$Unique_ID{COW03612} $Pretitle{263} $Title{Taiwan Chapter 3A. Historical Setting} $Subtitle{} $Author{The Director Foreign Area Studies} $Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army} $Subject{chinese china taiwan island japanese century first dynasty japan koxinga} $Date{1971} $Log{} Country: Taiwan Book: Area Handbook for the Republic of China Author: The Director Foreign Area Studies Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army Date: 1971 Chapter 3A. Historical Setting The island of Taiwan has a recorded history that, in important ways, dates back only to the seventeenth century. The island first came to the attention of outsiders as a base of operations for Japanese and Chinese pirates in the early sixteenth century. Throughout much of the seventeeth century control of the island was contested between Spain and Holland until the last Europeans were expelled in 1662 by Cheng Ch'eng-kung (known in the West as Koxinga), a pirate chief of mixed Chinese and Japanese parentage. Although a Chinese claim to the possession of Taiwan was made during the latter part of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), the Manchu Dynasty (1644-1911) was the first to rule and administer the island effectively from the Chinese capital. After losing Korea in a war with Japan in 1894, China was forced in 1895 to cede Taiwan to Japan. At the end of World War II the Republic of China regained the island. Since 1949 the island has been the seat of the government of the Republic of China, headed by Chiang Kai-shek. The cultural history of the Republic of China now established on Taiwan is that of China itself. Chinese culture originated, probably in the Yellow River Valley of what is now North China, no later than 2200 B.C. According to archaeological evidence, by 1500 B.C. this culture had reached a high state of organization, accompanied by advanced bronze technology, writing, a precise calendar, and a system of ethics so advanced that it has survived to the present day. While there were times, such as during the T'ang Dynasty (A.D. 618-906), when China welcomed foreign ideas and gave positions of great prominence to foreigners, basically China was inward-looking and self-satisfied during most of its history. The Chinese considered themselves in possession of the "Middle Kingdom," the universal empire, and the only fount of worthwhile culture. They believed that, while foreign ideas, inventions, and religions might add interesting variation, they could never offer anything vital or basic. The Chinese had no concept of national sovereignty. All that was not China was considered to consist of tributary states or uncivilized barbarians who did not even know enough to acknowledge the innate superiority of Chinese culture. It took half a century of depredations, economic exploitation, and humiliations by Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and Japan to shake China's confidence in the superiority of its traditional ways. When the Chinese Empire, which first had been unified politically in 221 B.C., after many vicissitudes, finally disintegrated in 1911, the first reaction on the part of political leaders was an attempt to introduce European concepts and institutions at the expense of Chinese values. By the 1920s, when this had proved impossible, the political leadership split among those who wanted to return to traditional Chinese values combined with Western technology and organization and those who thought that the Bolshevik Revolution inspired by Marxist-Leninist ideas was the only relevant model for China. In late 1967 the second school of thought was personified by Mao Tse-tung, in whose name a so-called Cultural Revolution was sweeping the entire Chinese mainland in an attempt to uproot all vestiges of Chinese culture. The first school of thought was personified by Chiang Kai-shek, head of the Republic of China, who controlled the island of Taiwan and several small islands of the southeastern China coast. Origins of the Chinese Nation The rulers of the earliest Chinese dynasties often are referred to as emperors, but before 221 B.C., they were in fact the supreme chiefs of a loose tribal federation. At best they were titular monarchs whose power was entirely dependent upon the allegiance of a large number of local rulers. The political system in China during the Chou Dynasty (1122 B.C.-256 B.C.) has been compared to a period of similar length in Europe between the fall of the Roman Empire and the dominance of nation states. The last five centuries of the Chou Dynasty were times of intermittent warfare among various local rulers for territorial aggrandizement. The power of the Chou Dynasty decreased continually between 722 and 481 B.C. After that date, and before the fall of the dynasty in 256 B.C., the dynastic ruler continued to have only nominal authority and was helpless to diminish the increasing fierceness of the practically continual warfare among the seven most powerful states. In 221 B.C., King Ch'eng of the succeeding Ch'in Dynasty became the first emperor of a unified and centralized China. All power was in the hands of the imperial court which dominated in unprecedented fashion all social, economic, and intellectual life of the empire through a civil service. Feudal ranks and privileges were abolished, and all private individuals were disarmed. Weights, measures, axle-lengths, laws, and writing became standardized. Neighboring non-Chinese peoples were forced to accept Chinese suzerainty. Public works, especially the construction of roads and fortifications, were undertaken on an unprecedented scale. The Great Wall of China was begun at this time by forced labor assigned as punishment for the infractions of laws and as a means of repressing scholars who disagreed openly with official doctrine (see ch. 10, Religion). During times of vigor the Chinese Empire included what are now North Korea, North Vietnam, Burma, Laos, Outer Mongolia, and large parts of Soviet Central Asia though some of these held a nominal tributary status and were not integrated into the empire. At such times the empire was able to exercise dominion over areas several times as large as those occupied by the Chinese people themselves. In the first century A.D., during the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-A.D. 220), Chinese armies reached the shores of the Caspian Sea. A civil service system and a code of laws were perfected during the T'ang period, which also was considered the golden age of literature and art. During the same dynasty printing was invented. Buddhism, which had been introduced during Han times, flourished, and Mazdaism, Manichaeism, Islam, and Nestorian Christianity were propagated widely. Foreigners were made welcome, and many served in the imperial government. The Chinese lived under Mongol domination from 1280 to 1368 and under the Ming Dynasty from 1368 until 1644, when the Manchus took advantage of a Chinese civil war to establish themselves in North China. Forty years later they controlled the entire empire. Though originally foreign invaders, the Manchus soon adopted Chinese customs, language, and outlook. By the time the dynasty fell in 1911 they had become totally absorbed. Chinese settlement expanded chiefly southward, displacing more primitive tribal peoples, partly as a result of population pressures, but also because of repeated invasions from the north by the Huns, the Chieh, the Hsien Pei, the Ti, the Mongols, the Tartars, the Manchus, and others. This pattern began before the fourth century and continued until the seventeenth century, by which time there was very little unused arable and fertile soil left on the Chinese mainland. It was then, especially during times of famine, that Chinese communities began to become conspicuous throughout Southeast Asia, the Philippines, and Taiwan. Conquest and Settlement of Taiwan Early History There is no general agreement regarding the origin of Taiwan's aboriginal population or the dates of original settlement. According to differing hypotheses, most of the original population came from the mainland of South China, from the Malay Peninsula, from Luzon, or from the Ryukyu Islands. According to some authorities, what are now called aboriginal groups began arriving on the island about 1500 B.C. (see ch. 4, Ethnic Groups and Languages). The Chinese court became aware of the existence of Taiwan in the third century A.D., as the first Chinese groups began settling the coast of China opposite Taiwan. Taiwan's mountain peaks are visible from the mainland on a clear day. There is evidence that Chinese fishermen landed on the Pescadores (Penghu) Islands as early as the seventh century A.D., but as far as is known definitely, the first Chinese, mainly Hakkas, began settling on Taiwan in small groups during the twelfth century. During the thirteenth century the Hakka settlers were displaced and were forced, by larger migrations of Hoklo Chinese from the Amoy area of Fukien province, to move to less desirable land farther inland. At about the same time Japanese pirates established bases of operations on the northern coast, in the neighborhood of present-day Keelung. Chinese pirates used southwestern Taiwan for the same purpose. A Portuguese fleet, under Admiral Andrade, for the first time brought the existence of Taiwan to the attention of Europeans in 1517. The Portuguese gave the island the name it came to have in Europe, Ilha Formosa (Beautiful Island), but established no settlements. A little more than a century later, the Dutch and then the Spaniards constructed forts in the southwest and the north, respectively, as part of their struggle for political control of the Philippines and in competition for dominance of trade with China. When the Dutch first landed in 1622, there were no more than 25,000 Chinese on the island. By this time the Japanese officially had established themselves in the north, but they withdrew in 1628 in conformity with their new policy of national seclusion. The Spaniards were expelled by the Dutch in 1642, who, in turn, were expelled by the Chinese in 1662. By this time there were more than 100,000 Chinese on the island as a result of the Dutch policy of encouraging immigration and the use of a 12,000-vessel pirate fleet, under the leadership of Koxinga, to transport emigrants from the mainland (see ch. 18, Agriculture). Koxinga the Pirate Koxinga's father, Cheng Chih-lung, had been a Fukienese tailor of Hakka origin who abandoned his trade to become a merchant. In the course of his travels he spent considerable time in Macao, where he became a Christian, and in Nagasaki, where he married a girl of a samurai family. After his return from Japan he prospered by combining trade with piracy. He was able to amass a large enough fortune to purchase a fleet of 3,000 vessels, which he later placed at the service of the Ming cause in the struggle against the Manchus. In 1661 he was executed by the Manchu court, leaving his fleet and the leadership of the Ming cause to his son. After the last Ming ruler, Lung Wu, had been forced by the Manchus to move his capital to Foochow, in South China, his principal hope for defeating the Manchus was the fleet commanded by Koxinga, which had grown to more than 12,000 vessels and was combined with a land army of 120,000. In return, Koxinga formally was made a member of the imperial family. After the Manchus had crushed pro-Ming resistance groups in the rest of China they were able to concentrate their forces in the southeast, where Koxinga had control over 72 coastal garrisons in Kwantung and Fukien provinces. Under Manchu pressure Koxinga was forced to transfer his base of operations to Taiwan. There, in 1662, he defeated and expelled the Dutch after a 9 months' siege of Fort Zeelandia. Koxinga set out systematically to eliminate all traces of Dutch rule and administration and to supplant them by institutions modeled after those on the mainland. After consolidating his control of Taiwan, Koxinga prepared an armed expedition to wrest the Philippines from the Spaniards, but he died, at the age of 39, before launching his campaign. After his death his son, Cheng Ching, ruled Taiwan for 16 years and continued to harass Manchu forces on the mainland. On his deathbed Cheng Ching left the throne to his illegitimate son and thereby doomed the Ming cause, since many of his subjects refused to recognize his son as the rightful ruler. Taking the advantage of the internecine struggle for succession occurring on Taiwan, the Manchus were able, in 1683, to capture the island virtually unopposed. The Manchu administration was centered in the city of Tainan, which had been established as the island's capital by Koxinga, and Taiwan became a prefecture of Fukien province. Under Manchu administration, which limited the tour of duty of its officials to 3 years, lawlessness and corruption became widespread. Banditry, piracy, and interclan feuds created an atmosphere of uncertainty and unrest and a nostalgia for the times of Koxinga when the island was by comparison a model of order and progress. The Nineteenth Century Throughout the eighteenth century Taiwan increased rapidly in commercial importance and in population growth. Immigration, though continual since the mid-seventeenth century, accelerated greatly after 1732, when the Manchu court lifted its official ban on migration to the island. By the first decade of the nineteenth century, there were already about 2 million Chinese occupying most of the level and fertile land, and the aborigines had been pushed into the mountains of the interior and to the eastern coast. Notwithstanding the increased prosperity, there was considerable discontent with the government. From the beginning of Manchu rule over the island in 1683 until the mid-nineteenth century there were 15 major antigovernment rebellions. An important factor was the quality of government officials sent over from the mainland, most of whom had no interest in improving conditions on the island and confined themselves to amassing wealth in the shortest possible time by various schemes and extortions. During the uprising of 1883 the rebels killed 20,000 of the Emperor's soldiers and officials, and the remainder fled to the mountains, leaving the capital in the hands of the insurgents. A punitive expedition sent by the Emperor took several months to put down the uprising. Some political and administrative reforms were introduced after Manchu rule had been reimposed. In 1842, shortly after China had ceded Hong Kong to Great Britain as a result of the Opium War, two British vessels were wrecked on the eastern coast of Taiwan and the crews massacred by tribesmen. In retaliation, Great Britain threatened to renew hostilities with China and to occupy the island. In deference to other European powers with interests in the area, however, Great Britain did not carry out these threats. Sugar and rice were Taiwan's main exports to the mainland and were of major importance in averting famine in South China during years of bad harvests. Beginning in 1860 leading British mercantile houses established themselves on Taiwan for the purpose of importing opium and exporting camphor and tea. United States businessmen began in 1865 to deal in coal and camphor. In 1884, as an aftermath of the campaign between France and China over Tonkin, the French attempted to gain control of Taiwan as a guarantee for the payment of indemnity on the part of China. The French, after some fighting, were able to gain control of Keelung and the Pescadores but could make no further progress and gave up the attempt. As a result of this campaign, however, the imperial court became aware of the importance of the island and decided to introduce administrative reforms and to encourage economic development. The island was made a separate province, and the capital was moved from Tainan to Taipei. By 1895 Taiwan had a functioning railway between Keelung and Hsinchu, passing through Taipei, as well as a telegraph line between Taipei and Tainan and a cable to the mainland. With the exception of intermittent warfare with the aborigines, Taiwan was a model province with a considerably higher standard of living than the mainland. Administrative reforms had eliminated much of the corruption and turmoil that previously had been endemic. As a result of the Sino-Japanese War over Korea in 1894, however, China ceded Taiwan to Japan the following year. Under Japanese Rule To end the Sino-Japanese War, on May 8, 1895, Japan and China ratified the Treaty of Shimonoseki, which stated that Taiwan and the Pescadores (Penghu) were to become part of the Japanese empire. Fifteen days later, local Chinese officials and intellectuals on Taiwan declared the island an independent republic recognizing the suzerainty of China. When the Japanese arrived, on May 29, to assume control, they were rebuffed by an armed force of about 50,000 Taiwanese. After a 3-day battle the Japanese occupied Keelung, but organized resistance continued throughout the island until the city of Tainan was subdued on October 10. After that date there were only sporadic local skirmishes until order was established in 1902. Thereafter, the island enjoyed relative domestic tranquility in spite of four serious anti-Japanese uprisings between 1907 and 1928. Japan's policies regarding Taiwan were formulated to gain stature for Japan as an enlightened colonial power. Nevertheless, in practice, the harshness of the earlier Japanese administrators caused widespread resentment. Until 1929 Taiwanese administration operated under the supervision of the Ministry of Home Affairs; thereafter, it became the province of the Ministry of Overseas Affairs. Day-to-day governmental functions were entrusted to a governor general, who was appointed personally by the emperor and whose power was virtually absolute. He was usually an army general or an admiral, although there were 10 civilian appointees during the period from 1919 to 1926. In theory there was local self-government, but in fact the administration was highly centralized. Provincial assemblies had mainly advisory functions, and local officials, whether elected or appointed, carried out policies determined at higher levels. In any case, Japanese officials dominated all levels of administration, even where there was significant Taiwanese participation. After the first decade of the Japanese period, the dominant attitude toward the Japanese administration was acquiescence rather than antipathy. Effective overt resistance was made virtually impossible by an extraordinarily efficient police system. The regular civilian police numbered 12,000, supplemented by a special force of more than 5,000 to oversee aborigine areas and a 6,000-man military police. The key to the efficiency of the police was the principle of group responsibility and the effective use of informers. The Taiwanese population was divided into groups of roughly 100 households each, headed by a senior member elected by the group, subject to the approval of the Japanese authorities. The leader of each group was answerable for the misdeeds of the families under his supervision. He, in turn, held each family head responsible for the actions of all members of his family. Since an entire extended family would suffer for the delinquent acts of one individual, there was strong social pressure for the observance of prudent conduct. Punishment was severe to the point of brutality. Aboriginal tribesmen continued to be a source of trouble for the Japanese until 1930, when their last great uprising was suppressed severely. In so far as they were able, the Japanese disarmed all aborigines and thus forced them to give up hunting and to subsist almost entirely on agriculture. As a result, they were far more vulnerable to government control and more accessible to the Japanese army, since they had to leave their rugged terrain to settle in the more readily cultivable valleys. As part of the pacification program, aborigines were provided with some 200 elementary schools as well as vocational training. After the outbreak of war between China and Japan in 1937, the Japanese authorities went to extremes to supplant Chinese culture and language with that of Japan. Only Japanese-language newspapers were permitted, and all official business had to be carried out in Japanese. Persons not fluent in that language were denied positions of prestige or importance. After 1942 this policy was relaxed somewhat because of the necessity of gaining the good will of the people, since Japan was no longer conspicuously victorious in its military campaigns. Taiwanese sensitivities often were disregarded in Japan's insistence upon order and efficiency, but the net effect of Japanese colonization upon the island's economy was to engender unprecedented prosperity and advancement (see ch. 17, Character and Structure of the Economy; ch. 18, Agriculture). Whether Japanese rule has a positive effect upon Taiwan's social and political progress is debatable. Japan made no attempt to prepare the Taiwanese for self-rule or democracy, nor did it enhance the islanders' confidence in their own capabilities. Because of Japan's policy of keeping the Chinese in subordinate positions in all spheres of activity, it did not develop leadership potential or high technical competence. The Japanese often were respected, but they left behind an undercurrent of resentment.