2014-1-13

最近看见虎妈在2007年写的一本书《帝国时代 - 超级强权为什么兴衰？》（Day of Empire–How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance and Why They Fall），是前一阵十分走红的华裔耶鲁大学法学院法学特聘教授（John M. Duff, Jr. Professor of Law）蔡爱美（Amy Chua）为全美高中学生编写的大学（AP课）历史教材，女儿们正在读。翻了翻其中的第十章，轴心国的兴亡（The Rise And Fall of The Axis Powers），有一段是关于日本对于台湾治理的（即台湾人常说的所谓日治时代），颇有意思。

蔡爱美说：日本自1895年攫取并占领台湾后，在当地实行了比较成功的政治、经济、文化和教育政策。尤其是对台湾精英阶层的收买，深得普罗大众的喜爱，尽管在占领的初期，于镇压台湾人民反抗方面也不无遗憾。假如在二战期间，日本对缅甸、印尼和朝鲜等新军事占领区也采用同样的政策，其大东亚共荣圈的军国主义诉求，或有不一样的结局：

• The Island of Formosa, today called Taiwan, fell under Japanese control in 1895 after Japan’s victory against China in the first Sino-Japanese war. At that time, Japan was still riding the crest if Meiji-modernization and industrialization and had not yet fallen under the sway of its ultranationalist military camp, which would later rise to power in the 1930s. Formosa, Japan’s first official colony, not only a great strategic interest because of its proximity to China; it also represented an opportunity to showcase Japan’s emergence on the global scene as a modernizing imperialist force. For whatever reason, Japan’s occupation of Formosa differed strikingly from the policies it pursued in places like Burma, Indonesia, and Korea during the World War II.

• To begin with, in the decades after taking over Formosa, the Japanese Did not actively suppress the local culture. Whereas later the Japanese would ban from speaking and teaching in their own language, they permitted Formosans to speak their native Chinese dialect, taught Taiwanese children both Chinese and Japanese in Japanese-funded schools, and trained their colonial officers to speak Chinese as well.  In 1922, Japanese authorities integrated the island’s elite primary schools, allowing children of the Taiwanese gentry to study side by side with the children of Japanese colonials. 

• One of the most important Formosan institutions that the Japanese left in place was the Chinese Pao-Chia system of local governance, under which groupings of approximately one hundred households were made collectively responsible for wrongful acts committed by individual members.  BY making use of the pao-chia system and allowing influential Formosan families to maintain their positions of leadership, the Japanese gained the loyalty of local elites.  To the same end, Japanese colonial authorities granted businesses privileges to prominent Formosans, occasionally bestowing on them the rank of “gentleman” (shinsho).  At the same time, The Japanese poured money into Formosan infrastructure and agriculture.  They modernized Formosa’s banking system; build roads, railroads, and hospitals; and farming productivity. Crop yields increased so much than even after massive exportation of rice to Japan, Formosans are relatively well compared to Chinese on the mainland.

• There was certainly Japanese repression in Formosa, even before World War II. It is estimated that the Japanese military killed as many as 12000 Formosan resisters during the initials period of Japanese rule. Yet to a surprising extent Japanese colonial authorities won over the local population. Eighty thousand Formosans served voluntarily in the Japanese army in World War II. Even today, many Taiwanese have an affinity for Japanese culture. Some who are old enough to remember the occupation still speak Japanese on occupation and remember the colonizers as people who brought order, modernity, and the rule of law. Had the Japanese pursued similar policies elsewhere in the “Co-Prosperity Sphere”, their bit for imperial hegemony might have been far more successful.

看日本人后来对于满洲国的治理，以及台湾的二二八事件，所言或许不虚。

其实当初日本对于台湾这张天上掉下来的馅饼，确实是欣喜若狂，也煞费苦心，当做日本本土来治理的。根据台湾学研究中心（Taiwan Study Research Center）提供的材料，自1898年开始，日本人治下的台湾总督府首先依照《日本帝国统计年鉴》的统计项目，首先对台湾的土地、人口、习俗、教育、民事、法律等十二大类民生项目进行大规模调查，作为各级政府历年施政参考和宣示政绩的重要依据。而且在其户口调查中，分为本岛人（包括福建人、广东人、土著人等）、内地人和外国人三类。其中的内地人，指的就是日本人，而外国人，则是指我们大清国的人。

同时在统治初期，语言方面产生极大的交流障碍，于是日本政府就在全力推行日语（国语）的同时，也展开对当地语言的调查、整理、记录和推广。无形中对当地文化、教育、社会、政治、经济、与产业的现代化，起到极大的推动作用。

研究和正视这一切，当然不是为了美化日本人的统治，更不是为了政治上的正确，而是想，在真实的历史上，曾经有过那么一段时期，不被主流媒体所提及，却未必不值得我们去回味。