제국 각축관계 하의 타이완인: 인도수용소 경험을 중심으로

Abstract

After Japan launched its surprise attacks on Peral Harbor and subsequently on the Malay Peninsula on 8 December 1941, the belligerent countries immediately took actions to arrest and detain ¡§enemy aliens¡¨ for counter-espionage reasons. British Malaya was no exception. Those Japanese subjects¡Xincluding more than 200 Taiwanese¡Xwho dwelled in Singapore and the Malay Peninsula were initially locally detained and then collectively transferred to India for further internment. They were firstly interned in the Purana Qila (Old Fort) in New Delhi and later moved to the Japanese Internment Camp in Deoli, Ajmer in central India. Finally in May 1946, these internees were relocated back to Singapore where they were waiting for repatriation by ships which could take them home. This article not only reconstructs the lives of internees in the internment camps in India but also compares and contrasts how different belligerent powers treated them. Although there seemed to be no significant difference between their administration, it should be noted that the Japanese military and the British military differed in their actions toward internees. The Japanese military was largely denounced for their ill-treatment and inappropriate practices, such as the shortage of food supply, physical punishments, forced labor, and female sexual slavery. On the contrary, those Taiwanese internees who lived in the internment camp operated by the British military did not experience such cruelty and seemed to live in comfort instead. Some phrases seen in the records of the Red Cross, however, implicitly reveal the existence of racial discrimination against the peoples of the Orient in the gaze of the White people. In addition, in the internment camps Japan¡¦s colonial class structure was still found to be in operation to hierarchically distinguish internees into the Japanese inlanders, the Ryukyuans, and Taiwanese even though they were in such difficult conditions of being physically restricted during the wartime period. For these overseas Taiwanese, who originally had no strong connection with Japanese language and education, living Japanese-style communal lives as well as expressing loyalty to the Emperor and patriotism to the Empire led them to a process of becoming Japanese. These experiences, however, triggered off new predicaments and challenges for Taiwanese afterward in the post-war era when they confronted situations of the change of their nationality and re-Sinicization.