The relationship between Japan and Taiwan dates back to 1592 during the Sengoku period of Japan when the Japanese ruler Toyotomi Hideyoshi sent an envoy named Harada Magoshichirou to the Takasago Koku (, contemporary name referred to Taiwan) demanding tribute, but the Japanese envoy failed the mission as there was no central authority existed in Taiwan at the time and the local indigenous population remained largely tribal. The bilateral trading relations continued through the Dutch colonial rule and the Tungning Kingdom of Taiwan in 17th century before the completion of Japan's Sakoku policy. After the Meiji restoration in the latter half of the 19th century, Japan resumed its expansionist ambition upon Taiwan and successfully annexed Taiwan from 1895 to 1945, until the surrender of Japan after World War II. Control over the island of Taiwan was also surrendered by Japan to the Republic of China on 25 October 1945.
After the Japan–China Joint Communiqué in 1972, Japan no longer recognized the Republic of China as the sole official government of China, and official diplomatic relations between the two countries were ceased. However, Japan has maintained close non-governmental, working-level relations with Taiwan. According to surveys, the Taiwanese and Japanese public have very positive opinions of each other.
History Early relations
In 1567, the Ming dynasty lifted legal prohibitions on foreign trade, but maintained a ban on Sino-Japanese trade. Southwestern Taiwan was utilized as a location outside of Ming jurisdiction for Japanese merchants, in particular, to sell silver to Fujianese buyers. In 1593, Toyotomi Hideyoshi attempted but failed at compelling Taiwan, which the Japanese called , into a tributary relationship as the island lacked a unified government. Japan subsequently launched two failed attempts at occupying Taiwan in 1609 and 1616. In 1616, Nagasaki official Murayama Tōan sent 13 vessels to conquer Taiwan. The fleet was dispersed by a typhoon.
The Dutch colonized part of Taiwan as a base for trade with Japan in 1624. In 1628, the Japanese red seal merchant had trading and sovereign conflicts with Dutch authority in present-day Tainan, the incident eventually caused a diplomatic crisis between the two nations when Japanese kidnapped the third Dutch Governor of Formosa to Nagasaki. Shortly after, the Dutch East India Company headquartered in Jakarta decided to reconcile with the Japanese and the bilateral relations restored years later.
During the Kingdom of Tungning era (1662–83), the Zheng dynasty, as the ruler of the kingdom, had a long-time trading relation with Japan since its pirate-merchant era. And the kingdom’s founder Koxinga was a half Japanese himself. Japan bought deerskin, sugar and silk from Taiwan and sold precious metal, porcelain, armors and cotton cloth. Much of the kingdom’s armament were directly imported from Japan. Japanese money could be used in Taiwan during that period and Japanese merchants were permitted to live in Keelung.《台灣史101問》，頁109《臺灣政治史》，頁62-63
Before the Meiji restoration was initiated in 1868, the bilateral relations was interrupted because of the Japan’s isolationist policy.
In 1874, Japanese troops invaded southern Taiwan to attack aboriginal tribes, in revenge for the killing of 54 Ryukyuan sailors in 1871.
Taiwan under Japanese rule
Japan's victory over Qing dynasty in the First Sino-Japanese War resulted in the 1895 Treaty of Shimonoseki, in which Taiwan was ceded to Japan. Taiwan was then ruled by the Empire of Japan until 1945. The Japanese Imperial Army defeated the native aborigine rebels in the Tapani incident of 1915 and the Musha Incident of 1930.
During that time, Taiwan was Japan's first colony and can be viewed as the first step in implementing their "Southern Expansion Doctrine" of the late 19th century. Japanese intentions were to turn Taiwan into a showpiece "model colony" with much effort made to improve the island's economy, public works, industry, cultural Japanization, and to support the necessities of Japanese military aggression in the Asia-Pacific.See Toshio Watanabe, The Meiji Japanese Who Made Modern Taiwan (2022) online book review,
After Japan's surrender at the end of World War II, Taiwan was placed under the governance of the Republic of China.
Modern era
Japan–Republic of China relations
After the war between Republic of China and Japan, during the occupation of Japan, Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida (officially the last prime minister under the royal decree by the Japanese emperor), intended to approach the newly established People's Republic of China economically and diplomatically. However, the US rectified this initiative and threatened to boycott the 1951 Treaty of San Francisco if Japan did not engage with Republic of China (Taiwan) and the later formation of the Sino-Japanese Peace Treaty (a parallel treaty to the Treaty of San Francisco between Japan and the two Chinas that were excluded). The US required Japan to accept diplomatic relations with the Republic of China; otherwise, sovereignty to the country would not be restored, effectively maintaining war with the US and keeping it under US military occupation.
By taking everything into consideration, in the midst of the US creating its containment policy in Asia, Prime Minister Yoshida shifted his stance with regard to the US administration (to then-US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles), as detailed in the Yoshida Letter,Cohen, J p. 50-56, Iriye, A. Cohen, W p. 21-34, Schonberger, H p. 275-285 to negotiate a peace treaty with Taipei instead. Also as a result of ratification of the Treaty of San Francisco by the US Congress and Senate, he officially ended Japan's status as an imperial power, officially relinquishing of the island of Taiwan and Pescadores. These actions were drafted into Article 9 of the new liberal democratic Japanese Constitution which dismantled the country's military capabilities to declare war on another country with the reservation of self-defense limitations and later stipulated the Security Treaty Between the United States and Japan, which was also passed and enacted by the majority members of the new Japanese Diet with subsequent security treaties in the post-war era.
With the eruption of the Korean War and US and UN intervention in that war, diplomatic relations between the governments of Japan and the government of Republic of China were established following the termination of US occupation of Japan in 1952. Japan led the logistics and artillery production/manufacturing industry to support the US in the Korean War, which acted as the major stimulus for the revival of its economy, especially in heavy and light industry, soon evident in the Japanese post-war economic miracle. On April 28, 1952, a formal peace treaty was concluded between Japan and the Republic of China. In Article 10 of the Sino-Japanese Peace Treaty that retrospects:
Bilaterally, Japan had, and still has from members of the Japan Business Federation, strong trading ties with Taiwan. Japan played a key financial role of governmental loans to the ROC government to help with the burgeoning country's economic development on various levels before the Nixon Shock and the severing of ties between the two governments.
In 1958, the Sino-Ryukyuan Economic and Cultural Association was established at Naha, Okinawa, which was the strategic headquarters of the US Armed Forces in the region. In 1972, Okinawa was returned to Japan by the U.S., but the association remained as an institution to foster relations, dialogue and academic exchange between Japan, Okinawa and Taiwan.
Student dormitory case The Guang Hua Liao (Kokaryo) case involved the ownership of a dormitory that the ROC purchased in 1952 to house students, yet the PRC controlled and operated since the 1960s. The ROC, seeking to take control of the dormitory, asked the students to sign a lease contract, and when the ROC received no response, it filed a lawsuit as "the State of China" in Kyoto District Court in 1967, seeking removal of the students living in the dormitory."Sino-Japanese Ties Still Chilly 1 Yr. After Kyoto Dorm Ruling" By Brian Covert, Japan Times, Osaka, Japan, February 26, 1988. https://inochi-life.net/archives_sino-japanese_ties.html In 1977, 10 years after the ROC filed its original lawsuit, the Kyoto District Court gave a verdict: The dormitory belonged to the PRC. The case was appealed in 1982 to the Osaka High Court, which ordered the Kyoto District Court to reconsider its ruling. The Kyoto court did, and in February 1986 the decision was reversed and the dormitory was returned, in name, to the ROC. The Osaka High Court found in favor of Taiwan because of "incomplete succession of government" in the case of "the State of China." In 2007, the Japanese Supreme Court quashed the decision. The Supreme Court held that Japan's recognition of Beijing in 1972 rendered the ROC's representation on behalf of "the State of China" invalid.Annex 5: Supreme Court of Japan Judgment (March 27, 2007), reprinted in 25 Chinese (Taiwan) YB Int'l L. Aff. 139, 156–60 (2007) Notably, the Japanese decision carefully focused on a narrow ground of standing as "the State of China," which Japan recognizes as the PRC. It did not foreclose the possibility of refiling the case as the Republic of China.
Joint Communiqué, 1972
Regarding the "One-China policy", Japan had been an earnest ally to Taiwan, but global politics pushed Japan to overturn its position. As the attempt to belligerently recover mainland China failed and faded and the Republic of China government was expelled, voted out of UN in a General Assembly vote, by majority UN member states via United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2758 (Japan voted against ominous UNGA Resolution 2758), soon after US President Richard Nixon's visit to People's Republic of China in 1972 and the release of the "Joint Communiqué of the United States of America and the People's Republic of China," Japan's Liberal Democratic Party-majority government led by Kakuei Tanaka decided to establish formal diplomatic relations with the PRC. Before this, Japan had already had robust non-governmental trading relations with the PRC without formal diplomatic recognition. According to The New York Times, about one month before Japanese Prime Minister Tanaka travelled to Beijing, Japanese business representatives assured Taiwanese business associates and employees in Taipei that economic relations between Japan and Taiwan would be maintained.
As a pre-condition for building ties with the PRC, Japan abrogated and made defunct the Sino-Japanese Peace Treaty in relation to the Republic of China. According to the "1972 Japan–China Joint Communiqué", the Japanese government fully understood and respected the position of the government of the PRC that Taiwan was an inalienable territory of the PRC, and it firmly maintained its stance under Article 8 of the Potsdam Declaration,Joint Communique of the Government of Japan and the Government of the People's Republic of China "3. The Government of the People's Republic of China reiterates that Taiwan is an inalienable part of the territory of the People's Republic of China. The Government of Japan fully understands and respects this stand of the Government of the People's Republic of China, and it firmly maintains its stand under Article 8 of the Postsdam Proclamation." which stated "The terms of the Cairo Declaration shall be carried out and Japanese sovereignty shall be limited to the islands of Honshū, Hokkaidō, Kyūshū, Shikoku and such minor islands as we determine."
Statements and principles set in the Joint Communiqué of 1972 were written in the Treaty of Peace and Friendship between Japan and the People's Republic of China in 1978. Japan and the PRC agreed to continue abiding by the treaty when former Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe visited Beijing on October 8, 2006.