Welcome to Taiwan Bar

Today we're going to talk about selling out Taiwan

Which um

Everyone seems to think is a new thing

Goto Shinpei thought Taiwanese people were nothing but a bunch of

To Taiwanese people nowadays, this description is

Yeah, it's pretty on point

Who is this Goto Shinpei?

That's Kudō Shin-ichi

Their names don't even sound alike!

As an intro for Goto Shinpei

Let's start our story with

The Taiwanese were so close

from bonjouring each other like the French The Taiwanese were so close

from bonjouring each other like the French

Because

To understand the importance of this

Selling Taiwan incident with Mr. Goto Shinpei

Let's start from how the Japanese Rule in Taiwan started

In 1895

Japan took over Taiwan according to the Treaty of Shimonoseki

But couldn't handle Taiwan's crimes

All the armed resistances

gave the first few governor-generals a big headache

During the first three years of the Japanese Rule

governor-generals changed back to back to back

Even when the fourth governor-general came to office

He could still hear them blaka blaka blakas

Like Chinese New Year

In fact, apart from the resistance

The Japanese also got the heebie-jeebies from

Taiwan was hot and wet and filled with cutie little diseases

Just to give you an idea

When Japanese troops were busy invading the south in 1895

160 people were killed in action

More than 500 people were wounded

But those who died from diseases were up to

You can tell by the numbers how serious the epidemics were

On top of the casualties

Expenditures were also a big problem

For example, in 1896

Taiwan's public finance-revenue was less than

But the expenditures were up to

How are you supposed to make ends meet

when you're spending three times what you make?

Let's clarify something real quick

あの

The Japanese people that came to Taiwan at that time

May be a little different

from the clean and polite people we know them to be

Because of the hot weather

Some Japanese folks stripped down and strolled around

Making Taiwanese people feel

Not to mention

Corruption

Robbery

Messed up po-po's

Let's just say Taiwanese people didn't have a

very high opinion of the Japanese back then

Making it even worse to be colonized by them

As for the Japanese who were sent there

They felt like soldiers being sent to the Spratly Islands

Taiwan didn't have any decent schools, hospitals or houses

But it DID have a bunch of diseases

It was like being in exile

In fact it was

People dying

Money spending

Both made Mr. Nogi Maresuke

When people back in Japan started throwing shade at Taiwan

The National Diet wanted to sell Taiwan

for a meager 100 million yen to France

A debate we call

If Taiwan was actually sold to France

We could've ended up eating croissants for breakfast

And building Eiffel 101's in Taipei

Just when Taiwan was about to go full bonjour

Even though Taiwan is a hard little nut to crack

If we do

In the end, the Diet decided to give the government one last chance

And Kodama took his right hand man to Taiwan

But at that time, Kodama was also

So most of the time he wasn't even in Taiwan

And the hard work just became Goto Shinpei's job

Goto believed that Taiwan must be ruled by

For example

Flatfish have their eyes on the same side

But sea breams have their eyes on opposite sides

How could you force a flatfish to grow its eyes on both sides?

So let Japanese be Japanese, and Taiwanese be Taiwanese

There's no need to impose Japan's rules on Taiwan

Like when you date someone

You also need to get to know them first

Goto decided to take understand the habits of the Taiwanese population

before creating corresponding policies

First of all

He started with a bunch of investigations

Land

Demographics

Forestry

and old habits to understand Taiwan

Well...you know

Goto observed how marriage and ownership worked in Taiwan

as a reference for legislative and judicial systems

blending in like a chameleon on a rainbow

Now we can finally tell you guys

how Goto Shinpei solved the two major problems

to prevent Taiwan from being sold

First off, the money problem

Thanks to the land investigations

Goto bumped the land rent revenue from

to a whopping

A threefold growing spurt

On the other hand

The Monopoly Bureau was also a huge driving force

towards Taiwan's financial autonomy

The monopoly system meant that

only the government could sell certain things

and it brought in an average annual income of

mainly from selling

Especially from opium

Opium got the whole team on his back,

LeBron James

Filling up the scoreboard

Carrying half the sales

By the way

At that time, opium addiction

was a deeeeep-rooted social problem in Taiwan

But to the government

The business was just easy money

Anyway

Goto Shinpei finally made Taiwan economically self-sufficient

What about the public safety problem?

Goto sent a kajillion cops

Like, a lot of cops

Like, an ant army of cops

along with community-based watch systems

and local militia to protect the world from devastation

But Taiwan paid a high price for this so-called “peace”

Taiwanese people lived under police surveillance

Common folks had to call the police “Sir”

Parents threatened their kids by saying

“The cops are coming!”

And just by seeing the police

Everyone wet their pants

Later on, Goto proclaimed the Bandit Punishment Ordinance

giving the police even greater power

More than 5900 people were arrested

and more than 3200 of them were executed

You can probably guess that Taiwanese people were

pretty well behaved after that

Now, you probably understand a little bit more about how Kudo

How Goto Shinpei prevented Taiwan from being sold to France

To sell or not to sell

Japan weighed its options rationally from a colonial perspective

but also with a romantic touch

to prove itself to Western countries

Anyhow

When we look back at specific parts of history

Avoiding emotional judgments is really important

for us to get closer to the truth

If Taiwan was actually sold to France

What would our lives be like now?

If you still think that's an easy question to answer...

Well, we just wasted 7 minutes!

Okay

After all that talking, I'm a bit thirsty

Let me drink this sake

And we'll see you next time

Bye!