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An Introduction to Taiwan Province 台 湾 省 简 介 Abbreviation: Tai台 Lying off the southeastern coast of the Chinese mainland, Taiwan is China’s largest island and an integral part of China. Taiwan has been part of China since ancient times, when it was known as Yizhou or Liuqi7u. Many historical records and annals documented the development of Taiwan by the Chinese people in the earliest periods. Shen Ying of the State of Wu to be found, among others, in the Seaboard Geographic Gazetteer compiled references to this effect more than 1,700 years ago during the Three Kingdoms period. This was the world’s earliest written account of Taiwan. Several expeditions, each involving more than 10,000 men, were sent to Taiwan by the State of Wu and the Sui Dynasty respectively. In the early 17th century the Chinese people began to step up the development of Taiwan. The number of Chinese on the island topped 100,000 at the end of the century. By 1893, their population had exceeded 2.54 million. Thanks to the determination efforts of the pioneers, the development of the island as a whole was accelerated enormously. This was how Taiwan, like other parts of China, came to be opened up and settled by the Chinese people of various ethnic group people. From the very beginning, Taiwan’s society drew on Chinese cultural traditions. This basic fact did not change, even during the half-century of Japanese occupation from 1895 to 1945. The history of Taiwan’s development is imbued with the blood, sweat, and ingenuity of the Chinese people, including the local ethnic groups. Chinese governments throughout history set up administrative
bodies to exercise jurisdiction over Taiwan. As early as the mid-12th
century, the Song Dynasty set up a garrison in Penghu, putting the territory
under the jurisdiction of Jinjiang County in Fujian’s Quanzhou Prefecture. Subsequently, the Qing government expanded the administrative structure in Taiwan, strengthening its rule over the territory. In 1682, a Taiwan-Xiamen Patrol Command and a Taiwan Prefecture Administration were set up under the jurisdiction of Fujian Province. There in turn exercised jurisdiction over three counties on the island: Taiwan (present-day Tainan), Fengshan (present-day Kaohsiang/Gaoxiong高雄) and Zhluo (today’s Jiayi). In 1714, the Qing government ordered the mapping of Taiwan to determine its size. In 1721, an office of imperial supervisors was created for inspecting Taiwan and the Taiwan-Xiamen Patrol Command was renamed the Prefecture Administration of Taiwan and Xiamen, incorporating the subsequently created Zhanghua County and Danshui Canton. In 1727, the administration on the island was reconstituted as the Prefecture Administration of Taiwan (later renamed Prefecture Command for the Patrol of Taiwan) and incorporated the new Penghu Canton. The territory then became officially known as Taiwan. In order to upgrade the administration of Taiwan, the Qing government created Taipei Prefecture, Jilong Canton and the three counties of Danshui, Xinzhu and Yilan in 1875. In 1885, the government formally made Taiwan a full province covering three prefectures and one sub-prefecture and incorporating 11 counties and five cantons. Liu Mingchuan刘铭传 (1836-1895) was appointed as the first governor (1885-1891) of Taiwan. During his tenure of office, railways were laid, mines opened, a telegraph service installed, merchant ships built, industries started and modern schools set up. Considerable social economic and cultural advancements in Taiwan were achieved. After the Chinese people’s victory in the War of Resistance Against Japan in 1945, the Chinese government reinstated its administrative authority over Taiwan Province. Chinese on both sides of the Taiwan Straits carried out a prolonged, unremitting struggle against foreign invasion and occupation of Taiwan. In the late 15th century, Western colonialists started to
grab and conquer colonies relentlessly. In 1624, Dutch colonialists invaded
and occupied the southern part of Taiwan. Two years later, Spanish colonialists
seized the northern part of Taiwan. In 1624, the Dutch evicted the Spaniards
and took up over north Taiwan. The Chinese people on both sides of the
Straits opposed the invasion and occupation of Taiwan by foreign colonialists,
and took up arms against them. In 1661, Zheng Chenggong led an expedition
to Taiwan and expelled the Dutch colonialists from the island in 1662.
Japan waged war on China in 1894. Defeated, the Qing government was forced
to sign the Treaty of Shimonoseki the following year, ceding Taiwan to
Japan. This wanton betrayal and humiliation shocked the whole nation
and touched off a storm of protests. A thousand or more candidates from
all 18 provinces including Taiwan who had assembled in Beijing for the
Imperial Examination signed a strongly worded petition opposing the ceding
of Taiwan. Taiwan compatriots never ceased in their dauntless struggle throughout the Japanese occupation. Initially, they formed insurgent groups to wage guerrilla warfare for as long as seven years. When the Revolution of 1911 overthrew the Qing monarchy they in turn lent support to their mainland compatriots by staging more than a dozen armed insurrections. The 1920s and 1930s witnessed surging waves of mass action sweeping across the island against Japanese colonial rule. In 1937, the Chinese people threw themselves into an all-out war of resistance against Japanese aggression. In its declaration of war against Japan, the Chinese government proclaimed that all treaties, conventions, agreements, and contracts regarding relations between China and Japan, including the Treaty of Shimonoseki, had been abrogated. The declaration stressed that China would recover Taiwan, Penghu and the four northeastern provinces. After eight years of war against Japanese aggression, the Chinese people won a final victory and recovered the lost territory of Taiwan in 1945. The Taiwanese displayed an outburst of passion and celebrated the great triumph of their return to the fold of the motherland by setting off huge firework displays and performing rites to communicate the event to their ancestors. The international community has acknowledged the fact that Taiwan belongs to China. The Chinese people’s war of resistance against Japanese aggression, being part of the worldwide struggle against fascism, received extensive support from people all over the world. During the Second World War (1939-1945), China, the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, France, and others formed an alliance to oppose the axis of Germany, Japan and Italy. The Cairo Declaration issued by China, the United States and Great Britain on December1, 1943, stated : “It is the purpose of the three great Allies that Japan shall be stripped off all the islands in the Pacific which she has seized or occupied since the beginning of the First World War in 1914, and that all the territories Japan had stolen from the Chinese, such as Manchuria, Formosa (Taiwan) and the Pescadores (Penghu), shall be restored to China.” The Potsdam Proclamation signed by China, the United States, and Great Britain on July 26, 1945 (subsequently adhered to by the Soviet Union) reiterated: “The terms of the Cairo Declaration shall be carried out.” On August 15 the same year, Japan surrendered. The treaty signed after Japan’s surrender stipulated that “Japan hereby accepts the provisions in the declaration issued by the heads of the governments of the United States, China and Great Britain on July 26, 1945 at Potsdam, and subsequently adhered to by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.” On October 25, the ceremony for accepting Japan’s surrender was held in Taiwan Province. From that point on, Taiwan and the Penghu Archipelago again have been under the jurisdiction of Chinese sovereignty. Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, 166 countries have established diplomatic relations with China. All these countries recognize that there is only one China in the world, and that the Government of the People’s Republic of China is the sole legal government of China, and Taiwan is part of China.
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