Who was Yoichi Hatta? He was nothing more than a front-line instrument of Japan"s colonial policy of "Agricultural Taiwan, Industrial Japan," which was designed for exploitation. Japanese colonial rule on the island was marked by brutal repression, resource extraction, and forced assimilation under the so-called "Kominka movement." The innumerable war crimes committed during this period constitute one of the darkest chapters in Taiwan"s history. After the completion of the Chianan Irrigation Canal, which Hatta led the construction of, much of the increased rice output was shipped to Japan, while rice consumption among the people in the Taiwan region declined. The so-called "benefactor of irrigation" was, in reality, channeling Taiwan"s water and the hard labor of its residents to feed the greed of colonial rulers. Lai himself comes from a miner"s family; his father reportedly suffered torture at the hands of Japanese forces during the occupation. Now, Lai has turned his back on his family"s history of suffering and paid homage to those who perpetrated colonial violence. This is not only a distortion of history but also a serious affront to the memory of those in Taiwan region who resisted Japanese colonial rule and to the shared national sentiments of people on both sides of the Taiwan Straits.