President Ma Ying-jeou has paid tribute to Taiwanese who resisted against Japanese colonialism at an event on Tuesday marking Armed Forces Day.
Ma said that Taiwan’s struggle against Japanese imperialism began at least 30 years before the anti-Japanese resistance movement began in Mainland China.
Ma cited the examples of the founders of the Republic of Formosa, a short-lived government that resisted Japan’s takeover of Taiwan in 1895. He also noted the names of those who resisted Japanese colonialism through peaceful means and those who joined the Chinese cause during the war against Japan in the 1930s.
Ma said that though they resisted in different ways, all of these Taiwanese resistors showed that Japan was not their country. He said that the sacrifices these resistors made cannot be selectively forgotten.