations, resulting in the full penetration of the Japanese factor into Taiwan’s politics, economy, and society. Against the backdrop of the growing contrast in power between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait and the continuous economic and social integration across the Strait, the Tsai Ing-wen administration, which took office in 2016, has become more dependent on Japan in order to resist the pressure for reunification from the mainland and seek Taiwan’s “de facto independence.” It has made every effort to get Japan’s full support for its political policy of “de facto Taiwan independence,” its economic policy of alienation from the mainland, and its international policy of enhancing substantive relations and expanding its space for activity. By voluntarily casting their lot with Japan, the Taiwan authorities have undoubtedly provided more opportunities for Japan to intervene in the Taiwan issue.

In addition, the gradual spread of a consciousness of separation in the island’s society has also provided conditions for the Japanese factor to penetrate into Taiwan. The two sides of the Taiwan Strait have been separated for more than 60 years, and during this period, the two sides have followed different development paths. Significant differences in their lifestyles exist as well, which objectively tend to cause mutual estrangement and alienation. However, the main thing that has led to varying degrees of misunderstanding and distrust of the mainland among the majority of Taiwan’s population, especially the growth of a consciousness of separation in Taiwanese society, has been the result of the deliberate guidance of the Taiwanese authorities. Lee Teng-hui and Chen Shui-bian, who were in power for 20 years, vigorously pursued secessionist policies and promoted “de-sinicization,” especially among young people, creating a sense of local opposition to the mainland, and thus causing some people, especially young people, to have a confused national identity and a more or less “Taiwanese subject consciousness” and a consciousness of separation. Faced with the further widening of the power disparity between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait and the increasingly strong dominance of the mainland in the direction of cross-Strait relations, some Taiwanese people, including young people, have doubts about the growing closeness between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait and even fear that their current lives may change as a result. Given this social atmosphere, both the “independence seekers” and the “unification rejectionists” are in dire need of external support and reliance, and Japan, which has special ties with Taiwan and shares a common interest in fearing the rise of mainland China, has become an important target for them. Having cast their lot with Japan, they cater to the Japanese right-wing’s position in favor of dismembering China, take the initiative to introduce the Japanese factor into the island’s political, economic and social life and cross-Strait relations, and seek backing and moral support for their “quest for independence and rejection of unification.” This is one of the reasons why the Japanese factor in the Taiwan issue has emerged and grown.

Competition between China and Japan has intensified. China and Japan are natural geopolitical rivals, and the history of Sino-Japanese relations in recent times has deeply planted seeds of mutual distrust between the two countries. After the normalization of diplomatic relations between China and Japan, although both governments have emphasized the development of friendly relations, some issues and conflicts, such as the issue of history, the Diaoyu Islands issue, and the Taiwan issue, have not been properly resolved. The Taiwan issue in particular has been an important bargaining chip for Japan in dealing with China, and how it uses this bargaining chip depends on the status of Sino-Japanese relations and what kind of policy the Japanese government adopts toward China.

During the nearly two decades of China’s rapid rise, Japan has also been making efforts to successfully “become a normal nation,” and the two different demands have begun to meet head-on in the twenty-first century. On the one hand, after more than a decade of economic stagnation, Japan has increased its efforts to “become a normal major power” and enhance its international status; on the other hand, China is rising at a faster and faster pace, and playing an increasingly important role in the East Asian region and on the world stage. China’s GDP reached $6.5 trillion in 2010, surpassing Japan’s $5.4 trillion and making it the second largest economy after the United States. China is still accelerating, with its GDP reaching $11 trillion in 2016, compared to $4.38 trillion for Japan. The reversal of the power contrast between China and Japan has triggered subtle changes in their mutual relations. The main theme of Sino-Japanese friendship that followed the normalization of diplomatic relations between China and Japan has begun to change its tune, and Sino-Japanese relations have taken a turn for the worse. Japanese scholars assess that “this is a reflection of the rising status of China relative to Japan. Japan is under the impact from China, and the essence of the impact it feels lies in the fact that Japan has not yet left behind the ‘Japan = superior, China = inferior’ construct.”²² This merely reveals Japan’s discomfort with China’s rise on a psychological level. But on a practical level, it manifests itself in Japan’s increasingly obvious strategic suspicions and precautions directed toward China. These strategic suspicions and precautions toward China, intertwined with Japan’s foreign policy of maintaining its established strategic interests in East Asia, have pushed the friction and competition between China and Japan higher.

In this context, the status and value of the “Taiwan card” in Japan’s strategy for containing China are rising rapidly. Japanese political and academic circles are gradually heating up over rhetoric such as “Taiwan is Japan’s lifeline,” “Taiwan’s existence is very important to Japan’s security,” and “once China is unified and controls the western Pacific Ocean, China will have a clear advantage over Japan strategically.” According to Fujii Itsuki, a visiting professor at Takushoku University, “from the perspective of Japan’s own national interests, in order to maintain Japan’s prosperity, an independent and free Taiwan is quite important. If China threatens the status quo of Taiwan’s independence, it will affect Japan. Taiwan and Japan can be called a community of life.”²³ Changing from its previous cautious approach to Taiwan relations, the Japanese government has become more proactive and aggressive in Taiwan affairs and cross-Strait relations. Since the Koizumi administration, the Japanese government has changed hands several times, but its involvement in the Taiwan issue has continued unabatedly. After the Abe administration took office for the second time, given the context of increased Sino-Japanese competition and Japan’s more assertive policy toward China, it was inevitable that the value of Taiwan in Japan’s China containment strategy would rise further. In fact, the Abe administration had increased its efforts to adjust its policy toward Taiwan, with Japan-Taiwan relations warming rapidly and Japan’s influence in Taiwan gradually growing. It can be expected that the Sino-Japanese competitive dynamic will continue for a period of time. This means that Japan’s emphasis on the strategic value of Taiwan will remain at a high level, and Japan will further step up its involvement in Taiwan affairs, increase its influence on Taiwan issues, and strengthen its ability to obstruct the development of cross-Strait relations in order to ensure that the strategic pattern in the Taiwan Strait remains favorable to Japan.

The role of the United States. In the postwar period, the United States dominated the Western Pacific region as a superpower, strongly influencing East Asian affairs. Japan is the United States’ most important ally in East Asia. Japan has long followed the United States diplomatically and played an important role in the U.S. Asia-Pacific strategy of maintaining the strategic pattern in East Asia and containing China. Before World War II had ended and while the United States and Japan were still engaged in a vicious battle for islands in the Pacific, geographer Nicholas J. Spykman recommended that the United States “build a postwar alliance with Japan to deal with continental powers such as the Soviet Union, and especially with a rising China. For the United States, this powerful East Asian maritime island nation could play the same role in the Far East as Britain did in Europe.”²⁴ In fact, after the end of World War II, Japan, which was occupied by the U.S. military, was soon incorporated into the U.S. strategic layout for East Asia, becoming the strategic pivot point of the United States for encircling the Far East strongholds of the Communist camp and containing China.

The United States is the biggest external factor influencing the Taiwan issue, and it has also been the instigator and manipulator of Japan’s involvement in the Taiwan issue. The San Francisco Treaty of Peace with Japan, which was manipulated by the United States, stipulated that Japan “renounced” rather than “returned” all rights and claims to Taiwan and the Penghu Islands, laying the groundwork for the so-called “undetermined status of Taiwan.” It also became an important excuse for successive Japanese governments to refuse to explicitly recognize that Taiwan is part of China. That was just the beginning, however. After the San Francisco Treaty of Peace with Japan, the Japanese government of Yoshida Shigeru signed the so-called Treaty of Peace between the Republic of China and Japan with the retreating KMT authorities in Taiwan, recognizing Chiang Kai-shek’s regime. In the 1970s, Japan cooperated with the United States to promote the so-called “dual representation” proposal in the United Nations, whereby China would obtain a permanent seat in the UN and the Security Council while the Taiwan authorities remained in the UN as an ordinary member, in an attempt to create “two Chinas,” all under the control and arrangement of the United States. In addition, since the signing of the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan in September 1951, which established the Japan-U.S. alliance, Taiwan has been included in the scope of the joint defense of the United States and Japan, either openly or implicitly.

For a period of time after China and Japan normalized diplomatic relations, Japan remained unchanged in its cooperation with the U.S. policy on the Taiwan Strait, but was relatively cautious on Taiwan-related issues and was more concerned about the position and attitude of the Chinese government. After 2000, as the United States stepped up its efforts to contain China, Japan’s involvement in Taiwan Strait affairs also increased. In 2005, for the first time, the United States and Japan publicly included the “peaceful resolution of the Taiwan Strait issue” as a “common strategic goal” of both sides. In this regard, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda said, “The United States is strongly concerned about this matter, and there is nothing particularly new about it for Japan,” implying that it was at the insistence of the United States.²⁵ Since Japan’s national interests and strategic considerations do not fully coincide with those of the United States on the Taiwan issue, and it is also constrained by the Sino-Japanese relationship, Japan sometimes is not entirely in lockstep with the United States. After the improvement of Sino-U.S. relations in the early 1970s, Japan preceded the United States in severing official relations with Taiwan and resuming normal diplomatic relations with China. During Chen Shui-bian’s administration, his adventurous “Taiwan independence” behavior led to high tensions in the Taiwan Strait and harmed U.S. interests there, causing serious dissatisfaction in the Bush administration. Although the U.S. government repeatedly issued stern warnings against Chen Shui-bian’s “Taiwan independence” provocations, the Japanese government never made a clear statement on the “Taiwan independence” issue. However, it is worth noting that in recent years, as competition between China and Japan has intensified, the value of Taiwan in Japan’s strategy toward China has risen, and Japan has shown a tendency to actively cooperate with the U.S. Taiwan Strait policy, sometimes taking the initiative to use U.S. power, and even secretly pushing the United States to increase its involvement in Taiwan affairs and strengthen its influence over Taiwan. The United States will continue to play a rather important role in Japan’s involvement in the Taiwan issue for the foreseeable future.

By examining the issue from multiple perspectives, three major qualities of the Japanese factor in the Taiwan issue can be broadly summarized.

Complexity. Due to the combined effects of various factors, Japan is more likely to infiltrate all aspects of Taiwan society than any other foreign factor, including the United States, and it is more likely to form links with Taiwan’s politics, economy, society, and even culture. As a result, Japan’s influence on Taiwan is also relatively extensive and deep.

Long-term nature. Fundamentally, external factors including Japan will exist as long as the Taiwan issue remains unresolved, and Taiwan will be a bargaining chip in Japan’s hands against China. In terms of Sino-Japanese relations, it will take some time to go through mutual adaptation to each other’s changes, reduce strategic suspicion and competition, and then establish a healthy, stable, and mutually trusting relationship between the two countries. During this period, due to its own interests, Japan’s subjective desire to intervene in the Taiwan issue, influence Taiwan affairs, and interfere with cross-Strait reunification will only grow stronger, not weaker, and there will be no reduction in relevant measures. In this sense, the Japanese factor in the Taiwan issue will accompany the whole cross-Strait reunification process.

Diminishing influence. This is determined by the increasing ability of mainland China to lead and shape the direction of cross-Strait relations. As China’s comprehensive national power continues to grow, as the policy measures for promoting the peaceful development of cross-Strait relations become more and more effective, and as the economic and social integration of the two sides of the Taiwan Strait continues, it is inevitable that the influence of the Japanese factor on the Taiwan issue will gradually diminish.