On November 28, 2015, the international symposium "Taiwan's Past and Present" was held in Tokyo, where researchers from Russia, Japan and China took part.

This is the second symposium organized by the Takuseku University Center for International Scientific Cooperation as part of the trilateral Japanese-Russian-Taiwanese research project "Taiwan under Japanese Rule: A New Perspective on History", implemented since 2013 by Takuseku University in cooperation with the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Taiwanese History of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Taipei). The previous symposium "Japan's Colonial Policy: A View from the West" was held there on November 29, 2014 (see: [Vostok (Oriens), 2015, N 3, pp. 144-146]).

Opening the symposium, Toshio Watanabe, President of Takusyoku University and Head of the Center for International Scientific Cooperation, said that the Center for Taiwan Studies, created with the support of the Taipei-Tokyo Commission for Economic and Cultural Cooperation, will open at the Institute of International Relations of Takusyoku University on April 1, 2016. He noted that the implementation of this plan was helped by the success of last year's event, which was highly appreciated in Japan, Taiwan and Russia, and urged participants not to reduce the level of work. Watanabe expressed the hope that the next symposium of the trilateral project, scheduled for the end of November 2016, will be held with the closest participation of the staff of the new center, and called on Taiwan specialists to actively cooperate with it.

Four presentations were delivered at the symposium.

V. E. Molodyakov (IB RAS) turned to such a little-known category of sources as "notes of tourists". Among travel descriptions, the most valuable are the notes of scientists and other authors, whose knowledge and qualifications allow not only to collect the maximum possible amount of new information, but also to analyze the information from the point of view of its reliability. Such sources form the basis of further research and remain valuable for many decades, or even centuries (as an example, the author cited the notes of an officer of the Russian Navy Pavel Ibis about a trip to Taiwan in early 1875). Researchers also pay attention to the travel notes of famous writers

Vasily MOLODYAKOV-Doctor of Political Science, Professor at Takuseku University (Japan), leading researcher at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. dottore68@mail.ru

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and artists, even if their value from the point of view of the reported information is low. Such texts are considered not only and not so much as a historical source, but as a literary work that has artistic merit and is significant for the creative path of the author. However, the best works of this genre also have historical value, like books about Japan by Ivan Goncharov or Rudyard Kipling. What is the value of the notes of ordinary "tourists" who do not have special knowledge, do not know how to analyze the information received and are devoid of literary talent?

Texts of this kind, especially those devoted to travel to countries and regions that are under strict control of the authorities, do not reflect what the authors "saw" and "heard", but what they were "shown" and "told", as well as what they were not shown or told. In other words, they are a mirror of the politics and propaganda of the "host party". Choosing as the subject of the study the books of three Americans: writer and traveler Courtney Bigelow, author of popular books about "distant lands" Harry Frank and educator Harold Vogt, who visited Taiwan in the first half of the 1920s, the speaker analyzed what was shown to visitors depending on their status (Bigelow and Vogt were officially received by the General Assembly).- governorship, Frank was an ordinary tourist) and "trustworthiness", although all three were pro-Japanese (Bigelow is a "seasoned" Japophile to the greatest extent, Frank is very independent). Bigelow was given a tour of the prison, Vogt was allowed to watch a professional opium taster, and the "untested" Frank was barred from the opium section of the Bureau of State Monopolies. The authors evaluated what they saw in Taiwan positively and sometimes admiringly, primarily from the point of view of the "civilizing activities" of the Japanese, starting with urban planning and infrastructure and ending with sanitary conditions. The "host" could be fully satisfied not only with the apologetic writings of Bigelow and Vogt, but also with Frank's book, which contained some critical remarks and observations about the increased militarization of the island and the distrust of local authorities towards foreigners.

A report by Chinese researcher Chen Yun-lin (Un-ta Takuseku Institute of Japanese Culture), who previously worked in the UK and Taiwan, "Port development and the right to use coastal land in colonial Taiwan", was devoted to an important, but still insufficiently studied aspect of legal relations on the island in the pre-colonial and early colonial periods. While the work of the Japanese authorities to compile, in parallel with the per capita census, a land cadastre and description of Taiwan's forest and grasslands in order to establish their owners and the legality of ownership rights has long been described in the literature, the regulation of the legal regime of the coastal strip, which was primarily of strategic importance for the new owners of the island, is reflected almost exclusively in unpublished documents. The researcher conducted a comparative analysis of coastal land lease rights in mainland China and Taiwan in the last quarter of the 19th and early 20th centuries, showing on the basis of archival documents what changes were made to this practice by the Japanese authorities.

The report is interesting from the point of view of the history of not only colonial policy, but also international relations, since changes in the land lease regime in coastal and port areas with the transition of Taiwan to Japanese administration affected primarily foreigners-subjects of the "great powers". In the pre-colonial period, they were in a privileged position, in particular, they enjoyed the right of extraterritoriality, as in mainland China. By the time Taiwan came under Japanese rule, Japan had achieved the abolition of unequal treaties with the "great Powers" and revoked the right of extraterritoriality of their subjects in its territory, which included Taiwan. Foreigners who received property and lease rights from the former Chinese authorities of the island had to re-register them in accordance with new Japanese laws and regulations, which deprived them of a number of privileges. References to previous rights did not help, although the Japanese authorities, especially in the early years of the colonial period, tried not to complicate relations with the subjects of the "great powers" if they did not oppose them and were not openly anti-Japanese.

Mitsuko Tamaki's paper "Local self-government in Colonial Taiwan from the Taihoku Archives" (Institute of International Relations, Takuseku University) continued the theme of her presentation at the previous symposium. Working in Taiwan for several years, the researcher studied the materials of the local administration of several villages in Taihoku Province, which were preserved from both the colonial and Kuomintang periods without a gap between them, and are now digitized and available for study in the National Archives of Taiwan. The value of this corpus of sources is not only in its volume and degree of preservation,

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but also in the fact that it offers an opportunity to explore Japanese colonial policy on the island not only "from the bottom up" (as authors who work mainly with documents of the general government or ministries and departments of the metropolis do), but also "from the bottom up", as well as the reaction of the local population to it at the "lowest" level.

Based on the collected data and analysis of numerous documents, the speaker showed that the Japanese colonial authorities for decades had a deliberate policy of "cultivating" loyal or at least loyal personnel from Taiwanese of Chinese origin, who can be entrusted with local government and self-government at the village and town level. The documents presented in the report show the small number of Japanese in many villages and towns and the growing presence of local elites in the grassroots management in rural areas. Immediately after the end of the" pacification " of the island, the colonial authorities relied on local landowners as the most influential, wealthy and conservative part of the local society, interested in working with them to preserve their wealth and privileged position. The Japanese paid special attention to young people from such families, trying to raise their loyal supporters from them, who in the future could become "new Japanese".

The report of Takashi Tazawa, a graduate of Takuseku University who has worked for many years in Taiwan as an analyst, "Taiwan's participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the one-China principle", touched on a topic that is relevant and acute for Japan itself, and therefore caused the greatest number of questions and remarks. The speaker considered the prospect of Taiwan's participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) through the prism of relations between Taipei and Beijing, as well as from the point of view of the reaction of Tokyo and Washington. The United States is trying to attract Taiwan and Japan to the TPP, which is almost openly being created as a counterweight to China's economic expansion, growing political presence and military power in the region, while at the same time trying not to complicate relations with Beijing, at least during the Obama administration. In turn, the Taipei leadership is balancing its focus on the United States as the guarantor of Taiwan's state independence and betting on dialogue with Beijing, whose position on the "one China" principle remains unshakeable.

The speaker took a closer look at the political-legal rather than economic aspect of the problem, pointing out that, from Beijing's point of view, Taiwan's independent participation in the TPP openly contradicts the "one China"principle. For both Beijing and Taipei, this is a matter of recognizing sovereignty, and therefore international prestige. At the same time, the conditions of the partnership being created open it up not only to "states", but also to "territories", i.e. economically independent regions whose state sovereignty is not recognized or not recognized by everyone. Without going into the discussion of whether participating in the TPP would be "good" or" evil " for the Taiwanese, as well as for the Japanese, economy, the speaker pointed out that strengthening Taiwan's economic ties with the United States and Japan does not contradict or hinder the strengthening of its economic ties with China, but purely political issues of prestige interfere. Taiwan's participation or non-participation in the TPP is directly linked to its political future.

Summing up the results of the symposium, Toshio Watpanabe highly appreciated the reports read, highlighting the most important points and promising topics for further study in each of them. With regard to the topic of V. E. Molodyakov, he noted the importance of the "third party" view of past events for their more "voluminous" and adequate understanding, to the topic of Chen the importance of relations between Japanese authorities and foreigners, which immediately placed colonial Taiwan in the perspective of interstate relations, to the topic of Tamaki the importance of studying the archives of the "grassroots" level, which They are preserved with such completeness, namely, they most reflect the realities of colonial policy and relations between the authorities and the local population. "I would like to conduct such a study in colonial Korea," Watanabe said. Emphasizing the relevance of the issue of TPP participation not only for Taiwan, but also for Japan, he called for a comprehensive study and the most balanced assessment of its pros and cons, as this causes a fierce debate in Japan, affecting many sectors of society.

In his closing remarks, Lin Shih-ying, Head of the Department of Culture and Education of the Taipei-Tokyo Commission for Economic and Cultural Cooperation, thanked the speakers for their valuable and informative presentations, noting that he had learned a lot about the past of his country, and the leadership of Takusyoku University for organizing the symposium and successfully continuing the work that brings practical benefits to all participants. The proceedings of the symposium will be published in Japanese by the Takuseku University Center for International Scientific Cooperation in 2016.

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