Wushe Incident - Consequences

Consequences

The Japanese authorities responded with unprecedentedly harsh military action. A press blackout was enforced, and Governor General Eizo Ishizuka ordered a counter-offensive of two thousand troops to be sent to Wushe, forcing the Seediq to retreat into the mountains and carry out guerrilla attacks by night. Unable to root out the Seediq despite their superior numbers and firepower, the Japanese faced a political need for a faster solution. Consequently, Japan's army air corps in Taiwan ordered bombing runs over Wushe to smoke out the rebels, dropping tear gas bombs in what was allegedly the first such use of chemical warfare in Asia. The uprising was swiftly quelled, with any remaining resistance suppressed by the third week of December 1930; Mona Rudao had committed suicide on November 28, but the uprising had continued under other leaders. Of the 1200 Seediq directly involved in the uprising, 644 died, 290 of which committed suicide to avoid dishonour.

Due to internal and external criticism of their handling of the incident, Governor-General Kamiyama and Goto Fumio, his chief civil administrator, were forced to resign in January 1931. However, Kamiyama's replacement, Ota Masahiro, also took a harsh approach to controlling Taiwan's indigenous peoples: certain tribes were disarmed and left unprotected, giving their aboriginal enemies an opportunity to annihilate them on behalf of the Japanese administration. Around 500 of the Seediq involved in the Wushe Incident surrendered and were subsequently confined to a village near Wushe. However, on April 25, 1931, indigenous groups working with the Japanese authorities attacked the village, killing all remaining males over the age of 15. This came to be known as the "Second Wushe Incident", and Ota was recalled in March 1932.

However, the uprising did effect a change in the authorities' attitudes and approaches towards aborigines in Taiwan. Wushe had been regarded as the most "enlightened and compliant" of the aboriginal territories, and the colonial power's inability to prevent the massacre provoked a fear of similar nationalist movements starting in Taiwan, Korea, and Japan itself. A change in policy was clearly needed. Ching suggests that the ideology of imperialisation (kominka) became the dominant form of colonial control; aborigines became represented as imperial subjects on equal footing with other ethnic groups in Taiwan, and were upgraded in status from "raw savages" to takasagozoku (高砂族?, "tribal peoples of Taiwan"). Furthermore, pro-Japanese education was intensified, tying Taiwanese civility to Japanese culture and loyalty to the emperor in the younger generation. In this way, the Japanese authorities were able to play the Taiwanese-Chinese and indigenous peoples against each other to encourage competing in loyalty to the colonial forces.