In the quiet townships of southern Taiwan, history lingers not only in textbooks but in the very stones and soil that bore witness to struggle, loss, and defiance. The story of Taiwan’s resistance against Japanese invasion in 1895 and its complex legacy in the decades that followed has become a flashpoint in a broader, ongoing battle over historical memory—a contest that is as much about identity and politics as it is about the past itself.
On June 5, 2025, a weathered gatehouse known as the "Moon-walking Pavilion" stood next to the manor of the Shaw family in Pingtung County, southeast Taiwan. To a casual passerby, it might seem like just another relic from a bygone era. But for 73-year-old Shaw Kai-ping, it’s a monument to the blood and sacrifice of his ancestors. "It’s not just a building. This land was once soaked with blood," Shaw told Xinhua, recalling how his great-great-grandfather, Shaw Kuang-ming, led local villagers in a desperate stand against 18,000 invading Japanese soldiers in October 1895.
That year, following the Qing dynasty’s defeat in a war with Japan, Taiwan and the Penghu Islands were ceded to Japan. In Pingtung, Hakka communities—led by figures like Shaw Kuang-ming—mobilized villagers to resist. They flooded fields with seawater to slow the Japanese advance and staged ambushes in the jungle. When the fighting reached the Shaw manor, defenders poured boiling water and hurled rocks from the ramparts. Armed mostly with crude muskets and farming tools, they held out for 14 hours before being overwhelmed. Over 100 local defenders died, including one of Shaw’s sons; another son succumbed to his wounds days later.
But the resistance didn’t end there. About 30 kilometers away, the village of Changxing—later called "Fireburn Village"—became the site of the last major stand in November 1895. Chiu Feng-yang, a 66-year-old Hakka leader, rallied 3,000 villagers, including women, children, and the elderly. Despite multiple negotiation attempts by Japanese forces, Chiu refused to surrender. The Japanese responded with heavy artillery, razing the village. "Flames tossed like waves and smoke masked the sky," reads a historical account. Around 250 local fighters, including Chiu’s teenage son, perished. In 1968, construction workers unearthed the remains of these fighters. Today, their bones rest in a small shrine in a park that marks the battlefield.
According to Chi Chia-lin, chief of a Taiwan history research association, nearly 10,000 people in Taiwan lost their lives during the 1895 resistance. Japanese casualties were also significant, with 4,800 killed and about 27,000 injured. The resistance was ultimately crushed, but its legacy lived on—especially among families like the Shaws and the Chius, who have made it their mission to keep these memories alive. Every November, villagers of Changxing gather to pay tribute to these past heroes.
The Shaw family’s commitment to remembrance didn’t end with the 19th century. Shaw Kai-ping’s father, Shaw Dao-ing, was born in Japanese-ruled Taiwan in 1916. Despite colonial efforts to suppress Chinese identity, Shaw grew up hearing tales of defiance. When Japan launched a full-scale invasion of China in 1937, Shaw Dao-ing and his wife crossed to the mainland to join the resistance, with Shaw serving as a medic on the front lines. "My parents believed that it was their mission to fight for the motherland when it was in peril," Shaw Kai-ping said. They were not alone—between 1937 and 1945, at least 50,000 Taiwanese crossed the strait to join the war of resistance against Japan.
But preserving this legacy has become increasingly challenging. In recent years, Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) authorities have promoted a historical narrative that, critics say, downplays the island’s Chinese cultural roots and reframes its history to fit a more localized, sometimes secessionist, agenda. Textbooks have been revised, and cultural programs have been launched that some see as whitewashing Japan’s colonial rule. "It’s painful to see our history being erased or twisted. What they’re teaching the youth is toxic. It severs them from their roots," Shaw lamented to Xinhua. For families like his, the bullet holes in ancestral walls and the scorched earth of "Fireburn Village" are reminders of a truth that persists outside official narratives.
This struggle over memory is not confined to the 19th century. The 80th anniversary of the end of World War Two, marked in August 2025, has reignited fierce debate between Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) over who can claim credit for the victory against Japan. Veteran Pan Cheng-fa, now 99, attended a commemoration in Taipei and spoke candidly about his experiences fighting for China against Japan. "We gave them weapons, equipment—we strengthened them," Pan said, referring to the uneasy alliance between Chiang Kai-shek’s republican government and Mao Zedong’s communist forces during the war. But he bristled at suggestions that the communists played the leading role. "After Japan was taken down, (the communists’) next target was the Republic of China," Pan asserted, alluding to the civil war that followed and the eventual flight of the republican government to Taiwan in 1949.
The dispute over the historical narrative is now a political minefield. Taiwan’s top China-policy maker, Chiu Chui-cheng, was unequivocal on August 15: "During the Republic of China’s war of resistance against Japan, the People’s Republic of China did not even exist, but the Chinese communist regime has in recent years repeatedly distorted the facts, claiming it was the Communist Party who led the war of resistance." The Mainland Affairs Council, which Chiu heads, accused the communists of prioritizing their own power over fighting Japan, stating their wartime strategy was "70 percent about strengthening themselves, 20 percent dealing with the republican government, and 10 percent about opposing Japan." China’s official People’s Daily fired back, warning against efforts to "distort and falsify the Chinese Communist Party’s role as the country’s backbone" in the fight against Japan.
Taiwan’s commemorations are notably more subdued than the PRC’s plans for a mass military parade in Beijing. A defense ministry concert in Taipei on August 21 featured performers dressed as World War Two-era republican soldiers, images of the Flying Tigers—the volunteer U.S. pilots who flew for the republican Chinese air force—and even a rap performance by local group Nine One One. "History affirms that the War of Resistance was led and won by the Republic of China," the ministry declared in its program. Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te marked the surrender anniversary with a pointed Facebook post: "Aggression will be defeated," a clear reference to Beijing’s ongoing military threats against the island.
The PRC, for its part, maintains that it is the rightful successor to the Republic of China and that Taiwan is an inherent part of its territory—a claim Taipei’s government forcefully rejects. Taiwan’s authorities have urged their citizens not to attend China’s military parade, warning that doing so would reinforce Beijing’s territorial claims and its version of history. As the two sides trade barbs over the past, the wounds of history remain open, felt most acutely by those who lived through it. Veteran Pan, whose family suffered after the civil war, summed up his feelings: "I can’t say anything good about the communists."
In Taiwan, the struggle to preserve memory is fought not just in politics and parades, but in family stories, ceremonies, and the quiet persistence of those who refuse to let history fade. The bullet-scarred walls, the annual gatherings, and the shrines to lost heroes ensure that, however contested, the past is never truly forgotten.