Newsletter

The Northeast Asian History Foundation (NAHF) has reached its tenth anniversary as of the year 2016. To commemorate the occasion, the NAHF newsletter is featuring a series of interviews to review the progress NAHF activities have made over the past decade and to receive candid advice for the foundation to move forward. In this month's issue, Professor Son Jun-sik of Chung-ang University, who is also serving as a member of the Foundation's advisory committee, discusses historical perceptions in South Korea and Taiwan, offers an outlook on the relations between the two countries as well as advice on the direction NAHF should be heading toward in the future.

Son Jun-sik (Professor, Chung-ang University)

Professor Son Jun-sik earned his doctoral degree in modern Chinese history from the National Chengchi University in Taiwan and currently serves as a professor in the department of history at Chung-ang University. His major publications include “Japan’s Pre-war Contraband Trade Activities in Northern China (1933-1937),” “Changes in Modern East Asia’s International Order” (co-author), “Colonialism and Language” (co-author), “A Pictorial History of Taiwan: From Pre-history to 1945” (co-translator) and several research papers on the history of Taiwan.

Q. As far as we’re aware of, you made a rather unusual choice for a South Korean to go to Taiwan to study the country's history. Could you please begin by explaining why you made that particular choice?

Son Jun-sik I originally didn’t set out for Taiwan with the intention of studying its history. At the time, South Korea had not yet established diplomatic relations with China, so most of those who wished to get involved in Chinese studies went to Taiwan. I too went to Taiwan to study China’s modern and contemporary history. But once I actually got there, I encountered a cultural shock of sorts when I found that people did not carry seriously hostile sentiments toward Japan despite having gone through experiences similar to Korea as a former Japanese colony. Then as part of my doctoral coursework, I took a course on Taiwan’s history for two semesters and wrote a paper titled “Taiwan Yi Xue(義學) in the Qing Period“ (淸代臺灣之義學), which eventually became published in the Academia Historica Journal (國史館館刊). Yet, even after I wrote my doctoral thesis on relations between China and Japan in the 1930s, I was still torn between pursuing research on Taiwan’s history and modern Chinese history. Then I decided to focus on Taiwanese history once I returned to South Korea and got hired as an assistant professor. I guess I ultimately came to believe that studying the history of Taiwan was necessary for the purpose of comparing it to that of Korea.

Q. Although Taiwan is an East Asian neighbor to Korea, the country still seems to be unfamiliar to South Koreans. What do you think researching Taiwan’s history means to historical studies in South Korea?

Son Jun-sik Most South Koreans are fairly ignorant when it comes to Taiwan to the point where some ask me whether the Taiwanese use the Chinese language. Many consider Taiwan not as a part of China, but as an independent country in Southeast Asia. Notwithstanding, the foremost reason the history of Taiwan needs to be studied in South Korea is because it has a lot in common with South Korea in terms of the experiences they each had over time. For instance, the two countries have both been peripheries of Chinese empires, both been under Japanese colonial rule, and have both been at the forefront of anticommunism during the Cold War. Moreover, both countries have been named as one of the four Asian dragons that achieved marked economic development under dictatorship, and even share the similarity of recently electing a female president after undergoing democratization and multiple regime changes. So, Taiwan can serve as a very useful target of comparison when conducting in-depth studies on Korean history during periods such as the Japanese colonial rule or the Cold War.

Another reason to study Taiwan’s history in South Korea has to do with the fact that South Koreans often describe themselves as a single-race nation. Taiwan, on the other hand, is a nation composed of multiple races and languages. Taiwan’s historical studies based on such a diverse cultural background can inspire perspectives or research topics that are unlikely to emerge or are yet to be attempted by Korean academia, which has not fully escaped values of single race or nationalism. For example, “unification” to South Koreans is something that ought to happen, but many in Taiwan are against its unification with China and argue for its independence. That sort of difference in perspective is capable of completely transforming one’s view toward history.

Q. What would you count as things you were particularly impressed by while you were studying in Taiwan or engaging in academic exchange with the Taiwanese later on?

Son Jun-sik I personally found many things impressive, but if I were to name only a few, it would be the fact that the status of women is incredibly high considering the country has been part of the Confucian culture like Korea. For instance, in the 1980s, domestic violence was known to be committed only by husbands. But, in Taiwan, I would sometimes witness on television wives using violence against their husbands in soap operas. I guess such depictions were possible because women had long been actively participating in economic activities and also because women had been traditionally valued in a society that was formed by immigrants.

I was also impressed by how people of old age or those in positions of power, like professors, are not very conscious of their authority in Taiwan and by its social atmosphere that values substance over appearance. I found their sense of nation or ethnicity to be weaker than those of Korea, but that seems to stem from a confusion over their own identity as either Chinese or Taiwanese. What is interesting is that they seem to take a dual approach depending on the situation so when they become sacrificed by China's hegemonism or from the balance between powerful nations, they underline their weak, marginalized position, but take comfort in the traditional sinocentrism from the past whenever their competitors like Korea edge ahead of them in economic development, trade, or cultural industries. These are things we need to understand when we interact with the Taiwanese.

Q. There still seem to be many in Taiwan who remain disappointed at South Koreans. Do you think South Korea's establishment of diplomatic relations with China is responsible for that?

Son Jun-sik The people of Taiwan must have felt hugely betrayed when South Korea and China established diplomatic relations in 1992. Yet, Taiwan's Kuomintang government at the time did channel public sentiment toward that direction to a certain degree. That was because South Korea's entering into diplomatic relations with China and severing those with Taiwan was, in a sense, a diplomatic failure for Taiwan. That may have been why the Taiwanese government tried to cover the failure up by drawing attention to South Korea's betrayal. Of course, the South Korean government did make the diplomatic mistake of failing to notify Taiwan of its imminent establishment of diplomatic ties with China. Nevertheless, South Korea had been of great importance to the diplomacy of Taiwan because it had few ties with other countries and South Korea was about the only channel available to conduct exchange with the United States or Japan. That's why the severance of diplomatic ties with South Korea came as a major shock to the people of Taiwan and probably why they find it difficult to dismiss that memory from their minds.

Q. Taiwan and South Korea both experienced colonial rule by Japan as well as the Cold War. Despite such commonalities, aren't there differences in the way they each remember such experiences?

Son Jun-sik The Taiwanese are indeed fond of Japan, and people like the former president Lee Teng-hui, who was among those in Taiwan who personally experienced Japanese colonial rule, openly share their nostalgia by claiming that "I was Japanese until the age of twenty and I still find it more comfortable to converse in Japanese." Even in Taiwanese academia, the theory that colonial rule modernized Taiwan is accepted without any opposition, so you would expect no less from the general public.

Then how did things turn out the way they have? The reason must be complex, but more than anything, the people of Taiwan became deeply discontent with the Kuomintang's oppressive rule that caused the February 28 Incident and white terror as the party was taking control over Taiwan once Japan lost the war. So much so that the Taiwanese would say that "Out went the [Japanese] dogs, and in came the [Kuomintang] pigs!" I think the fact that activists who pursued Taiwan's independence set their base up in Japan and that Taiwan used Japan to check China's threat of forced unification all contributed to the Taiwanese forming a positive sentiment toward Japan.

From the viewpoint of people who relocated from mainland China to Taiwan, the Kuomintang led by Chiang Kai-shek was in need of the United States' protection during the Cold War, so it had no choice but to cooperate with the United States and its "East Asian strategy based on Japan." As a result, Japan, once an enemy during the Sino-Japanese War, turned into a partner in fighting against Communist China and a supporter in economic development to Taiwan. The reason the Taiwanese were able to accept Japanese products without much objection was because the Japanese established many joint-ventures in Taiwan and because the Kuomintang authorized such joint-ventures.

Although Taiwan and Korea were both under the protection of the United States during the Cold War, the method and degree of such protection was different for each country. The United States armed forces remained stationed in South Korea due to the Korean War, but in Taiwan, only a U.S. military advisory group was dispatched for a certain period of time. Also, when it lost its seat in the United Nations, the Kuomintang experienced the irony of becoming the victim of detente because of the very system that ensured its survival. So, in a sense, the people of Taiwan associate painful memories with the Cold War for allowing the Kuomintang government to internationally represent China, which let the Kuomintang government maintain a lengthy dictatorship and suppress the identity of Taiwan.

Q. Taiwan also has a tragic history involving comfort women under Japanese colonial rule. Are you familiar with how the comfort women issue is currently being dealt with in Taiwan, for example, how things are going with the opening of a comfort women museum?

Son Jun-sik Interest in the comfort women issue among the people of Taiwan is not as high when compared to South Korea. The Taipei Women’s Rescue Foundation (臺灣婦女救援基金會) was the first to start identifying comfort women since 1992 and founded a "Special Committee for Taiwanese Survivors of Japanese Sexual Slavery" (臺籍慰安婦專案小組). Then in 1996, the Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement demanding the Japanese government to compensate comfort women victims.

As for the comfort women museum, plans for the museum were launched through a preparatory meeting for the museum in 2004. Since then, progress has been slow until a pledge made by the Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) helped the museum to finally hold a ceremony on October 25, 2015, Retrocession Day in Taiwan, to unveil the museum's plaque that says "Ama Museum (阿嬤家): Peace and Women's Human Rights Museum (和平與女性人權館)." "Ama" means grandmother in the Hoklo language (閩南語). The museum is scheduled to officially open from September 2016, but it still seems to be struggling with a couple of issues including insufficient funding for its operation.

The reason why Taiwan appears to be less interested in the comfort women issue is because there are only three former comfort women remaining in Taiwan (as of the end of 2015) and also because of the way people in Taiwan remember the Japanese colonial rule as I mentioned earlier. Moreover, since maintaining good relations with Japan was important for Taiwan's pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party, the Chen Shui-bian government (2000-2008) tended to avoid issues like the comfort women issue that could potentially create conflicts with Japan.

Q. What have you been interested in these days? Are there any research topics that you've particularly been looking into?

Son Jun-sik So far, I've mostly been studying how people in Taiwan have reacted to the Japanese colonial rule and I'll continue working on that since there's still much to be done. I've recently been studying the history of Taiwan during the Cold War, but that's still in its early stages. I'm also interested in the Senkaku Islands, which can become a reference case in responding against the Dokdo issue and seeking a resolution to it. I'm in the middle of conducting a statistical analysis on the progress China, Taiwan, and Japan have made on researching the Senkaku Islands and I plan to keep analyzing and studying the outlook on issues related to territorial sovereignty.

Q. You are currently serving as a member of the Northeast Asian History Foundation's advisory committee. Since the Foundation has reached its tenth anniversary as of this year, would there be any observations about the Foundation you'd like to share or advice you'd like to give for its future?

Son Jun-sik I've been the Foundation's advisory committee member for the past three years, but I'm not too familiar with the details of how the Foundation internally works. Still, I think the Foundation's reshuffling into a more research-oriented organization and its holding seminars and international conferences to strengthen international exchange are positive changes that have occurred since the new president took office.

If I absolutely had to give some sort of advice, I believe any organization should be a place where its members have a sense of duty and can take pride in their work, so I hope the Foundation will be run more in a way that can enhance the sense of belonging for its members. Meanwhile, the Foundation seems to face quite a few limitations as a government-funded organization that requires cooperation from several different governmental departments. With all the administrative, budgetary challenges the Foundation is constantly up against in addition to challenges from non-mainstream "jaeya" scholars or activists, what the Foundation needs to do is to make the effort to secure its independence and expertise as a genuine research institute.

There's something else that I've pointed out a couple of times through advisory committee meetings, which is that most of the research projects now being done by the Foundation are short-term, lasting less than a year. There are, of course, all sorts of difficulties such as budgetary issues or the matter of who takes responsibility when a projects runs into problems, but historical research is not something in which progress can be gained within a short period of time. So, more than anything, I hope the Foundation is able to build a system capable of conducting and supporting long-term research projects.

Finally, I hope more support and promotion can be offered for the next generation of scholars. And this is not necessarily because I study the history of Taiwan, but I do hope people remember that there are countries other than China and Japan in Northeast Asia. Taiwan can actually turn out to be useful to Korea in managing its relations with China and Japan. As a matter of fact, taking further interest in not only Taiwan, but other East Asian countries such as Russia or Mongolia would be a welcome change.