“I AM pro-Japanese, not anti-Japanese,” Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou declared earlier this month. The occasion was the unveiling of a memorial garden dedicated to a Japanese engineer credited with the construction of a canal and reservoir in southern Taiwan during the Japanese colonial period.

But in rejecting the “anti-Japanese” label many in the Taiwanese media had tried to pin on him in recent years, Mr Ma could not resist including at least one barb. China’s handover of Taiwan to Japan after the Sino-Japanese War of 1894, he said, was a “tragedy”. Indeed, Mr Ma’s self-declared pro-Japanese stance was probably prompted more by political and economic reality than any reassessment of the country’s history.

Although widely credited for much of the reduction in cross strait tension with China since he became president in May 2008, Mr Ma has rarely been in step with Taiwanese public opinion when it comes to relations with Tokyo. Almost alone in Asia, Taiwanese hold little resentment towards the Japanese. In fact, many are convinced that Japan’s colonial rule (1895-1945) contributed to the island’s current economic prosperity through the universities, roads and other infrastructure the Japanese left behind.

Japan is Taiwan’s second biggest foreign investor after the United States. Tokyo is also Taipei’s second most important trading partner and its third-largest export market.

A survey in January last year revealed that a surprising 52 per cent of Taiwanese respondents regarded Japan as their favorite foreign country. The US and China were a very distant second and third respectively. Together with the US, reports on Japan dominate the international news sections of the local media. Interest in Japan is so high that on the day of the March 11 earthquake in Japan, many Taiwanese stayed up late into the night watching NHK, Japan’s public news broadcaster.

Within a week of the earthquake, two televised fundraising efforts in Taiwan had collected $37 million for the tsunami-hit nation. Total pledges – public and private – have since risen to more than $234 million. Per capita, this is higher than any other country.

The comparison with Korea – Japan’s other major colony in Asia – is also revealing. Apart from some initial resistance, there were no major anti-Japanese uprisings in Taiwan to compare with the March 1 Independence Movement in Korea in 1919. One explanation often given is that many Taiwanese saw the 1895 change from the Qing Dynasty to Japanese rule as little more than the replacement of one set of oppressors with another.

Mr Ma’s reputation for being anti-Japanese dates back to the early 1970s, when he took part in a campaign to defend Taiwan’s claim to the disputed Diaoyu island group. Known as the Senkaku islands in Japan, the area and its surrounding waters are also claimed by China. In November 2007, when Mr Ma was chosen by the Kuomintang (a party widely considered to be closer to China than Japan) as its presidential candidate, there were fears that relations between the two governments would sour if he won power.

The early months of Mr Ma’s presidency seemed to underline Japanese concerns. The new President did not merely tilt towards China. Barely a month after taking office in May 2008, his party encouraged a surge in anti-Japanese sentiment in the wake of a collision between a Taiwanese fishing boat and a Japanese Coast Guard patrol vessel in disputed waters. As angry Taiwanese demonstrated outside Japan’s de facto embassy in Taipei, Kuomintang legislators demanded that warships equipped with missiles be sent to uphold Taiwan’s territorial claim.

Even so, the widespread goodwill Japan enjoys among Taiwanese is not the sort of thing Taiwan politicians can afford to ignore for long. Under Mr Ma, Japan and Taiwan have established a mechanism for handling fisheries disputes. Visa regulations have also been relaxed.

More recently, the cross-Taiwan Strait economic cooperation framework agreement, which took effect in January this year, has fuelled renewed Japanese interest in investing in Taiwan. Toray, one of the world’s largest solar cell material manufacturers, has recently announced fresh investments, as have Sony, Mitsubishi and TDK. These companies are reportedly attracted by the favourable tariff status enjoyed by Taiwan products on the mainland.

Some observers even see a viable division of labour between Japan and Taiwan when accessing the Chinese market: Japanese businesses can focus on the research and development of new technologies, while their Taiwanese partners take charge of production.

Little wonder that the Taiwanese President now speaks of a “special partnership” between Taiwan and Japan. Mr Ma may still have his reservations about the past, but there seems little doubt that Japan holds one of the keys to Taiwan’s future.

Copyright © 2011 Singapore Press Holdings Ltd