History of Formosa in a Nutshell
Taiwan is not an island drifting off Mainland China; it rather is an American outlying post purposefully located in the western Pacific. We must take the easy path by lining up with, and by pledging our allegiance to, America. Formosans were Japanese by accident; Chinese by evil schemes; but, hopefully, will be American by choice.
— David C. Chou, Founder of the Formosan Statehood Movement
Part 1: Formosa Under Dutch Rule (1624-1662)
The Dutch came to Taiwan in 1624. When they arrived, they found only aborigines of Austronesian race on the island of Taiwan, known in the West as Formosa.
The Dutch saw no sign of administration by the Chinese Empire at that time.
The Dutch gained a foothold in the south, while the Spanish occupied the north. The Dutch then drove the Spaniards off and put the entire island of Taiwan under their rule, with Batavia (in Java, Indonesia today) as the headquarters of their military and commercial operations in the Far East.
More and more destitute Fukien Chinese serf-laborers were brought in by the Dutch as migrant workers for the sugar and rice plantations. Eventually, the Fukien Chinese workers became settled, and married aboriginal women of the Peppo tribes. Some mixed, interracially, with the Dutch. A new breed, the Formosan or Taiwanese, was born.
Part 2: The Kingdom of Koxinga (1662-1683)
In 1662, the Dutch were surprised and defeated by a Fukien Chinese warlord, Lord Koxinga, a loyalist of the moribund Chinese Ming Dynasty, who himself was on the run from the Manchu Tartar invaders.
Lord Koxinga was a crossbreed, son of a Japanese woman and Lord Nicholas Iquan, a powerful Fukien Chinese pirate leader who dominated the waters of the Far East.
The Kingdom of Koxinga lasted until 1683, when the Manchu Tartars took over Taiwan by force.
Part 3: The Manchu Period (1683-1895)
The Manchu Tartars felt compelled at least loosely to control the island possession of Formosa for the next two centuries because the island was inhabited by unruly savages and a rebellious Formosan populace.
In the 1870s, Formosan pirates and savages captured and looted some American, Japanese, French, and British ships passing by, and even slaughtered their crews and passengers. The governments concerned lodged protests with Peking, but the Manchu Imperial Court replied, 'Taiwan is beyond the reach of our influence.' Statements of this sort triggered a Japanese punitive expedition against the island. The French sent a fleet to invade the island, and the northern part of Taiwan was placed under French occupation in 1884-85.
It wasn't until 1887 that the Manchu Court decided to declare Taiwan a province of the Manchurian Empire.
Part 4: Perry's and Nye's Grand Designs on Taiwan in the Mid-19th Century
In the 1850s, several far-sighted Americans planned to occupy or purchase Taiwan, or establish new settlements on the island. Among them were Commodore Matthew C. Perry, Commodore James Armstrong, Gideon Nye, Jr., Isaac J. Allen (U.S. Consul to Hong Kong), Townsend Harris (U.S. Envoy to Japan), and Peter Parker (U.S. Envoy to China).
Commodore Perry ardently urged the U.S. Government to occupy Taiwan and turn it into a permanent U.S. military, commercial, trading, and cultural stronghold in the western Pacific. He proposed to set up some indigenous organizations to promote the idea of statehood. He also proposed a "Joint Sino-American Economic and Administrative Program," by which a U.S.-Formosa integration project could be introduced, to implement a slow, smooth, and step-by-step transition of Taiwan to full statehood over the years.
Gideon Nye, Jr., an American merchant, also laid out an occupation and settlement plan and presented it to Secretary of State William L. Marcy of the Pierce Administration.
Commodore Perry and his contemporaries worked and pushed hard, but to no avail. The timing was bad -- the issue of slavery was torturing the American soul and the specter of a civil war was looming larger and larger. Understandably, Formosa, an island thousands of miles away, was definitely not seen as pressing business on the U.S. Government's agenda, and required no immediate attention.
Part 5: Part of the Japanese Empire (1895-1945)
In 1895, the Japanese defeated the Manchu Empire. Under the Treaty of Shimonoseki, the outlying, 'savage' island of Taiwan was ceded to Japan in perpetuity by the Manchus as part of the postwar settlement package. The Manchus wanted to keep Manchuria safe from Japanese invasion and influence. Therefore, they gave up Taiwan instead.
The Japanese set out to turn Taiwan into an agricultural-industrial-military base. They successfully established a clean, modern, and efficient government on the island. They also made Taiwan a stepping stone to Southeast Asia and the South Pacific.
Lee Chun-sing, a well-known Christian magnate-philosopher at that time, wholeheartedly welcomed the transfer of power and sovereignty as a blessing for the Formosan people because Taiwan was placed under the comparatively progressive, modern, and enlightened governance of Japan, replacing the corrupt and barbarous rule of the Manchus.
Retrospectively, many well-educated and well-known Formosans, such as Lee Teng-hui and Annette Lu, came to believe that Taiwan had been much better off in Japanese hands.
Part 6: U.S. Plans for Taiwan During WWII, and the Chinese Military Occupation of Taiwan (1941-1945)
During the U.S.-Japan Pacific War, the U.S. Navy laid out "Operation Causeway," a plan to invade, occupy, and administer Taiwan under trusteeship. That plan was eventually aborted.
Instead, President Franklin D. Roosevelt expressed his desire to have Taiwan "restored" to China. As a result, Taiwan was occupied and ruled by a Chinese military government on behalf of the Allies after WWII even though Taiwan in fact had been liberated by American forces in the Pacific Theater of War.
Part 7: Post-WWII Era (1945-1949)
On October 25, 1945, the Chinese military government unilaterally and illegally proclaimed that Taiwan was "restored to the fatherland."
During the 1945-46 period, the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (predecessor to the CIA) secretly conducted a poll around the island and found that the Formosan people strongly favored U.S. trusteeship and political affiliation with the United States. The New York Times reported that if given a chance, the overwhelming majority of Taiwanese would make the U.S. their first choice, with the next largest group favoring Japan, but almost none for China.
In February-March, 1947, an island-wide protest and small-scale armed uprising broke out. Chiang Kai-shek ordered his troops to fire, which resulted in the massacre of tens of thousands of Formosans, most of whom were innocent members of the elite, including lawyers, professors, physicians, politicians, journalists, college students, and WWII veterans.
Months later, Dr. Thomas Liao, an American-educated Formosan politician, presented a petition to General Albert Wedemeyer, proposing that Taiwan be placed under U.S. trusteeship, to be followed by a plebiscite as to the permanent status of the island. Four options were listed, one of which was "U.S. statehood for Taiwan."
In the 1940s and 1950s, many Formosans and Americans advocated U.S. trusteeship for Taiwan or American occupation of the island. The U.S. Government was of two minds, and did not know just what to do about Taiwan.
Prof. John K. Fairbank of Harvard, a renowned China expert, proposed in the fifties that Taiwan become a state of the United States. His plan failed partly because he reached the wrong persons for cooperation.
Part 8: The Chiang Dynasty on Taiwan (1950-1988)
In late December, 1949, Chiang Kai-shek led a shattered army and a horde of Chinese refugees to occupy Taiwan after he lost China to the Communists. He installed his government-in-exile on Taiwan, whose international legal status was still undetermined.
The U.S. Government did not know how to deal with the newly-planted regime or authorities on Taiwan.
On June 25, 1950, the Korean War broke out. Without delay, the Truman Administration ordered the U.S. Seventh Fleet to neutralize the Taiwan Strait, sent military advisers to Taiwan, and declared that Taiwan's status would remain undetermined for a while and would be settled sometime in the future.
To counter the Communist threat, the U.S. Government decided to accept Chiang Kai-shek's government-in-exile as its surrogate or agent in Taiwan, although the U.S. never intended to recognize Chiang's sovereignty claim over the island.
Comprehensive aid and assistance from the United States started to roll in and help Taiwan rise up from the wartime ruins and the misrule of the Chinese military government.
In 1951-52, Japan formally relinquished its sovereignty over Taiwan under the San Francisco Peace Treaty (SFPT). The Treaty, however, did not specify a beneficiary to the Taiwan cession, reaffirming and reinforcing the unsettled status of Formosa and the Pescadores.
The U.S. Government kept reiterating the unsettled status of Taiwan, on almost every occasion.
In 1958, Communist China launched an attack on Quemoy, an offshore island fortress under Chiang's control. China reasserted that Taiwan was Chinese territory and accused Washington of "occupying" Taiwan and "interfering in China's internal affairs." The U.S. Government repudiated by saying that Taiwan had been liberated by American forces during WWII, implying that China was in no position to challenge America's military and political presence in Taiwan.
In 1979, Washington severed its official ties with the Chiang regime but reaffirmed Taiwan as its protectorate under the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA).
In the communiques between the U.S. and Communist China, the U.S. acknowledged the Chinese position that "there is but one China, and that Taiwan is part of China." The U.S. Government, nevertheless, never meant to recognize Communist China's sovereignty claim in any legal document with binding force under international law.
Part 9: Lee Teng-hui and Chen Shui-bian Administrations (1988-present)
In early 1988, Chiang Kai-shek's son and heir died, bringing the Chiang Dynasty and its four decades of "white terror" under martial law to an end.
During the Lee Teng-hui and Chen Shui-bian Administrations, Taiwan was unofficially declared a sovereign and independent state on several occasions, but the Chinese Communist government kept claiming Taiwan as an inalienable part of China, and the U.S. Government kept denying Taiwan as a de jure independent political entity.
In 1996, the U.S. government ordered two carrier battle groups to come to Taiwan's rescue as China conducted a menacing "missile test." The show of force was part of a U.S. commitment to fulfill its obligations under the TRA.
In 1999, President Lee Teng-hui announced his "state-to-state relation doctrine." Under pressure from the U.S. Government, President Lee quickly revoked his "provocative" statement.
During his first and second terms, President Chen Shui-bian made several efforts to declare Taiwan a sovereign and independent state in an informal way. All of his endeavors were in vain.
"Irritated" by Washington, Chen made a complaint: "Taiwan is not a state of the United States." This drew from Secretary of State Collin Powell this reproach: "Taiwan does not enjoy the status as a sovereign state."
Frustrated, President Chen gave up his independence bid or "the Lee Teng-hui line" in early 2005 and promised to maintain the status quo as defined by Washington.
With no doubt, the cause of statehood will prevail, as the Formosan people begin to realize the cause of independence stands no chance. The people on Taiwan do see new rays of hope in the Formosan Statehood Movement — a movement that can be traced back to a venerable U.S. naval officer, Commodore Matthew C. Perry.
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