WI: Japanese armed forces in Taiwan declare a republic after the surrender of Japan in WWII

For starters they wouldn’t want to be seen as oppressors and foreign dominators in the face of a people seeking self determination after they had already crushed an insurgency.
Secondly the US was losing faith rapidly in the KMT while it was falling and it was not guaranteed that the communists couldn’t reach the islands, there was an expectation that the island would fall. An independent Taiwan might even be considered one of the only avenues to keep the island out of communist hands at that point.

Given how supportive Taiwan was for Imperial Japan compared to Korea (there's a reason why the Japanese felt comfortable conscripting more Taiwanese per capita compared to Koreans), nobody is going to care for what the Taiwanese want, especially when Chiang can count on the China Lobby in DC to lobby for him on an island nobody cares about.
 
I don’t think those two things follow.
What I mean is that since Taiwan's attitude towards Japanese rule was relatively accepting (Japan got a lot of volunteers, and then got conscription in 44-45 with a minimum of fuss, not to mention the lack of resistance compared to Korea), no Allied government is going to care if the Taiwanese suddenly decide they don't want to be part of the ROC in the post war settlement.
 
What I mean is that since Taiwan's attitude towards Japanese rule was relatively accepting (Japan got a lot of volunteers, and then got conscription in 44-45 with a minimum of fuss, not to mention the lack of resistance compared to Korea), no Allied government is going to care if the Taiwanese suddenly decide they don't want to be part of the ROC in the post war settlement.
Yeah...I mean that’s what you just said isn’t it. I don’t see why this would make their position weigh through any less than any other colonized nation. It’s not like they were an axis ally like Hungary or Thailand, they were still a colonized people. What DOES make their position weigh less through than other nations is that Taiwan used to be part of China and the people there mostly originated from there. This factor would be largely offset though by the reasons I mentioned.
 
Yeah...I mean that’s what you just said isn’t it. I don’t see why this would make their position weigh through any less than any other colonized nation. It’s not like they were an axis ally like Hungary or Thailand, they were still a colonized people. What DOES make their position weigh less through than other nations is that Taiwan used to be part of China and the people there mostly originated from there. This factor would be largely offset though by the reasons I mentioned.
There were a lot of Koreans who went and fought the Japanese.

The most you can say about Taiwan in WWII is that the people were passive at best (and that's debatable, given how Japan trusted them enough to conscript without slave labor, compared to the Koreans), and the Allies aren't going to forget that. No one is going to reward the fence sitters (even they if rise to that pathetic level).
 
There were a lot of Koreans who went and fought the Japanese.

The most you can say about Taiwan in WWII is that the people were passive at best (and that's debatable, given how Japan trusted them enough to conscript without slave labor, compared to the Koreans), and the Allies aren't going to forget that. No one is going to reward the fence sitters (even they if rise to that pathetic level).
This is not really a ‘rewarding freedom’ issue I’d say. It’s more about weighing options in geopolitical manuevering in what was a very unpredictable region of the world at the time and allowing the Taiwanese to establish their republic might be considered a sensible option in the face of the events happening in mainland China back then.
 
Again, compared to the Chinese who DID fight... what exactly did the Taiwanese do to defeat the Japanese? Now if they’d risen up after say, the PI liberation and rebelled against the japense, THAT might be a different story, if it was entirely a native thing, and not an IJA corps playing Warlords...
 
Again, compared to the Chinese who DID fight... what exactly did the Taiwanese do to defeat the Japanese? Now if they’d risen up after say, the PI liberation and rebelled against the japense, THAT might be a different story, if it was entirely a native thing, and not an IJA corps playing Warlords...
(I still think that with the geopolitics of the day the taiwanese could have found some support regardless but this raises am interesting possibility.)

What if during the Japanese takeover some Taiwanese wanted a genuinely independent Taiwan and formed a party that was opposed to the Japanese militants? What if they optionally eventually assisted the allies in combating the Japanese? Maybe, when the KMT is falling, a Taiwanese uprising could occur that has been agitated by this party and rallies behind this party, that has already shown to be cooperative with the allies.
 
What if during the Japanese takeover some Taiwanese wanted a genuinely independent Taiwan and formed a party that was opposed to the Japanese militants? What if they optionally eventually assisted the allies in combating the Japanese? Maybe, when the KMT is falling, a Taiwanese uprising could occur that has been agitated by this party and rallies behind this party, that has already shown to be cooperative with the allies.

They would have likely been sidelined by the KMT long before the defeat of the RoC in the Chinese civil war
 
(I still think that with the geopolitics of the day the taiwanese could have found some support regardless but this raises am interesting possibility.)

What if during the Japanese takeover some Taiwanese wanted a genuinely independent Taiwan and formed a party that was opposed to the Japanese militants? What if they optionally eventually assisted the allies in combating the Japanese? Maybe, when the KMT is falling, a Taiwanese uprising could occur that has been agitated by this party and rallies behind this party, that has already shown to be cooperative with the allies.

The problem is that virtually all Han opposition to Japanese occupation was some flavor of Chinese nationalism or the other.

Any actual TI party would be pretty much on the fringes, meaning the Allies won't care about them very much one way or the other.
 
This is not really a ‘rewarding freedom’ issue I’d say. It’s more about weighing options in geopolitical manuevering in what was a very unpredictable region of the world at the time and allowing the Taiwanese to establish their republic might be considered a sensible option in the face of the events happening in mainland China back then.

This is looking at history with hindsight. No US decision maker is likely to support Taiwanese indepedence with the KMT at its height in 1945.
 
The problem is that virtually all Han opposition to Japanese occupation was some flavor of Chinese nationalism or the other.

Any actual TI party would be pretty much on the fringes, meaning the Allies won't care about them very much one way or the other.
This wouldn’t be Han opposition to Japanese occupation. It would be a party that is pro-independence as well and is actually emboldened by the Japanese just in a way that is more truly independent, trying to counter any elements within the country that would want to see the country annexed into another country or heavily in the influence of another country.
This is looking at history with hindsight. No US decision maker is likely to support Taiwanese indepedence with the KMT at its height in 1945.
We’re looking at 1949 not 1945 in that context. The KMT was falling down.
 
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