About Taiwan
About Taiwan
| Taiwanese History/Timeline by Irene
Yen
Disclaimer: The following is a brief
summary of Taiwanese history. Its reliance on two sources - neither
of which are recent or definitive studies of Taiwanese history - may be
responsible for missing facts or nuances.
Taiwan is made up of one major island and several smaller offshore islands (the largest of which is the Pescadores) located about 100 miles across the Taiwan Straits from the Chinese provinces of Fukien (Fujian) and Kwangtung (Guangdong) on the southeastern coast of China. Total land mass of 13,840 square miles is approximately the same size as the Netherlands. Two-thirds of the island is mountainous, and one-fourth is cultivable. Taiwan is poor in natural resources such as petroleum. It does have moderate deposits of coal and natural gas, and extensive forests.1 The population is about 19 million, composed
of about 17 million mixed Han lineage Taiwanese, 2 million Chinese who
fled to Taiwan when the KMT was defeated in China, and about 200,000 people
of Malayo-Polynesian aborginal lineage.2 The island has one
of the highest population densities in the world - about 1400 people per
square mile.
3000 B.C. - The earliest evidence of the Malayo-Polynesian people who are now referred to as aborigines dates from about this time. They engaged in horticulture, hunting, and gathering. The Han people of China are acknowledged to have been the first people to have contact with the aborigines. Probably around the 12th century, fishermen and pirates (a maritime ban in the 16th century effectively made all overseas traders pirates) came to P'enghu Islands. A small Chinese colony was established by 1600 to service the international trade along the Japan-Southeast Asia trade route. In 1557 - Portuguese sailors sighted the island and called it "Ilha Formosa," or "Beautiful Island." Japanese ceased contact in 1653 due to Japan's isolationist policy, which was to last two hundred years.3 1624-1661 - The Dutch occupied Taiwan In 1624, the Dutch East India Company set up a base named Fort Orange (later named Zeelandia) near today's Tainan. The Dutch occupation was part of Holland's growing global mercantile activities. The Dutch exported Taiwan's deerskins and sugar and recruited mainland Chinese to be traders, farmers, and laborers, many of them seasonal. This Chinese population grew to about 50,000 by the end of the Dutch era. The exploitation caused a Chinese rebellion in 1652, which the Dutch crushed with help from the aborigines.4 1661-1683 - The Cheng Royalty ruled Taiwan On the mainland in the middle of the 17th century, the Ming dynasty was collapsing in the face of peasant rebellions and Manchu expansion into China. A leading Ming loyalist, Cheng Ch'eng-kung, suffered defeat at the Ming capital, Nanking. He retreated to Amoy (Xiamen) in 1660 and established a base on Taiwan in 1661. By early 1662 he had expelled the Dutch, and his deed now serves as a model of Chinese nationalism. His use of Taiwan as a base from which to launch an attack to recover the mainland was a symbol for the Chinese Nationalists three hundred years later.5 The Cheng period saw the installation of Chinese-style administration on Taiwan. Zeelandia (renamed An-p'ing) became the capital. Civil service and educational systems were established. Despite the Manchu ban on emigration, by the end of the Cheng period there were approximately 100,000 Chinese there.6 In 1683 the Cheng rulers were defeated by the Manchus' Ch'ing dynasty. 1683-1895 - The Ch'ing Dynasty ruled Taiwan The Ch'ing Dynasty made Taiwan a prefecture of Fukien. The ban was still in effect during this period, although at times loosened to allow families to join the mostly male population. Taiwan continued to trade rice, sugar, teac, and camphor, for textiles, silk, and opium In the nineteenth century, "foreign aggression against Taiwan as well as demands that the Ch'ing bear responsiability for the actions of the island's inhabitants forced Peking to assert its sovereignty.... The dynasty instituted many of the same 'self-strengthening' policies it used on the mainland. -- expanding and modernizing defense, establishing defense industries, teaching Western science and technology, and stimulating economic development. The impetus for this was the imminent danger in 1874 of Japanese occupation and threatened annexation as reparations for aborigines' attack of shipwrecked Ryukyu fishermen in 1871. In 1875 the ban on emigration was officially lifted. Taiwan was upgraded to provincial status in 1887, and Taipei became the capital. The population stood at 2.5 million. In 1895 Taiwan was ceded to Japan after China lost the Sino-Japanese war. Taiwan was Japan's first colony. 1895-1945 - As part of its imperial advance in Asia, Japan occupied Taiwan. 1895-1919 was a period of consolidation of Japanese control and reshaping the economy to suit Japan's needs. It took the Japanese 5 months of fighting to secure the entire island; the first 9 governors-general were active military officers. The Japanese skewed Taiwan's economy to become a producer of mainly rice and sugar, the bulk of which was exported to Japan in exchange for manufactured goods. The Japanese also improved social conditions by investing in the infrastructure, health and sanitation, education, security, and public services. However, Taiwanese were always treated as second-class citizens, with none appointed to high positions in the government, police force, etc.7 1919-1936 was a period of liberalization, civil administration and demands for home rule. After World War I ended, Taiwan received its first civilian governor-general, Baron Den Kenjiro, whose mission it was to assimilate the Taiwanese through the schools. Taiwanese youths continued to seek better opportunities abroad in higher education, and the exposure to liberal ideas (such as Wilsonian principles of self-determination) not accessible to them in Taiwan's censored press helped along a new political consciousness. Toward the end of civilian rule, returned youths and intellectual elites formed organizations to press for social integration, local autonomy, and elections. However, with the coming of war, a military man took the office of governor-general and the period of liberalization ended.8 1936-1945 saw the outbreak of World War II and a new policy on Taiwan of forced assimilation, and militarization of the political and social sphere. Japan had already accumulated a large economic stake in Manchuria; perceiving that its interests were threatened both by the Chinese Nationalists and Soviet Russia, the Japanese army began occupying Manchuria in the fall of 1931, establishing the "independent" state of Manchukuo in 1932. Condemned as aggressors by the League of Nations, Japan withdrew from the League and continued to expand from Manchuria. In 1938 Japan launched total war against the mainland, and in 1940 signed the Tripartite Pact with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. In the backdrop, Taiwan's role in the Japanese empire shifted. It was to serve as Japan's link to Southeast Asia during its expansion. Therefore, Japan developed heavy industry on Taiwan to process raw materials from Southeast Asia to feed Japan's war machine. After 1936, the governors-general were once again all military men, and dissent and social activism were supporessed. In the newly militarized schools and in society at large, Japanese language, customs, clothing, and religion, were pushed. Taiwanese were conscripted as soldiers and laborers both abroad and on Taiwan. Taiwan sustained severe bombing from late 1944, although an expected American invasion did not come. Military and industrial targets were heavily damaged.9 1945-2000 - The Kuomintang (KMT, or the Nationalist party) under Chiang Kai-Shek ruled over Taiwan. 1945 - After Japan surrendered, the Allied Powers retroceded Taiwan to China. The KMT, like the Japanese before them, restructured the island to serve its own needs. But Taiwan had experienced a relatively stable progression, economically and socially, for the previous 50 years, whereas the mainland had undergone crisis after crisis in the struggle between the Nationalists and Communists for control of China. With civil war on the mainland, the Nationalists intensified their political repression of the entire nation, staffing government positions with mainlanders. It was also economic regression for Taiwan; the KMT diverted Taiwan's rice and sugar to China, and even dismantled Taiwan's factories to ship to China.10 1947 - The infamous 2-28 incident took place, what is generally agreed to have been a "spontaneous and leaderless uprising."11 In Taipei on the evening of February 27, after the police beat a woman selling cigarettes on the black market and shot a protesting bystander, a crowd attacked the police station and rioted when the police refused to turn over the policeman who had fired the gun. On February 28, larger crowds turned their anger on the Chinese and their Taiwanese collaborators. The violence spread in the days thereafter. A conservative Settlement Committee tried to negotiate an end to the violence; the KMT Administrator-General Ch'en Yi publicly acceded the "Thirty-two Demands" for reform and promised not to bring in additional troops from the mainland. Nevertheless, on March 8, more than 10,000 troops landed at Keelung and 3,000 landed at Kaosiung, with reinforcements still coming. The Nationalists proceeded to massacre the Taiwanese - total victims estimated from 10,000 to 20,000. The killing had a pattern; it seems that the Nationalists "intended to liquidate the Taiwanese intellecual and social elite," including Settlement Committee members, teachers, students, newspaper editors, lawyers, and anyone critical of the government.12 1949 - Defeated on the mainland by the Communists, the Nationalists along with approximately 2 million refugees fled to Taiwan (which had had a population of about 6 million in 1945) and declared martial law. The U.S. ceased to provide funding for the Nationalists - which since V-J Day had exceeded US$2 billion.13 1950 - North Korea invaded South Korea, and President Truman reversed the hands-off policy toward Taiwan and sent a fleet to the Taiwan Straits to protect the island from Communist invasion. U.S. economic and military aid to Taiwan resumed.14 With American aid protecting the island militarily and economically, the KMT was able to undertake major internal reforms. As an incentive, aid was tied to reforms. 1950-1952 - The KMT established the Central Reform Committee, charged with implementing the "Reform Program of the KMT." The KMT moved to purge "bad elements, recruit new members, and strengthen discipline and indoctrination to reinvoigorate the party. The KMT's Seventh National Congress elected a new Central Committee in Octoboer 1952.15 1971 - In December, the Presbyterian Church of Taiwan, led by activist Reverend Kao Chunming, announced its support for self-determination by the Taiwanese.16 1974 - In February, the Chiang regime banned Bibles and dictionaries in romanized Taiwanese.17 1975 - Chiang Kai-Shek died, leaving his son Chiang Ching Kuo in power. 1977 - Chung Li Incident - anti-KMT demonstrations at election time turned into riots, with thousands of Taiwanese people attacking police in Chung-li City. After this incident, a surge of political and literary activity took place. A group of nonparty (tungwai) activists, unable to legally form a party, nevertheless established a network to coordinate local political activity. The tungwai's rise to electoral victory was cut short by U.S. President Carter's announcement of normalization of U.S. - P.R.C. relations, which gave the KMT an excuse to cancel elections.18 1978 - Chiang Ching Kuo became president March 18, 2000 - KMT loses reign over
Taiwan. Chen Shui-bian, of Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party
(DPP), wins Taiwan's provincial election in Taipei to become President.
Chen and his running mate Ms Annette Lu garnered 4.97 million votes, or
39.3 percent of the total; independent James Soong obtained 4.66 million
votes, or 36.8 per cent ; while Lien Chan of the Kuomintang Party got 2.92
million, or 23.1 per cent of the votes.
(Click our Links page to learn more about Taiwan.) Sources:
2. Gold, Thomas B., "State and Society in the Taiwan Miracle" (Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 1986). Gold, an assistant professor of sociology at U.C. Berkeley, graduated from Oberlin College and received a Certificate of Advanced Study from Fudan University, Shanghai, and a Ph.D. in sociology from Harvard. He has taught at Tunghai University, Taichung, Taiwan. 1. Gold, p. 22.
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