Wiktionary says
The term is usually used to describe dictatorial or fascist politicians who are not monarchs. 大統領 (daitōryō) is used instead on elected politicians, even if they are nominally elected. An exception is the president of the Republic of China, where the term 総統 is an orthographic borrowing from Chinese 總統／总统 (zǒngtǒng).
That’s pretty funny. It also says
[from roughly 1912] (government, politics, uncommon, China) president
[from 1930s?] (government, politics) generalissimo (such as Benito Mussolini of Italy), caudillo (such as Francisco Franco of Spain)
[from 1934] (historical) the Führer - Adolf Hitler as the chancellor of Nazi Germany
So I wonder… Did they use it for the president of the ROC prior to the Civil War before it became associated with fascist leaders, and then kept it post-WW2 despite the change in connotation because the KMT regime in Taiwan was literally led by a Generalissimo?
I like your speculation. I also considered that perhaps all Presidents of China (be it the ROC or PROC) must be called 総統 but that can’t be true. In the case of Xi Jinping, one of his titles is President of the PROC, but his title is 主席 in Japanese.
Perhaps because that title in the ROC was originally called 総統, they continue to call it that, and it is a hilarious coincidence that it also matched the other connotations that developed during the 30s after the government fled to Taiwan.
I also wonder if keeping 総統 in Japanese is a nod and a wink to the Japanese right wing?
Of course.
Btw that comes from the weird fascisnation of Germany Japan have historically for good 150 years and still going (not unlike several waves of chinese influence), when the first Meiji delegations were touring the Europe, Germany was the state they decided to take as an example, thus they copied a lot of things from it, including some language. For example, japanese is among tiny amount of languages which use proper name for Germany, Deutschland. And its far from the only borrowing.
Btw that fuhrer usage is way less scandalous in german laguage, since they still use it massively in the names of jobs, so you might see some even small company manager having “gesellschaftfuhrer” in his office card and so on and on.
