History of Taiwan

Originally physically connected to the Eurasian landmass, Taiwan became an island only about 12,000 years ago due to rising sea levels. Several indigenous cultures then developed independently (indigenous people still form sizeable parts of the population today, especially in the east of the country) and cultivated relations with the mainland Chinese traders.

   

European colonialists also played a role. In 1544, the Portuguese, sailing past the island gave it the name it was then long known as: Formosa – after “Ilha Formosa” (‘beautiful island’). The first European power to gain an actual foothold on Formosan soil was the Dutch East India Company, which in the first half of the 17th century established a colony in the south-east of the island. Spain also had a stint at establishing a colony in the north of the island, but that only lasted for little over a decade. The Dutch were eventually overthrown by mainland Chinese forces and left in the second half of the 17th century.

   

Then began a long era of domination by China, which made the island a part of the Fujian province across the Taiwan strait on the mainland. This domination also resulted in a population shift as more and more mainland Chinese came to Formosa. Today Han Chinese form the majority of Taiwan’s peoples, together with spin-offs resulting from intermarriage. The land was exploited, with camphor trees from the mountain forests being an especially important export commodity. Infighting and uprisings were common and, in general, life on Formosa was characterized by strife and a good degree of lawlessness.

   

In the late 19th century yet another European colonial force had some influence: France, which had already set its eyes on what today is Vietnam (and became a proper French colony until 1954). This led to the Sino-French War. But Taiwan did not become a French colony. Instead it was Japan which exerted increasing pressure on the Chinese, already taking the Korean peninsula and large parts of north-eastern China (Manchuria), and then it also turned towards Taiwan.

   

Amidst a power struggle between those two big powers, Taiwan first declared its independence in 1895! But that was not to last long and the Japanese made the island their colony shortly after that.

   

Japanese rule brought great investment into the infrastructure of Taiwan, with a network of roads and railway lines constructed. Alongside those benefits, however, there was also ruthless suppression of indigenous people. There were insurgencies and massacres. After the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937 the colonialists on Taiwan also made efforts to stamp out the Han Chinese culture and the use of the Chinese language. Indeed Japanese became the dominant language, spoken by ca. two thirds of the island’s population. Newspapers in Chinese were outlawed.

   

During WWII, Japan used its Taiwanese colony for POW camps (see Kinkaseki), exploitation of its resources and as a training ground for its military. Some 200,000 Taiwanese also joined the Japanese forces, many voluntarily, many others not quite so voluntarily (see Cijin War and Peace Memorial Park). The Japanese also abducted or tricked ca. 2000 Taiwanese women to make them “comfort women” (i.e. it was forced prostitution).

   

After Japan had lost WWII, the colony of Taiwan was formally handed over to China – now not some imperial dynasty but the Republic of China (ROC). This had meanwhile formed in 1911 following the overthrowing of the last emperor. The Nationalist government under Chiang Kai-shek first sent a governor to administer Taiwan on their behalf. Taiwanese hopes for improvement were soon dashed by the brutal behaviour of the Nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) soldiers, while mismanagement, inflation, looting and corruption dragged the economy down further and further.

   

This led to protests by outraged native Taiwanese people and soon conflict followed. The violence culminated in the so-called 2-28 Incident that began at the end of February 1947 – see 2-28 Memorial Museum and National 228 Museum. During the Incident and in the subsequent crackdown tens of thousands were killed, even more detained and sent to prison, especially to the one on Green Island.

   

Meanwhile the Chinese Civil War on the mainland saw Mao Zedong’s communist side gain the upper hand and by late 1948 it was clear that the Nationalists were losing. And so the KMT’s generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek retreated to Taiwan with his military and political entourage. While on the mainland the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was established, the ROC had now shrunk to the territory of Taiwan and a few outlying islands near the mainland coast (see Kinmen). The split also resulted in an influx of refugees fleeing from the mainland.

   

Chiang Kai-shek maintained that only the ROC was the legitimate state of China and that his ultimate goal would be a reunification with the mainland – under KMT rule! Reality developed quite differently, though. Today it’s the PRC that threatens “reunification” by military force, i.e. an annexation of Taiwan. More of that below.

   

Back to the early days of the ROC as Taiwan. A communist Chinese invasion was already a real possibility after WWII, which is why Taiwan enjoyed military support from the USA (and the USA also sold it military hardware like tanks and fighter jets). With the beginning of the Korean War, China’s attention shifted there and Chinese forces did indeed play a crucial role in that conflict’s outcome.

   

At home Chiang Kai-shek more than consolidated his power from 1950 onwards – after Martial Law had been imposed in the late 1940s. Chiang’s rule turned into a de facto dictatorship, characterized by brutal repression of political dissent and incarceration of opponents, who were submitted to “re-education” programmes and forced labour (see Green Island, Jing Mei); executions were also still a regular occurrence. These measures are collectively known as the “White Terror”.

   

Another element of the dictatorship was the unabashed cult of personality. Every school, hospital, public building had to have a Chiang Kai-shek statue or bust – they were omnipresent – see Chiang Kai-shek statue park.

   

On the other hand, Chiang also initiated a successful programme of modernization and industrialization, without forgetting the poorer rural population who benefited from various reforms. Taiwan’s industries went from garments, shoes and consumer good, which for decades dominated exports (and also gave an ever growing proportion of women jobs), to modern electronics; today Taiwan is the world’s largest producer of microchips, for instance. Yet the economic success story was not matched with democratic reform. The suppression of native Taiwanese continued in conjunction with the KMT’s cronyism that favoured Han Chinese generally, and especially those who had come with Chiang from the mainland.

   

On 23 August 1958 military conflict with the PRC resumed when the latter started attacking the Kinmen islands. The heavy bombardment as well as air force and naval engagements continued until the PRC forces gave up the invasion plans on 4 October. However, shelling across the strait of Taiwan continued from both sides until the late 1970s, allegedly taking turns on alternate days. Both sides also blasted out propaganda messages across the strait from huge loudspeaker stacks.

   

In 1971 Taiwan, a founding member of the United Nations, lost its seat in both the General Assembly and the Security Council – due to the UN, by way of General Assembly resolution 2758, switching to the PRC, ruled from Beijing, as the representation of “China”. Under increasing pressure from the PRC, Taiwan has also been excluded from other international organizations (e.g. the WHO) and any attempts at rejoining are blocked by the PRC.

   

Chiang Kai-shek died in 1975. His body is still lying in state at his mausoleum as it was decreed that he was only to be properly buried once reunification with China (on the KMT’s terms, of course) had been achieved.

   

Chiang was initially succeeded by one of his fellow KMT members who had fled the mainland with him, but only three years later Chiang Kai-shek’s son Chiang Ching-kuo took over the presidency. So nearly a neat dynastic power transition. Martial law, declared in the turbulent early days of Taiwan under the KMT, continued. Yet for the first time some Taiwan-born people were allowed to ascend to significant positions.

   

1978 was also another turning point for Taiwan’s international relations when the USA, once Taiwan’s biggest Western ally, switched their diplomatic recognition to the PRC rather than the ROC as representatives of a “one China” idea, and cut diplomatic ties with Taiwan. US military bases in Taiwan were to close too. Yet while diplomatic (and military) ties were officially severed, unofficially American support (and especially arms deals) continued.

   

Domestically, 1979 brought a turning point for the growing pro-democracy movement within Taiwan. After a pro-democracy magazine was launched despite it being officially banned and a corresponding protest event in Kaohsiung on Human Rights Day in December went ahead despite the authorities having rejected the application to hold the event, it came to clashes with the police and dozens of activists were arrested. This became known simply as the “Kaohsiung Incident”. The subsequent trials, however, made a huge difference in that they were openly broadcast by the media, the defendants were allowed to make elaborate speeches and the lawyers defending the activists became well known nationwide. They became the next generation of activists. One of them eventually went on to become the first non-KMT president of Taiwan in 2000.

   

The move towards democracy gained more momentum during the 1980s. In 1987, after a record-breaking 38 years, martial law was finally lifted by Chiang Ching-kuo and the formation of new political parties was no longer banned. Amongst those newly founded was the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which was to rise to become the dominant party in recent times. At the same time the parliament became a proper democratic institution (even though some “debates” have occasionally escalated into fist fights and the throwing of objects at opponents).

   

In 1988 Chiang Ching-kuo died and vice president Lee Teng-hui rose to the top as his successor. He cleverly continued a) a path towards further democracy, and b) departed from the idealistic notion of reunification with China on KMT terms (though not officially abandoning it) and instead embarked on a “Taiwan first” political course. This angered the PRC but was popular in Taiwan so in the first ever fully democratic presidential election in 1996, Lee won by a landslide.

   

The KMT were democratically beaten for the first time in the election in the year 2000 and the DPP’s Chen Shui-bian became president. He won a second term four years later but it was marred by accusations of corruption and money laundering. At the same time the economy was doing badly, and in 2008 the KMT, having campaigned specifically on economic policies, returned to power and in 2012 won a second term. Again this was shaken by various scandals and public anger. On the other hand the KMT negotiated some relaxations in terms of relations with the PRC. Flights between the two countries commenced as well as ferries linking Kinmen to the mainland, and a growing number of PRC tourists visited Taiwan.

   

The DPP returned to power in 2016 and has won two re-elections since. President Tsai Ing-wen became the first female president and the first with partially indigenous ancestry. After two terms she was no longer eligible for re-election, but the DPP won the 2024 elections yet again, and former vice president Lai Ching-te took over the helm. By the way, locally the DPP is also referred to as “the Greens”, but that has nothing to do with any environmental policies but is simply due to the party’s chosen colour for marking their campaign posters and such like (the KMT, in turn, are “the Blues” for equivalent reasons).

   

The DPP and its repeated re-elections have angered the PRC, who label the DPP’s insistence on Taiwan being a state in its own right “separatist”! That’s of course completely absurd given that Taiwan has been a de facto independent state since the late 1940s, even though independence was never officially declared (yet).

   

Since president Xi Jinping rose to practically absolute power in the PRC, Taiwan has come under increasing threat. Xi seems to have made it a priority goal of his politics to achieve “reunification” (i.e. annexation and “reintegration” of Taiwan into the PRC), and has not ruled out using military force to do so.

   

Indeed over the past few years military posturing with large-scale naval exercises and squadrons of military aircraft repeatedly flying near or even into Taiwanese airspace have made headlines on a regular basis. Some observers at the time of writing (2024) reckon that an invasion of Taiwan by the PRC is a real possibility within a few years’ time. However, Chinese military experts will have taken note of how Russia’s aggression against Ukraine did not yield the goal of a quick and easy taking of Kyiv and the installation of a puppet regime within a couple of weeks. Nor would a military invasion and annexation of Taiwan be an easy task. And there’d be resistance. Many younger Taiwanese have started attending paramilitary training (outside the official army that is). Yet, when I was in the country in December 2023/January 2024 the atmosphere was far from panicked, not even overly worried. The private driver-guide I had for the last few days of my visit confirmed my impression that the Taiwanese are for the most part surprisingly relaxed in the face of all those threats by Xi’s PRC.

   

Internationally, several countries have recently followed the US lead of 1978 and cut diplomatic ties with Taiwan. The country is not recognized by about half the world’s countries (and most obviously not by the PRC), upholds diplomatic ties with only a dwindling number of states (just over a dozen are left) and does not have a seat in the UN (see above). It is thus the most populous (23 million) and economically most prosperous territory on Earth not to be represented in that international body!

   

Economically, Taiwan does indeed continue to be quite a powerhouse with per capita incomes on a par with Japan’s, and politically it is a stable and fully functioning democracy. That may be one reason why tourist visits to Taiwan from the PRC have stalled, as have the ferry connections. Presumably, the PRC would prefer its citizens not so see what could be without Xi’s increasingly repressive and threatening domestic politics. The expression “Chinese democracy” may have become a sarcastic synonym for “it’ll never happen”, yet in Taiwan you can witness first-hand what it could look like were it to happen in China too.

   

I do sincerely hope that Taiwan can withstand the increasing pressure and imperialistic threats by it’s superpower neighbour and continue on the path it is on. Much will probably depend on the USA and to what degree military assistance, if any, can be expected from there, under whatever US president. The coming years will have to be monitored. For now I keep my fingers firmly crossed.

   

Dark chapters in Taiwan’s history are not all linked to the PRC, the domestic dictatorship of old or earlier colonial powers. The island’s geology and geography can make for dark episodes all on their own too in the form of natural disasters. Taiwan is prone to two sorts in particular: earthquakes and typhoons. The latter are a regular occurrence in the summer season, and the one that began on 6 August 2009 was the most devastating, with a whopping nearly 3000mm of rain over three days causing landslides and cutting off communities – some 700 people were left dead or missing.

   

The worst of the earthquakes in modern times was the “9-21 earthquake” on 21 September 1999 – see 9-21 Museum. Another major earthquake was reckoned to be due within a quarter of a century, so when I was in Taiwan in January 2024 this made me a little nervous, amplified by the “how to behave when there is an earthquake” leaflets I found in one of my hotels in Taipei. I got away without experiencing an earthquake, but only a few months after my return the next big one did hit, on 4 April around the north-eastern city of Hualien (where I had stayed briefly on my trip). The 7.4 magnitude quake caused far fewer casualties than that in 1999, partly due to the less densely populated region hit and partly because lessons from 1999 had been learned and buildings were better constructed to withstand such tremors. Still several buildings did collapse and people (including tourists) were trapped in the Taroko Gorge due to rockfalls/landslides. Nine people were killed and about a thousand injured.

   

 

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