The other videos on that channel TRENDING TAIWAN are pretty much the same: for amusement purposes only.
More seriously, it's pretty clear the ROC government is pushing hard on this WWII anniversary and on enlarging its role, as an important component of its perceived legitimacy -- perceived inside the ROC bubble world, that is. Academia Historica just hosted a symposium on it, where they found an American scholar -- another example of how foreigners validate in Taiwan -- to tell them about how it was really the ROC and not the Communists who saved China in WWII. Of course missing from all this narrative is the story of the Taiwanese who fought in the Japanese Army.
Against the ROC.
UPDATE: I should note that videos like this produced by MOFA are not aimed at outsiders. Their audience is quite specific: the Deep Blue bureaucrats above the bureaucrats who actually produced this video. This is merely the KMT praising itself. All the videos in that channel are awful, but this one is bad beyond belief.
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Joe Eaton is an utter disgrace and so is the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Slop such as this demonstrates the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of the fools tasked with running the ROC government. It is time for a Taiwexit from the ROC.
ReplyDeleteThe professor lives in Taiwan. I wonder how he's going to deal with all the foreigners (and even the locals) who recognize him from this video.
ReplyDeleteWell, he is a professor for a Taiwanese university. I may presume too much when I say he lives in Taiwan. Sometimes professors have strange arrangements. He probably lives in Taiwan.
ReplyDeleteAgain KMT is out there wasting our tax dollars to dress themselves up as heroes. Maybe Joe can go to Pyongyang for a job, they need people like him.
ReplyDeleteBased on your description Michael, I was expecting a video talking pushing the theory that Chinese troops tied up a large number of Japanese troops in China which kept them from fighting the other allies thus enabling the allied victory. That would be interesting to talk about. But Mr. Eaton went way off into just plain silly territory that is too wrong to be interesting.
ReplyDeleteBut back on the question of the real Chinese contribution to the war from me, a genuine armchair general and historian wannabe. Russia's killed a huge number of German soldiers and truly did the majority of the dirty work necessary to defeat Germany. But Germany was located on the continent. Japan is offshore. And the allies never invaded the home islands. The non-Chinese allies did fight some pretty nasty battles with Japanese troops in places like Guadacanal, Tarawa, and other islands. But those were islands. If America could control the seas around them, and with America's ability to produce ships and planes that would happen sooner or later, the islands would be cut-off from reinforcements and eventually fall no matter how many Japanese troops were available but unable to get there. The places it might have really mattered were those areas on the continent where Japanese troops might have reached by marching - Burma for example. Where else might they have gone, and would it have made any difference in America's ability to eventually control the islands and seas around Japan?
I would say Joe has a little teleprompter problem. It wouldn't hurt for him to be a little less wooden with his gestures either.
ReplyDeleteI'm curious to know why they chose a white, presumably North American, person to be the face of this propaganda video. Since it is presented in (turgid) english, who is the intended audience? And since simple fact checking could refute much of the content, who are they trying to fool?
ReplyDeleteI think teleprompter problem + woodeness are a response to the completely idiotic things he has to say.
ReplyDeleteMichael
He he is an assistant professor at Chengchi university, the political propaganda university of the KMT.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with those Taiwanese working for Japan in WWII not getting any recognition has nothing to do with the ROC. The US government has never officially honored Confederate veterans. The problem is Japan has never recognized Taiwanese who served them in WWII as being genuine Japanese. You need to protest to Japan, not to the ROC, for recognition of Taiwanese who served Japan against the ROC.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the moderator is amusing. However, the assertion that the ROC made a major contribution to the defeat of Japan is not in any way an exaggeration. The US never fought more than a fraction of the Japanese army. At the end of the war, Japan had a third of its army tied up in China, and another third defending Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. The US faced only the remaining third. Early in the war, Japan had around 60 percent of its army in China. China tied down a huge portion of Japan's forces, and paid a big price in doing so.
ReplyDeleteIn everything I've read on this subject, the very best book would have to be "The Wars for Asia 1911-1949" by S.C.M. Paine. It is very well researched, and anyone having the patience to read it will greatly improve their understanding of this period in ROC history. It is no ROC puff piece, and in a war full of atrocities, describes some committed by the ROC as the greatest ones of the war. One was Chiang's breaching of the Yellow River dikes, which killed almost a million people. Another was the torching of Changsha by the governor of Hunan when he thought the Japanese were about to take the city, creating hundreds of thousands of refugees. Before reading this, I thought a lot of these guys were just gangsters, pure and simple, but I now see that everything was much too complex to allow simple judgements of these people, who had many difficult decisions to make at a bad time.
Love this blog, BTW. Very colorful commentary--keep up the good work!
It looks as if the good folks at the MOFA have waded into the mess and are now supporting the videos with fake thumbs-ups and comments. What a disgrace.
ReplyDelete"...to tell them about how it was really the ROC and not the Communists who saved China in WWII"
ReplyDeleteMichael, are you implying that it was the CCP that saved China in WW2?
Brian's comments are to the point - the Allies kept the Nationalists supplied with war materials along the Burma Road, prior to Japan's attack on Pearl Harbour, and then subsequently "Over the Hump" to enable them to continue to fight against the Japanese . Although Stalin and I think Russians subsequently have belittled the Allies supply effort to them during WWII, it is acknowledged that the war materials sent to Russia via the Arctic Convoys from Britain played a key role in arming the Russians to enable them, at enormous cot in Russian lives, to tie down and sap the strength of Nazi Germany. I don't think there is one key element that enabled the Allies to win WWIi, although the ability of the US to become the Allies armoury was certainly important. Anyway great video - loved the trumpets sounding as each point was concluded. I don't think the Mpnty Python team could have come up with this stuff!
ReplyDeleteMichael, are you implying that it was the CCP that saved China in WW2?
ReplyDeleteNo, I'm just referring to the ongoing propaganda war between the two. It was neither the ROC nor the CCP, but the brutal terrain of China's interior and Japan's primitive logistics that held back Tokyo's wave of expansion.
Michael
I hate it when I have to dress up for Halloween at my buxiban, but thank God I don't have to do anything like this. I didn't laugh. I just cringed. I notice that he pronounced the "b" in "debt" around 3:20, or maybe he actually said "owe a depth of gratitude", like a hostage reading a statement written by his captors.
ReplyDelete@Anonymous 12:05
ReplyDeleteEven if Japan had had 90% or 10% instead of 60% of it's army tied down in China, what difference would it have made? The war was eventually won by dropping atomic bombs on Japan from Bombers stationed on islands in the Pacific. How would having fewer or more soldiers in or around the cities being annihilated killed by those atomic bombs have mattered to the outcome of the war? To take the islands, which were defended by about as many Japanese as could fit on them, America relied on controlling the seas around them. How would more Japanese soldiers have prevented American ships and planes from defeating Japanese ships and planes at Midway, Coral Sea, the Phillippines, etc.?
Had an invasion of Japan been necessary, then having so many Japanese soldiers bogged down in China would have been a huge deal. Fortunately for every both Japan and the Allies that wasn't necessary.
Brian Castle
ReplyDelete"And the allies never invaded the home islands."
So you think Okinawa is part of China?!
"The war was eventually won by dropping atomic bombs on Japan ..."
Did Joe Eaton tell you that?
http://www.lonesentry.com/articles/jp_ormoc/index.html
CERAMIC HAND GRENADE
"New Weapons Captured at Ormoc" from Intelligence Bulletin, March 1945
"this grenade is easy to throw, but the thrower must be careful not to strike a nearby hard object, such as a tree, as the porcelain shatters easily.
This grenade is entirely a concussion weapon, as there is considerable blast but little fragmentation resulting from the explosion."
Japan was already defeated. US controlled sea and air. Not only did soldiers have no material for weapons or fuel, they had no food. People were starving and dying that year and after the surrender.
Okinawa is not considered a "home island."
ReplyDelete@Anonymous6:38 "So you think Okinawa is part of China?!" I believe it is possible for a place to be neither part of China nor one of the Japanese home islands.
ReplyDelete"Japan was already defeated. US controlled sea and air."
Japan had defended to almost the last man a number of islands with little historical importance to Japan. On Saipan even many of the civilians were persuaded to kill themselves rather than be subject to an American military government. Does that sound like a country that would surrender without bother to even try defending their home even though as you say, they had no material or food? And I think you make my point anyway when you say that US controlled air and sea and Japan had no materials. The war in China, as far as I can tell, wasn't necessary to create the American control of air and sea. And it was American control of air and sea that prevented Japan from getting materials and thus prevented Japan from re-creating their naval and air power.
The ROC owes the US a debt too... US$186,000,000 to be precise. How about paying that off before asking for gratitude?
ReplyDeletehttp://taiwaninfo.nat.gov.tw/fp.asp?xItem=5601&CtNode=103&mp=4
What are "extra-torriterial rights"? Shameful for a PhD even if the video content were flawless.
ReplyDelete