History of Taiwan
The following article covers the history of the island of Taiwan .
Early history
Taiwan was formed about five million years ago as a result of the collision of the Eurasian and Philippine plates . During the last glacial period (110,000 to approx. 10,000 years before today) in the New Pleistocene , the sea level was at times well more than 100 meters below today's level, so that Taiwan had a direct land connection to the main Asian continent. About 20,000 years ago, the first anatomically modern humans ( Homo sapiens ) reached today's Taiwan via this land bridge . Other hominini may also have lived in the area during the New Pleistocene. In 2015, a human mandibular bone found near Penghu Island was scientifically described. This fossil, Penghu 1 , has so far only been imprecisely dated - it is said to be 10,000 to 190,000 years old - and could therefore belong to either Homo sapiens or Homo erectus . In 1972, human bone fragments were found in the Zuozhen (左 鎮區) district of Tainan , dated to an age of 20,000 to 30,000 years.
The oldest human artifacts were found in caves on the east coast. The site of Baxiandong (八仙洞 遺址) in the rural community of Changbin is of particular importance . The artifacts discovered there are around 10,000 years old. The associated culture is also known as the "Changbin culture" (長 濱 文化). The Jungsteinzeit was characterized by agriculture and a megalithic that Menhire set up and tombs stone boxes produced. The so-called "geometric" period that followed occurred on the mainland as early as 1500 BC. BC, on Taiwan, however, only from 500 BC. Chr. On. The "geometric culture" was established on the mainland around 700 BC. It was displaced by the Zhou Chinese , who invaded from the east , and brought iron processing to Taiwan. In the years from 200 BC BC to around 200 AD , people displaced by the Han dynasty immigrated to the island in several waves .
Recent research suggests that Taiwan was the original home of the Austronesians , to which the Polynesians belong. The linguistic and genetic relationship between the Polynesians and the indigenous peoples of Taiwan is particularly striking. Perhaps the exodus of the Polynesian ancestors was triggered by immigration from mainland China - which has not been proven, but would be chronologically correct.
During the first half of the first millennium, the cultures on the Chinese mainland and on the islands off the coast presented a culturally and linguistically similar picture. After the Sinization of these areas by the Han Dynasty, there was no longer any cultural connection between Taiwan and China for a long time. However, the indigenous peoples of Taiwan cultivated trade relations to the south, e.g. B. with the Philippines .
Early contacts with the Chinese Empire
There are only sparse sources about Taiwan's contacts with mainland China prior to the arrival of the Europeans. The historical work Sui Shu ("History of the Sui Dynasty ") describes a Chinese expedition to an island kingdom called "Liuqiu" ( 琉球 ) at the beginning of the 7th century. Some suspect Taiwan in the named place, but this view is controversial among scientists, as there are also indications that “Liuqiu” could have been the Ryūkyū Islands .
During the Song and Yuan dynasties , the westerly from Taiwan were Pescadores into the Chinese Empire integrated and become part of the province of Fujian made.
In the work "臺灣 府 志Táiwānfǔ zhì ‚ ( "Description of the Taiwan Prefecture" ) published at the beginning of the 18th century, a trip by Admiral Zheng He in the 15th century is mentioned as the first Chinese expedition to Taiwan , but this is also not clearly documented .
Although it can be assumed that Chinese fishermen, traders or pirates have repeatedly stayed in Taiwan over the years, the first large wave of immigration and permanent settlement from China did not occur until the beginning of the 17th century under the rule of the Dutch.
European powers in Taiwan
In 1517 the Portuguese discovered the island, which they named Ilha Formosa - the "Beautiful Island". In 1624 Dutch navigators and the Dutch East India Company occupied the south of the island and made Tainan the capital. In 1626 the Spaniards conquered the north and established branches at Keelung and Tamsui , but were ousted by the Dutch again in 1641. The influence of the Dutch colonial administration on the culture of the indigenous peoples was considerable: the tribal structures were changed through the appointment of chiefs in the more or less domination-free cultures, and the mythological ideas and traditional ways of life reversed through Christian proselytizing . New norms of behavior and thought emerged, new village structures and new rulership structures. Between 1624 and 1644 there were further waves of immigration from Han .
Kingdom of Dongning
As the Manchu advanced on the Chinese mainland and the end of the Ming dynasty loomed, the Ming loyalist Zheng Chenggong fled to Taiwan with 35,000 soldiers in 400 junks in 1661 . There he hoped to build a new starting point for the reconquest of China. His troops besieged the Dutch main base Fort Zeelandia for 9 months . This capitulated in 1662, which ended the colonial days of the Dutch in Taiwan. The feudal state subsequently built up by Zheng and his followers became known as the " Kingdom of Tungning " (or Dongning ).
Taiwan during the Qing Dynasty
However, the Ming loyalists were subdued in 1682 by the Qing Dynasty founded by the Manchurians . This put the island under the control of mainland China for the first time and in 1684 gave it the status of a prefecture of Fujian Province . For a long time, Taiwan, on the edge of the empire, remained a neglected property on the periphery of China.
The " civilization " of the indigenous peoples begun by the Europeans was continued by the Chinese. In 1734 50 schools were set up to teach the children the Chinese language and culture. In 1758, a law was passed that forced residents of Taiwan to wear Manchurian hair and Chinese clothing and to use Chinese names. Above all, the Han sinized the tribes in the flat areas of the island, while the aggressive mountain tribes with their traditional headhunting culture remained more or less untouched under Chinese rule. Buddhism and Confucianism were introduced among the Chinese , which greatly superseded Christianity, which the Dutch had spread.
During the last decades of Qing's rule over Taiwan in the second half of the 19th century, the island came more and more into the focus of European colonial powers and Japan. The Prussian East Asia Expedition from 1859 to 1862 also explored the possibility of taking possession of Formosa as a colony, but this was not seriously attempted due to a lack of resources. In 1867 and 1874, respectively, there was a US and Japanese punitive expedition to Formosa after local natives had killed stranded castaways without China being able to do anything about the violation of its territory. During the Sino-French War of 1884/1885, French marines landed near Keelung and occupied parts of the island. This was linked to the idea of annexing the whole island as a French colony. This did not happen because the French military operations on Formosa had only limited success.
On January 19, 1886, Taiwan was spun off from Fujian Province and formally received the status of a Chinese province. Administratively, the province was divided into three prefectures (Taipei, Taiwan and Tainan), which in turn were divided into 11 counties and 6 districts, which were directly under the provincial administration.
Taiwan as a Japanese colony
After the end of the first Sino-Japanese War in 1894/95, China had to cede the island to Japan in the Treaty of Shimonoseki . The people protesting against the treaty founded the “ Democratic Nation Taiwan ”, an independent republic loyal to Qing. The Japanese defeated this first republic after 184 days and began a 50-year colonial rule (1895–1945). They pursued a systematic economic development of Taiwan.
The Japanese colonial administration also brought the hill tribes under their control and set up schools and police stations in their villages. Although the Japanese had ethnological and anthropological studies carried out on the savages , they intervened deeply in the culture of these tribes by banning headhunting and shamanism as well as resettlement, thereby changing cultural practice. The Japanese colonial administration tried for its part to introduce the Shinto . They forced the conquered peoples to lead an orderly way of life. Roads and railways were built to provide better access to the country. Despite all these efforts, the 1930 Wushe Incident , a bloody uprising by the Sediq tribe , followed by a massacre by the Japanese. The colonial administration eventually switched to a system of barbed wire-fenced reservations. During the Second World War , men of the indigenous tribes of Taiwan (especially the Yanks ) were drafted into the Japanese army , and the island was also a target of Allied bombing attacks.
Taiwan as the Republic of China
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During the Second World War, the Kuomintang terminated all treaties with Japan and the reconquest of Taiwan became a war goal. At the Cairo Conference in 1943 , in the joint declaration of December 1, 1943, the return of Taiwan, Manchuria and the Pescadors to the Republic of China was also a demand of the Allies. After Japan surrendered , the island of Taiwan and its pescadors were officially handed over to the administration of the Republic of China on October 25, 1945, and the Chinese General Chen Yi ( 陳儀 ) took over the office of Governor General. However, Japan did not officially renounce Taiwan and Penghu until 1952 in the Taipei Treaty . Subsequently, October 25 became an unofficial day of remembrance in the Republic of China on Taiwan as "retransmission day" ( 光復 節 , Guāngfù Jié ).
After Japan surrendered , Kuomintang troops occupied the island. Since Taiwan experienced a significant economic boom under Japanese rule, living conditions were better than on the war-ravaged mainland. This, and the fact that many Taiwanese had fought in the Japanese army, caused misunderstandings in the Kuomintang administration. Japanese properties were confiscated and taken to the mainland; the administration was corrupt. The economic situation deteriorated dramatically, so that a brisk black market trade developed on the island, which the Kuomintang countered with the establishment of a monopoly office.
- Incident of February 28th
After two officers from the Monopoly Office beat up a street vendor on the evening of February 27, 1947, there was a crowd . The officers shot into the crowd and killed a Taiwanese man. A riot broke out in Taiwan the following day . Martial law was imposed. The insurgents succeeded in gaining some control over the island and in organizing self-government. However, after a few weeks, Kuomintang troops put down the uprising and a wave of white terrorism began against the Taiwanese population, which, according to current estimates, killed around 30,000 people.
In April 1947, the military government was replaced by a civilian government, which also included local residents.
Consolidation in Taiwan and establishment of a new state
In 1949 , Taiwan formed the retreat for 2 million followers of the Kuomintang under Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek after the defeat by the Communists under Mao Zedong , who subsequently proclaimed the People's Republic of China . Taiwan became the sole sovereign territory of the Republic of China along with numerous smaller islands . In 1950 Hainan was conquered by the communists. The Kuomintang ruled the country due to the special structure of the parliament until 1992 as a unitary party . Along with hundreds of thousands of soldiers from the Kuomintang Army, numerous members of the former elite of the ancient Republic of China, including many scientists, engineers and intellectuals, also came to Taiwan. These formed Taiwan's new social elite and were a decisive factor in Taiwan's rapid rise from a poor agricultural country to a modern industrial state in the decades that followed. Despite the repressive political regime, motivated by the ever-present fear of communist overthrow, the Kuomintang government initiated important economic and social reforms that advanced the development of the country. The women's suffrage was introduced 1,953th From 1953 onwards, Prime Minister Chen Cheng pushed ahead with a land reform in which 139,000 hectares of land were distributed to 268,000 smallholder families by 1975, making them the first owners of the land they had previously leased. The rice harvests increased by 50% from 1949 to 1960 and the average income of the farmers tripled. At the same time, the state pursued systematic industrialization of the country. Since the 1950s, Taiwan has had a sustained period of economic growth, with increasingly complex goods being manufactured over time. Initially the industrially manufactured export goods were textiles and simple plastic products, later chemical products, bicycles, etc., and finally highly complex products such as semiconductors and computer accessories. The education system was also greatly expanded and numerous colleges and universities were founded.
Beginning liberalization and democratization
After Chiang Kai-shek's death in 1975, his son Chiang Ching-kuo became president. Domestic political liberalization increased, and opposition calls for a reform of the political system became more and more urgent ( protests in Zhongli 1977 , Kaohsiung incident 1981). At the same time, the state got into a serious foreign policy crisis after the Republic of China was ousted from the United Nations organizations as a result of Resolution 2758 of the UN General Assembly in 1971 in favor of the People's Republic of China and in 1979 even the United States, Taiwan's long-standing protector, had established diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China and severed official diplomatic relations with Taiwan ( Taiwan Relations Act ). The Kuomintang government recognized the need for internal reform. The emergency laws were successively repealed and in 1987 the state of emergency that had existed since 1949 ended. Since 1987 the establishment of new political parties has also been allowed. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) quickly developed into the strongest opposition party, demanding complete democratization of Taiwan and, unlike the Kuomintang, rejecting the reunification requirement with mainland China. In 1988, the previous ban on the establishment of new newspapers was lifted.
In 1991 the members of the National Assembly who had been in office since 1946 and were still elected in mainland China were retired and a new National Assembly was democratically elected . In 1992, the first free and general parliamentary election took place in Taiwan . A constitutional amendment introduced the direct election of the president by the people instead of the previous election by the National Assembly. In 1996 the first direct presidential election took place, won by the previous incumbent Lee Teng-hui (KMT).
Chen Shui-bian's Presidency (2000–2008)
In 2000, Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic Progressive Party was the first to elect a politician to president who did not belong to the Kuomintang , which had ruled since 1945 . At least since then, Taiwan can be described as a fully developed democracy. At the same time, a development towards an increasingly stronger Taiwanese identity can be observed, whereby fewer and fewer residents see themselves primarily as Chinese.
Chen Shui-bian found a highly polarized society. His opponents accused him of not having sufficient democratic legitimacy, as he had won the 2000 presidential election with only 39.3% of the vote. In parliament, the Legislative Yuan, Chen faced a majority of the so-called pan-blue parties led by the Kuomintang, who tried to block his policies. On the other hand, he was unable to meet the maximum wishes of the DPP supporters, who demanded a full declaration of independence for Taiwan and an official abandonment of the reunification requirement with the mainland, also because he was exposed to strong foreign policy pressure from the United States to avoid conflicts with the People's Republic wanted to.
Chen therefore renounced the official declaration of independence and only took cautious, more symbolic steps in this direction. In the 2004 presidential election , Chen and his vice-presidential candidate Annette Lu won with a very narrow majority of 50.11% over the opposing candidates from the pan-blue camp. During his second term in office, Chen's involvement in a corruption scandal became apparent and the president's reputation literally fell to the ground. Mass demonstrations (“ One million votes against corruption, President Chen must go ”) called for the immediate resignation of the president, whose government was politically incapacitated by the scandal.
Ma Ying-jeou's Presidency (2008-2016)
Due to the extreme unpopularity of Chen Shui-bian, his party, the DPP, suffered severe defeats in the 2008 legislative yuan election and the 2008 presidential election . The Kuomintang won a two-thirds majority of the seats in the Legislative Yuan and the KMT candidate Ma Ying-jeou was elected president by a large majority. Ex-President Chen Shui-bian was charged with corruption in office, found guilty and sentenced to a long prison term and a heavy fine. The process was politically very controversial. Chen's supporters suspected political revenge by the Kuomintang government. Due to poor health, Chen was finally released in January 2015. During Ma's presidency, there was a further rapprochement with the People's Republic of China with an intensification of economic and political relations. In 2012 Ma was re-elected . During his second term in office there were increasing protests, as many felt the rapprochement with the People's Republic was too great and feared a gradual loss of Taiwanese sovereignty. During the sunflower movement in March / April 2014, protesting students occupied the Legislative Yuan Parliament building and only evacuated it after the government had given concessions. In the opinion polls of 2015 and 2016, there was an increasing mood of change.
Tsai Ing-wen's presidency from 2016
The presidential election in 2016 was clearly won by the DPP candidate Tsai Ing-wen . In the parallel election of the legislative yuan , the DPP also won a majority of the seats for the first time, so that the government of the newly elected president that was subsequently formed could rely on broad parliamentary support. The following years were marked by heightened tensions with the People's Republic of China. This attempted to further isolate Taiwan diplomatically and succeeded in causing several states to break off their previous diplomatic relations with Taiwan ( Sao Tome and Principe 2016, Panama 2017, Dominican Republic , Burkina Faso and El Salvador 2018).
See also
literature
- 陳正茂 、 林寶 琮 、 林世宗 Chen Cheng-Mao, Lin Pao-Chung, Lin Shih-Tsung: 新編 台灣 史Xinbian Taiwan shi . New Wun Ching Developmental Publishing, Taipei 2008, ISBN 978-986-150-983-9 .
- 周 婉 窈 Chou Wan-Yao: 臺灣 歷史 圖 說Taiwan lishi tushuo . Linkingbooks, Taipei 2009, ISBN 978-957-08-3489-5 .
- Murray A. Rubinstein (Ed.): Taiwan - A New History. Extended Edition, New York: ME Sharpe 2007.
- Robert Storey: Taiwan . 4th edition. Lonely Planet Hong Kong, 1998, ISBN 978-0-86442-634-5 .
- Oskar Weggel : The History of Taiwan. From the 17th century until today . Böhlau, Cologne, Weimar, Vienna 1991, ISBN 978-3-412-02891-6 .
- Thomas Weyrauch: China's neglected republic. 100 years in the shadow of world history . Volume 1: 1911-1949. Longtai, Gießen (ie) Heuchelheim 2009, ISBN 978-3-938946-14-5 .
- Thomas Weyrauch: China's neglected republic. 100 years in the shadow of world history. Volume 2 (1950-2011) . Longtai, Giessen 2011, ISBN 978-3-938946-15-2 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Tsang Cheng-hwa: The archeology of Taiwan . Ed .: Council for Cultural Affairs of the Executive Yuan. 1st edition. Taipei 2000, ISBN 978-957-02-4590-5 , pp. 52 (English).
- ↑ Chang CH, Kaifu Y, Takai M, Kono RT, Grün R, Matsu'ura S, Kinsley L, Lin LK: The first archaic Homo from Taiwan . In: Nat Commun . tape 27 , no. January 6 , 2015, p. 6037 , doi : 10.1038 / ncomms7037 , PMID 25625212 , PMC 4316746 (free full text) - (English).
- ↑ Olsen, JW, Miller-Antoniio S: The Palaeolithic in Southern China . In: Asian Perspectives . tape 31 , no. 2 . University of Hawai'i Press, 1992, pp. 129-160 , JSTOR : 42929173 .
- ↑ 柏楊 Bo Yang (2007) 中國 人 史綱 Zhōngguórén shǐgāng. Beijing, 同心 出版 Tongxin Publishing House, p. 170
- ^ Andrade, Tonio: How Taiwan Became Chinese: Dutch, Spanish, and Han Colonization in the Seventeenth Century . Columbia University Press, New York 2008.
- ^ Christian Richter: On the way to Deutsch-Formosa? The Prussian East Asia Expedition and the German Interest in Formosa in the 19th Century . In: Languages, Literary Studies and International Studies ( 語文 與 國際 研究 ) . tape 18 , December 1, 2017, ISSN 1811-4717 , p. 101-134 , doi : 10.3966 / 181147172017120018006 ( abstract [PDF]).
- ^ History of the Council. Hsinchu County Council, accessed August 18, 2018 .
- ^ Jad Adams: Women and the Vote. A world history. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2014, ISBN 978-0-19-870684-7 , page 438
- ↑ Christian Rhally: Remembering 1949: Finding a New Home Across the Strait. The Huffington Post, accessed January 20, 2018 .
- ↑ Land-to-the-tiller program transformed Taiwan. Taiwan Today, August 28, 2009; accessed January 20, 2018 .
- ^ Anthony YC Koo: Economic Consequences of Land Reform in Taiwan . In: Asian Survey . tape 6 , no. 3 . University of California Press, March 1966, pp. 150–157 , doi : 10.2307 / 2642219 , JSTOR : 2642219 (English).
- ^ History of Industrial Development in Taiwan (Part I). Digital Taiwan - Culture and Nature, accessed January 20, 2018 .
- ^ Taiwan Ends 4 Decades of Martial Law. The New York Times, July 14, 1987, accessed January 20, 2018 .
- ^ Ming-yeh Rawnsley, James Smyth, Jonathan Sullivan: Taiwanese Media Reform . In: Journal of the British Association for Chinese Studies . tape December 6 , 2016, ISSN 2048-0601 , p. 66-80 (English).
- ^ Huang Ching-Lung: The changing roles of the media in Taiwan's democratization process. (pdf) The Brookings Institution, July 2009, accessed October 30, 2018 .
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