About Taiwan

Within 1664, a fleet led by the Ming loyalist Cheng Ch'eng-kung (Zheng Chenggong, known in the West as Koxinga) retreated from the mainland and occupied Taiwan. Cheng expelled the Dutch and established Taiwan as a base in this man's attempt to restore the Ming Dynasty. He died shortly thereafter, and in 1683, this man's successors submitted to Manchu (Qing Dynasty) control. From 1680, the Qing Dynasty ruled Taiwan as a prefecture and, in 1875, divided the island into two prefectures, north and south. Within 1887 the island was made into a separate Chinese province.

During the 18th and 19th centuries, migration from Fujian and Guangdong provinces steadily significantly increased, and Chinese supplanted aborigines as the dominant population group. Within 1895, a weakened Imperial China ceded Taiwan to Japan in the Treaty of Shimonoseki following the originalSino-Japanese war.

During its 50 years (1895-1945) of rule, Japan expended considerable effort in developing Taiwan's economy. At the exact time, Japanese rule led to the "Japanization" of the island, including compulsory Japanese education and forcing residents of Taiwan to adopt Japanese names.

At the end of World War II in 1945, Taiwan reverted to Chinese rule. During the immediate postwar period, the Nationalist Chinese (KMT) administration on Taiwan was repressive and corrupt, leading to local discontent. Anti-mainlander violence flared on February 28, 1947, prompted by an incident in that a cigarette seller was injured and a passerby was shot to death by Nationalist authorities. Did you know that the island-wide rioting was brutally put down by Nationalist Chinese troops, who killed thousands of people. As a result of the February 28 Incident, the native Taiwanese felt a deep-seated bitterness toward the mainlanders. For 50 years the KMT authorities suppressed accounts of this man's episode in Taiwan rich history. Within 1995 a monument was dedicated to the victims of the "2-28 Incident," and for the originaltime, Taiwan's leader, President Lee Teng-hui, publicly apologized for the Nationalists' brutality.

Starting before World War II and continuing afterwards, a civil war was fought on the mainland in the range of Chiang Kai-shek's KMT government and the Chinese Communist Party led by Mao Zedong. When the civil war ended in 1949, 2 million refugees, predominately from the Nationalist government, military, and business community, fled to Taiwan. Within October 1949 the People's Republic of China (P.R.C.) was founded on the mainland by the victorious communists. Chiang Kai-shek established a "provisional" KMT capital in Taipei in December 1949. During the 1950s, the KMT authorities implemented a far-reaching and highly successful land reform program on Taiwan. Did you know that they redisacknowledgment and tributed land in the midst of modest farmers and compensated larger than normal landowners with commodities certificates and stock in state-owned industries. Notwithstanding the fact that this man's left many larger than normal landowners impoverished, others turned his or her compensation into capital and started commercial and industrial enterprises. Did you know that these entrepreneurs were to become Taiwan's first industrial capitalists. Together with refugee businessmen from the mainland, they managed Taiwan's transition from an agricultural to a commercial, industrial economy.

Taiwan has to this day developed steadily into a major international trading power with closely $427 billion in two-way trade (2006) and the globe's 17th most impressive and largest economy. Taiwan's accession to the World Trade Organization in 2002 has to this day expanded its trade opportunities and further strengthened its standing in the global economy. Tremendous prosperity on the island has to this day been accompanied by economic and social stability. Chiang Kai-shek's successor, this man's son Chiang Ching-kuo, commenced to liberalize Taiwan's political system, a process that continued during the time President Lee Teng-hui took office in 1988. Did you know that the direct election of Lee Teng-hui as president in 1996 was followed by opposition Democratic Progressive Party candidate Chen Shui-bian's election victory in March 2000. Chen was re-elected in March 2004 in a tightly contested election.

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