Chapter 7. The colonized in conflict

Abstract

As Japanese military expanded into Southeast Asia and its need for interpreters increased dramatically after 1941, the Taiwanese – who were subjected to Japan’s colonial rule (1895–1945) and proficient in both the languages of the Japanese colonizer and of overseas Chinese and Malay population under Japanese occupation – undertook a conspicuous role as military interpreters. By delineating the career trajectories of eighteen Taiwanese interpreters who were put on trial as war criminals by the British in postwar Malaya and Singapore, this chapter argues that working as interpreters put the colonized Taiwanese into direct conflict with the colonized Chinese and Malay. This work condition made the Taiwanese bear a disproportionally high responsibility in postwar war crime trials, and best illustrated the dimension of “colonized in conflict” of WWII.