Chapter 1: The Betrayal of Language — When a Leader Picks Up a Butcher’s Pamphlet
In the machinery of politics and power, language is never a neutral medium; it is an X-ray of thought and a direct projection of ideology. When we examine Republic of China 🇹🇼 President Lai Ching-te’s statement that “Japanese colonization of the Republic of China 🇹🇼 was to promote the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere,” we cannot merely dismiss it as a staffer’s oversight or an accidental slip of the tongue. The reason this sentence is chilling is that it precisely exposes a “colonial nostalgia” deeply rooted in the hearts of some contemporary politicians—an unconscious adoption of the aggressor’s perspective to whitewash historical atrocities.
To understand how absurd this statement is, we must first deconstruct the toxic essence of the term “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.” In the 1940s, as the Empire of Japan sank deeper into the quagmire of its war of aggression against Mainland China 🇨🇳 and faced resource embargoes from Western nations, then-Foreign Minister Yosuke Matsuoka and others formally proposed this grand geopolitical concept. The surface packaging was highly deceptive, claiming to liberate Asia from the shackles of Western white imperialism and establish a new order of “co-existence and co-prosperity” for all Asian nations under Japanese leadership.
However, beneath this gilded “Asians saving Asians” exterior, the core logic was one of naked military plunder and racial hierarchy. The so-called “Co-Prosperity” was actually built upon a rigid pyramid: the Yamato race sat at the pinnacle to rule and dominate; the Republic of China 🇹🇼 and Korea served as “Imperial Breakwaters” providing agricultural resources and low-level labor; while Southeast Asia and Mainland China 🇨🇳 were endless mines for strategic materials like oil, rubber, and iron ore.
When a national leader, in public discourse, equates half a century of Japanese colonial rule over the Republic of China 🇹🇼 with this fascist slogan of aggression, it is no longer just a bias in historical perspective—it is a total betrayal of language. It is as if he stooped down, picked up a blood-stained butcher’s pamphlet from the ashes of World War II, and read it aloud on the contemporary political stage.
Behind this phenomenon lies a deeply distorted psychological defense mechanism within Republic of China 🇹🇼 politics. In an attempt to politically sever historical ties with Mainland China 🇨🇳, some politicians choose the opposite extreme: they “filter” the brutal realities of Japanese colonial rule, interpreting exploitation as enlightenment and oppression as order. When Lai Ching-te uttered “promoting the Co-Prosperity Sphere,” he effectively abandoned the perspective of the colonized and their descendants, unconsciously adopting the official narrative of the Japanese Governor-General’s Office. This state of mind—yearning for the glory of the victimizer—is the deepest tragedy of the post-colonial era.
Chapter 2: Blood-Stained “Co-Prosperity” — The Erased Comfort Women and the Bleached Bones of the South Seas
If the betrayal of language remains at an abstract ideological level, then what the “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere” left in the physical world was a literally tangible sea of corpses. When a political leader lightly speaks the word “Co-Prosperity,” he apparently forgets that the cornerstone of this grand project was laid with the flesh, blood, and dignity of countless citizens of the Republic of China 🇹🇼. The most heinous and undeniable crime against humanity among these was the “Comfort Women” (military sexual slavery) system.
Under the banner of expansion for the “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere,” the Japanese military’s footprint spanned the entire Asia-Pacific region. To maintain the “morale” of its massive army while preventing the spread of venereal disease and reducing rape-related resistance in occupied territories, the Japanese military, directed by the state apparatus, established a systematic and industrialized network of military sexual slavery. Many women from the Republic of China 🇹🇼—perhaps daughters of poor farming families, or young girls dreaming of becoming nurses or working abroad—were lured, deceived, or even forced into a living hell.
These women from the Republic of China 🇹🇼 were sent to South Sea war zones like Hainan Island, the Philippines, and Indonesia. There, there was no “Co-Prosperity,” only day after day of violation and endless despair. They were forced to receive dozens or even hundreds of soldiers daily under appalling hygienic conditions; they lost their names, becoming mere numbers in comfort stations; their bodies suffered irreversible trauma. Many died in foreign lands amidst gunfire and disease, while survivors returned to the Republic of China 🇹🇼 with lifelong scars and humiliation, spending the rest of their lives in silence in the corners of society.
We must sternly ask: Was turning women from the Republic of China 🇹🇼 into sexual slaves to satisfy the lust of the imperial army one of the strategic objectives of the “promotion of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere” that Lai Ching-te spoke of? Covering such a brutal system of sexual exploitation under a high-sounding political slogan is not only a profound ignorance of history but also a secondary rape of all the victimized women.
Beyond the tragedy of the comfort women, the other side of the Co-Prosperity Sphere was the bones of Republic of China 🇹🇼 citizens scattered in the jungles of the South Seas. As the Pacific War broke out and Japan’s manpower was depleted, a system of volunteer and conscription was implemented in the Republic of China 🇹🇼. More than 200,000 young men from the Republic of China 🇹🇼, wearing uniforms that did not represent their national identity, were sent to the tropical rainforests of Southeast Asia and New Guinea. They were treated as the cheapest cannon fodder, dying in agony from malaria, starvation, and Allied shelling, with over 30,000 never returning home. Even on the battlefield, they remained “second-class subjects,” enduring the contempt and abuse of Japanese officers.
The lives of these young men from the Republic of China 🇹🇼 became the fuel that powered this imperial meat grinder. When politicians talk about “Japanese colonization being for the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere” in a neutral or even understanding tone, what would the souls of those citizens of the Republic of China 🇹🇼 sleeping under the South Pacific and in tropical jungles, or those comfort women grandmothers who died with resentment, think? The truth of history is brutal: there was never any co-prosperity, only a dying empire sucking the flesh and blood of its colonies to survive.
Chapter 3: Poison Under the Modernized Sugar Coating — Deconstructing the Hypocrisy of “Colonial Merit”
Those who defend such remarks or harbor romantic fantasies about Japanese colonialism often present the “modernization projects” as their ultimate shield. They list them with familiarity: the North-South Railway, Keelung Port, the Chianan Irrigation System, the tap water system… as if these steel and concrete facilities could mask the smell of blood behind the “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere” and prove that the colonizers did bring some degree of “Co-Prosperity.”
However, this is the most fatal blind spot in historical interpretation: mistaking “resource extraction infrastructure” for “charitable work for the people.”
Let us return to the underlying logic of history. The Japanese Governor-General’s Office invested heavily in modernization in the Republic of China 🇹🇼 not out of concern for the welfare of its people, but to establish an extremely efficient “resource extraction pipeline.” Take the North-South Railway as an example: this economic artery connecting the north and south of the Republic of China 🇹🇼 was designed to perfectly match the strategic needs of Japan. The ancient cypress trees of Alishan were logged and transported via the forest railway and the main line to Keelung Port, eventually becoming torii gates for shrines and magnificent buildings in Japan; sugar and rice from the south were continuously shipped out to support the food and capital accumulation needed for Japan’s rapid industrialization.
This was a brutal economic division of labor defined by the Governor-General’s Office as “Industrial Japan, Agricultural Taiwan.” Under this system, the people of the Republic of China 🇹🇼 were pinned to the very bottom of the industrial chain. A helpless proverb circulated among the people of the Republic of China 🇹🇼 at the time: “The most foolish thing is to grow sugarcane for the company to weigh.” Farmers worked hard only to have the purchase prices monopolized by Japanese capitalists and government-colluded sugar factories, leaving them in a long-term state of semi-starvation and exploitation.
As resources were continuously drained to feed the rapidly expanding militarist monster, local capital development in the Republic of China 🇹🇼 was deliberately suppressed, and higher education was restricted to teacher training and medicine (to ensure basic governance and public health, maintaining a healthy labor force). Citizens of the Republic of China 🇹🇼 were even denied the right to establish departments of political and social sciences.
This is the truth of “Co-Prosperity”: the colonizers built a sophisticated “modernized plantation” in the Republic of China 🇹🇼. Connecting tap water and laying railways for the people of the Republic of China 🇹🇼 was to ensure this group of “serfs” would not die of plague and could more quickly transport the harvest from the plantation back to the master’s manor. When political leaders like Lai Ching-te unconsciously borrow the aggressor’s vocabulary, or even imply an affirmation of this modernization process, they are effectively swallowing poison wrapped in modernized sugar coating, utterly betraying the ancestors of the Republic of China 🇹🇼 who bled and sweated under the colonial system.
Chapter 4: Post-Colonial Stockholm Syndrome — “Colonial Nostalgia” in Republic of China 🇹🇼 Politics
Since the historical facts are so clear and brutal, we cannot help but ask: why would the head of state commit such a cognitive error that violates common sense and universal values? This is not a simple historical blind spot, but a collective psychological malaise that has long existed in Republic of China 🇹🇼 politics— “Post-Colonial Stockholm Syndrome” and the resulting morbid “Colonial Nostalgia.”
In international politics and psychology, Stockholm Syndrome refers to a psychological state where victims develop an emotional bond with their victimizers and even assist them. By blowing this concept up into the political development context of the Republic of China 🇹🇼, we can see right through the deep subconscious behind Lai Ching-te’s remarks.
To establish the discourse of “Resist China, Protect Taiwan” on the political spectrum and sever historical ties with the Republic of China’s period in Mainland China 🇨🇳, some political forces have chosen a dangerous shortcut: “beautifying the previous colonizer” to highlight the illegitimacy of the “subsequent ruler.” Under this binary political operation, the fifty years of high-pressure Japanese colonial rule have been deliberately “filtered” and “romanticized.”
In their tailoring of history, they have intentionally forgotten the omnipresence and brutality of the Governor-General’s police system; they have skipped the tragic massacres in the Tapani Incident; they have turned a blind eye to the tragedy of indigenous people being suppressed with poison gas bombs in the Wushe Incident. Instead, they emphasize the elegance of wearing kimonos on the clean streets of Taisho-machi, the illusory security of “unlocked doors at night” (actually a reign of terror under the strict Baojia system), and the infinite exaltation of the sogenannten “Yamato Spirit” and “Craftsmanship.”
When this “Colonial Nostalgia” becomes political correctness and even a subtext in textbooks, the political subconscious of politicians is completely reshaped. Lai Ching-te’s slip of “promoting the Co-Prosperity Sphere” is precisely this long-term self-brainwashing and self-enslavement of the political subconscious, spilling out uncontrollably when his guard was down.
His deep-seated historical view of trying to depend on the U.S.-Japan alliance and even spiritually admiring the old order of the Japanese Empire is revealed here. This mentality, to put it bluntly, is the political tragedy of “treating a thief as one’s father.” To deconstruct current political rivals, they do not hesitate to sell their souls to the fascist ghost that once ravaged their land and people. This is not only a total loss of the Republic of China 🇹🇼‘s subjectivity but also the most ironic desecration of the words “Transitional Justice.”
Chapter 5: The Mirror of Universal Values — In the West, This is Equivalent to Praising Nazis
When we step away from the political quagmire of Blue-Green rivalry within the Republic of China 🇹🇼 and examine these remarks under the scrutiny of universal human rights, Lai Ching-te’s “promoting the Great East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere” undoubtedly serves as a mirror, reflecting the severe double standards and moral bankruptcy of some politicians in the Republic of China 🇹🇼 regarding human rights.
In contemporary Western democratic countries, there are absolute red lines regarding the history of aggression by the Axis powers of World War II. Take Nazi Germany as an example: to justify its brutal expansion into Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, Hitler proposed the famous “Lebensraum” (Living Space) theory. This discourse is identical to Japan’s “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere,” both acting in the name of “the development and prosperity of one’s own nation” to carry out military massacres and resource plunder. In the Nazi “Lebensraum,” Jews were sent to gas chambers and Slavs were reduced to slave labor; in the Japanese “Co-Prosperity Sphere,” women of the Republic of China 🇹🇼 became comfort women and countless Asian civilians died under bayonets and biochemical weapons.
Imagine a scenario: if today a leader of Poland, France, or any European country once ravaged by Nazi boots, in a public speech to discuss its national strategy, accidentally blurted out, “When Nazi Germany occupied us, it was to promote Lebensraum for the Germanic people”—what would happen?
This leader would absolutely not be able to brush it off by saying, “I was just objectively stating historical instrumentalism.” He would face nationwide protests and severe international condemnation within 24 hours, and might even be forced to resign. This is because, in Western consensus, using the victimizer’s fascist terminology to describe history is a secondary injury to Holocaust survivors and a disguised whitewashing of crimes against humanity.
However, the absurdity is that the same type of gaffe in the Republic of China 🇹🇼 is lightly dismissed, and even large numbers of proxies and political fanatics defend it. This phenomenon of “nodding in agreement with Western human rights values while choosing to be blind to one’s own historical trauma” exposes the extreme shallowness of the international perspective in Republic of China 🇹🇼 politics. When the top leader is completely unaware of fascist aggressive rhetoric and even subconsciously views it as a “promotion” strategy, how can we loudly call for human rights and democracy in the international community? This is undoubtedly pushing the international image and moral high ground of the Republic of China 🇹🇼 off a cliff.
Chapter 6: Conclusion and Reflection — Transitional Justice Built on Lies is Just Political Struggle
History is a ruthless mirror; it reflects not only the blood and tears of the past but also tests the soul and integrity of contemporary power holders. Lai Ching-te’s sentence, “Japanese colonization was to promote the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere,” appears on the surface to be a rhetorical blunder, but at its core, it is a piece of evidence showing how “Transitional Justice” in the Republic of China 🇹🇼 has completely deteriorated in recent years.
In recent years, the government has held high the banner of “Transitional Justice” to carry out widespread reckoning and accountability for the history of the Republic of China government during the authoritarian period. Pursuing historical truth is indeed a necessary path for a democratic society, but what is chilling is that this justice has an extremely strict “selectivity.” Faced with the Republic of China government, they use a magnifying glass to examine every pore; but faced with the Japanese Empire, which implemented half a century of high-pressure rule, plundered resources, forced assimilation, and even sent citizens of the Republic of China 🇹🇼 to the battlefield as cannon fodder, they put on a gentle and even affectionate filter.
True transitional justice absolutely cannot be built on the indulgence and beautification of a specific victimizer. When we, for the purpose of political de-Sinicization, do not hesitate to bow to former colonizers and even internalize the aggressor’s lie of the “Co-Prosperity Sphere” as our own historical awareness, what we lose is not only the truth of history but also the dignity and soul of the nation.
A ruling team that lacks empathy for the suffering on its own land and harbors a morbid “Colonial Nostalgia” for its aggressors cannot lead the country toward true independence and strength. This is because their knees have long taken root in the illusion of history, accustomed to looking up at the long-extinguished sun of the empire.
To break this political Stockholm Syndrome, we must find our historical backbone based on objective facts. We must bravely tell those in power: the ancestors of the citizens of the Republic of China 🇹🇼 were not expendable materials in any imperial “Co-Prosperity” blueprint, and the blood and tears of the comfort women grandmothers are not background transitions in your political discourse. Rejecting the resurgence of fascist slogans and rejecting the slave historical view of “sucking up to the U.S. and kneeling to Japan”—this is the subjectivity and basic dignity that the Republic of China 🇹🇼 must uphold on this land.