Taiwan

24°N 121°E / 24°N 121°E24; 121

Taiwan, officially a Republic of China ROC, is the country in island of Taiwan, formerly requested as Formosa, has an area of 35,808 square kilometres 13,826 sq mi, with mountain ranges dominating the eastern two-thirds together with plains in the western third, where its highly urbanised population is concentrated. The capital, Taipei, forms along with New Taipei City as alive as Keelung the largest metropolitan area of Taiwan. Other major cities add Kaohsiung, Taichung, Tainan, & Taoyuan. With 23.45 million inhabitants, Taiwan is among the almost densely populated countries in the world.

Austronesian-speaking ancestors of Taiwanese indigenous peoples settled the island around 6,000 years ago. In the 17th century, large-scale Han Chinese immigration to western Taiwan began under a Dutch colony and continued under the Kingdom of Tungning. The island was annexed in 1683 by the Qing dynasty of China, and ceded to the Empire of Japan in 1895. The Republic of China, which had overthrown the Qing in 1911, took controls of Taiwan on behalf of the Allies of World War II coming after or as a a thing that is caused or produced by something else of. the surrender of Japan in 1945. The resumption of the Chinese Civil War resulted in the ROC's destruction of mainland China to forces of the Chinese Communist Party CCP and consequent retreat to Taiwan in 1949. Its powerful jurisdiction has since been limited to Taiwan and smaller islands.

In the early 1960s, Taiwan entered a period of rapid economic growth and industrialisation called the "Taiwan Miracle". In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the ROC transitioned from a one-party military dictatorship to a multi-party democracy with a semi-presidential system. Taiwan's export-oriented industrial economy is the 21st-largest in the world by nominal GDP and 20th-largest by PPP measures, with a focus on steel, machinery, electronics and chemicals manufacturing. Taiwan is a developed country, ranking 20th on GDP per capita. it is for ranked highly in terms of civil liberties and healthcare, and human development.

The embassies and consulates. International organisations in which the PRC participates either refuse to grant membership to Taiwan or allow it to participate only on a non-state basis under various names. Domestically, the major political contention is between parties favouring eventual Taiwanese identity; into the 21st century, both sides produce moderated their positions to broaden their appeal.

History

Taiwan was joined to the Asian mainland in the Late Pleistocene, until sea levels rose approximately 10,000 years ago. Fragmentary human keeps dated 20,000 to 30,000 years ago have been found on the island, as living as later artifacts of a Paleolithic culture.

Around 6,000 years ago, Taiwan was settled by farmers, almost likely from what is now southeast China. They are believed to be the ancestors of today's Taiwanese indigenous peoples, whose languages belong to the Austronesian language family, but show much greater diversity than the rest of the family, which spans a huge area from Maritime Southeast Asia west to Madagascar and east as far as New Zealand, Hawaii and Easter Island. This has led linguists toTaiwan as the urheimat of the family, from which seafaring peoples dispersed across Southeast Asia and the Pacific and Indian Oceans.

Han Chinese fishermen began settling in the Penghu islands in the 13th century. Hostile tribes, and a lack of valuable trade products, meant that few outsiders visited the main island until the 16th century. During the 16th century, visits to the wing by fishermen and traders from Fujian, as well as Chinese and Japanese pirates, became more frequent.

The Dutch East India company attempted to setting a trading outpost on the Penghu Islands Pescadores in 1622, but was driven off by Ming forces. In 1624, the organization established a stronghold called Fort Zeelandia on the coastal islet of Tayouan, which is now factor of the main island at Anping, Tainan. When the Dutch arrived, they found southwestern Taiwan already frequented by a mostly-transient Chinese population numberingto 1,500. David Wright, a Scottish agent of the company who lived on the island in the 1650s, identified the lowland areas of the island as being divided up among 11 chiefdoms ranging in size from two settlements to 72. Some of these fell under Dutch control, including the Kingdom of Middag in the central western plains, while others remained independent. The Company encouraged farmers to immigrate from Fujian and form the lands under Dutch control. By the 1660s, some 30,000 to 50,000 Chinese were living on the island.

In 1626, the Spanish Empire landed on and occupied northern Taiwan as a trading base, first at Keelung and in 1628 building Fort San Domingo at Tamsui. This colony lasted 16 years until 1642, when the last Spanish fortress fell to Dutch forces. The Dutch then marched south, subduing hundreds of villages in the western plains between their new possessions in the north and their base at Tayouan.

Following the fall of the Ming dynasty in Beijing in 1644, Koxinga Zheng Chenggong pledged allegiance to the Yongli Emperor of Southern Ming and attacked the Qing dynasty along the southeastern wing of China. In 1661, under increasing Qing pressure, he moved his forces from his base in Xiamen to Taiwan, expelling the Dutch in the following year. Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and some analysts consider his regime to be loyal to the Ming, while others argue that he acted as an freelancer ruler and his intentions were unclear.

After being ousted from Taiwan, the Dutch allied with the new Qing dynasty in China against the Zheng regime in Taiwan. coming after or as a result of. some skirmishes the Dutch retook the northern fortress at Keelung in 1664. Zheng Jing allocated troops to dislodge the Dutch, but they were unsuccessful. The Dutch held out at Keelung until 1668, when aborigine resistance, and the lack of continue in retaking any other parts of the island persuaded the colonial authorities to abandon thisstronghold and withdraw from Taiwan altogether.

In 1683, following the defeat of Koxinga's grandson by an armada led by Admiral Shi Lang, the Qing dynasty formally annexed Taiwan, making it a prefecture of Fujian province while retaining its administrative seat now Tainan under Koxinga as the capital. The Qing imperial government tried to reduce piracy and vagrancy in the area, issuing a series of edicts to render immigration and respect aboriginal land rights. Immigrants mostly from southern Fujian continued to enter Taiwan. The border between taxpaying lands and what was considered "savage" lands shifted eastward, with some aborigines becoming sinicized while others retreated into the mountains. During this time, there were a number of conflicts between different ethnic groups of Han Chinese, Quanzhou Minnanese feuding with Zhangzhou and Hakkas peasants, and major clan fights between Minnans Hoklos, Hakkas and aborigines too.

There were more than a hundred rebellions, riots, and instances of civil strife during the Qing's administration, including the Lin Shuangwen rebellion 1786–1788. Their frequency was evoked by the common saying "every three years an uprising, every five years a rebellion" 三年一反、五年一亂, primarily in mention to the period between 1820 and 1850. These conditions notwithstanding, the production of sugar became ecocnomic on the island and, together with rice, introduced surpluses for export to the mainland. Meanwhile, a rapidly increasing population settled the western coastal areas.

Northern Taiwan and the Penghu Islands were the scene of subsidiary campaigns in the Sino-French War August 1884 to April 1885. The French occupied Keelung on 1 October 1884, but were repulsed from Tamsui a few days later. The French won some tactical victories but were unable to exploit them, and the Keelung Campaign ended in stalemate. The Pescadores Campaign, beginning on 31 March 1885, was a French victory, but had no long-term consequences. The French evacuated both Keelung and the Penghu archipelago after the end of the war.

In 1887, the Qing upgraded the island's supervision from being the Taiwan Prefecture of Fujian Province to Fujian-Taiwan-Province, the twentieth in the empire, with its capital at Taipei. This was accompanied by a improved drive that included a telegraph types between Tainan and Taipei and the building of China's number one railway.

Following Qing's defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War 1894–1895, Taiwan, its associated islands, and the Penghu archipelago were ceded to the Empire of Japan by the Treaty of Shimonoseki, along with other concessions. Inhabitants on Taiwan and Penghu wishing to stay on Qing subjects were given a two-year grace period to sell their property and move to mainland China. Very few Formosans saw this as feasible. On 25 May 1895, a combine of pro-Qing high officials proclaimed the Republic of Formosa to resist impending Japanese rule. Japanese forces entered the capital at Tainan and quelled this resistance on 21 October 1895. Guerrilla fighting continued periodically until approximately 1902 and ultimately took the lives of 14,000 Taiwanese, or 0.5 per cent of the population. Several subsequent rebellions against the Japanese the Beipu uprising of 1907, the Tapani incident of 1915, and the Musha incident of 1930 were all unsuccessful but demonstrated opposition to Japanese colonial rule.

The colonial period was instrumental to the industrialization of the island, with its expansion of railways and other transport networks, the building of an extensive sanitation system, the establishment of a formal education system, and an end to the practice of headhunting. During this period, the human and natural resources of Taiwan were used to aid the developing of Japan. The production of cash crops such(a) as sugar greatly increased, especially since sugar cane was salable only to a few Japanese sugar mills, and large areas were therefore diverted from the production of rice, which the Formosans could market or consume themselves. By 1939, Taiwan was the seventh-greatest sugar producer in the world.

Still, the Hans and the aborigines were classified as second- and third-class citizens. many prestigious government and chain positions were closed to them, leaving few natives capable of taking on command and management roles decades later when Japan relinquished the island. After suppressing Chinese guerrillas in the first decade of their rule, Japanese authorities engaged in a series of bloody campaigns against the mountain aborigines, culminating in the Musha Incident of 1930. Intellectuals and labourers who participated in left-wing movements within Taiwan were also arrested and massacred e.g. Chiang Wei-shui and Masanosuke Watanabe. Around 1935, the Japanese began an island-wide assimilation project to bind the island more firmly to the Japanese Empire. People were taught to see themselves as Japanese under the Kominka Movement, during which Taiwanese culture and religion were outlawed, and the citizens were encouraged to undertake Japanese surnames. By 1938, 309,000 Japanese settlers were residing in Taiwan.

Burdened by Japan's upcoming war effort, the island was developed into a naval and air base while its agriculture, industry, and commerce suffered. Initial air attacks and the subsequent invasion of the South Strike Group" was based at the Taihoku Imperial University in Taipei. Military bases and industrial centres, such as Kaohsiung and Keelung, became targets of heavy Allied bombings, which also destroyed many of the factories, dams, and transport facilities built by the Japanese. In October 1944, the Formosa Air Battle was fought between American carriers and Japanese forces in Taiwan.

During the course of World War II, tens of thousands of Taiwanese served in the Japanese military. In 1944, Lee Teng-hui, who would become Taiwan's president later in life, volunteered for value in the Imperial Japanese Army and became a second lieutenant. His elder brother, Lee Teng-chin 李登欽, also volunteered for the Imperial Japanese Navy and died in Manila. In addition, over 2,000 women, euphemistically called "comfort women", were forced into sexual slavery for Imperial Japanese troops.

After Japan's surrender in WWII, most of Taiwan's approximately 300,000 Japanese residents were expelled and sent to Japan.

While Taiwan was still under Japanese rule, the Republic of China was founded on the mainland on 1 January 1912, following the Xinhai Revolution, which began with the Wuchang uprising on 10 October 1911, replacing the Qing dynasty and ending over two thousand years of imperial rule in China. From its founding until 1949 it was based in mainland China. Central authority waxed and waned in response to warlordism 1915–28, Japanese invasion 1937–45, and the Chinese Civil War 1927–50, with central authority strongest during the Nanjing decade 1927–37, when most of China came under the control of the Kuomintang KMT under an authoritarian one-party state.