The uprising was swiftly quelled, with any remaining resistance suppressed by the third week of December 1930; and Japan was not a signatory to the treaty until May 21, 1975.
Due to internal and external criticism of their handling of the incident, Ishizuka and Hitomi Jirō, his chief civil administrator, were forced to resign in January 1931. However, Ishizuka's replacement, Ōta Masahiro, also took a harsh approach to controlling Taiwan's indigenous peoples: certain tribes were disarmed and left unprotected, giving their aboriginal enemies an opportunity to annihilate them on behalf of the Japanese administration. Around 500 of the Seediq involved in the Musha Incident surrendered and were subsequently confined to a village near Musha. However, on 25 April 1931, indigenous groups working with the Japanese authorities attacked the village, beheading all remaining males over the age of 15. This is known as the "Second Musha Incident".
The uprising did effect a change in the authorities' attitudes and approaches towards aboriginals in Taiwan. Musha had been regarded as the most "enlightened and compliant" of the aboriginal territories, and the colonial power's inability to prevent the massacre provoked a fear of similar nationalist movements starting in Taiwan, Korea, and Japan itself. A change in policy was clearly needed. Ching suggests that the institution of empire-building (kominka ) became the dominant expression of colonial control: aboriginals came to be seen as imperial subjects on equal footing with other ethnic groups in Taiwan, and were upgraded in status from "raw savages" to .
During the Musha Incident, the Seediq under Mona Rudao revolted against the Japanese, while the Truku and Toda did not. The rivalry of the Seediq with the Toda and Truku was aggravated by the Musha Incident, given that the Japanese had long played them off against each other. Following the incident, part of Seediq land was ceded to the Truku and Toda by the authority.
In the media
The Musha Incident has been depicted three times in movies, in 1957 in the Taiwanese film Qing Shan bi xue (), in the 2003 TV drama ', and in the 2011 Taiwanese film Seediq Bale.
Wu He's novel Remains of Life (originally published in Chinese in 2000; published in English translation in 2017) is a fictionalized account of the aftermath of this incident.
See also
- Mona Rudao
- Five years plan to governing aborigines
- Taiwanese resistance to Japanese colonialism