Description
Book SynopsisIn Imperial Gateway, Seiji Shirane explores the political, social, and economic significance of colonial Taiwan in the southern expansion of Japan''s empire from 1895 to the end of World War II. Challenging understandings of empire that focus on bilateral relations between metropole and colonial periphery, Shirane uncovers a half century of dynamic relations between Japan, Taiwan, China, and Western regional powers. Japanese officials in Taiwan did not simply take orders from Tokyo; rather, they often pursued their own expansionist ambitions in South China and Southeast Asia. When outright conquest was not possible, they promoted alternative strategies, including naturalizing resident Chinese as overseas Taiwanese subjects, extending colonial police networks, and deploying tens of thousands of Taiwanese to war. The Taiwanesemerchants, gangsters, policemen, interpreters, nurses, and soldiersseized new opportunities for socioeconomic advancement that did no
Table of Contents
Introduction
Part One: Overseas Subjects as Gateway Actors
1. Opening a Gateway into China
2. Taiwanese in South China's Border Zones
3. Taiwanese in Southeast Asia
Part 2: The Wartime Gateway
4. Mobilizing for War
5. Colonial Liaisons in Occupied South China
6. Advancing into the Southern Regions
Epilogue: Postwar Legacies
