Lying off the southeastern coast of
the China
mainland, Taiwan is China's
largest island and forms an
integral whole
with the mainland.
Taiwan has belonged to
China since ancient times. It was
known
as Yizhou or Liuqiu in antiquities. Many
historical records and annals documented the development
of Taiwan by the Chinese people in
earlier periods.
References to this effect
were to be found, among
others, in
Seaboard Geographic Gazetteer compiled more
than 1,700 years ago by Shen Ying of the State of
Wu
during the period of the Three
Kingdoms. This was the
world's earliest
written account of Taiwan. Several
expeditions, each numbering over ten thousand men, had
been sent to Taiwan by the State of Wu
(third century
A.D.) and the Sui Dynasty
(seventh century A.D.)
respectively.
Since early seventeenth century the
Chinese people began to step up the development of
Taiwan. Their numbers topped one hundred thousand
at the
end of the century. By 1893 (19th year
of the reign of
Qing Emperor Guangxu) their
population exceeded 2.54
million people
in 507,000 or more households. That was a
25-fold increase in 200 years. They brought in a more
advanced mode of production and
settled the whole length
and breadth of
Taiwan. Thanks to the determined efforts
and
hard toil of the pioneers, the development of the
island as a whole greatly accelerated. This was
the
historical fact of how Taiwan, like
the other parts of
China, came to be opened up
and settled by the Chinese
people of
various nationalities. From the very beginning
the Taiwan society derived from the source of the
Chinese cultural tradition. This basic
fact had not
changed even during the
half century of Japanese
occupation. The
history of Taiwan's development is
imbued with the blood, sweat, and ingenuity of the
Chinese people including the local ethnic
minorities.
Chinese governments of
different periods set up
administrative
bodies to exercise jurisdiction over
Taiwan. As early as in the mid-12th century the Song
Dynasty set up a garrison in Penghu, putting the
territory under the jurisdiction of
Jinjiang County of
Fujian's Quanzhou
Prefecture. The Yuan Dynasty installed
an
agency of patrol and inspection in Penghu to
administer the territory. During the mid- and
late 16th
century the Ming Dynasty
reinstated the once abolished
agency and sent
reinforcements to Penghu in order to
ward
off foreign invaders. In 1662 (first year of the
reign of Qing Emperor Kangxi) General Zheng
Chenggong
(known in the West as
Koxinga) instituted Chengtian
Prefecture on
Taiwan. Subsequently, the Qing government
expanded the administrative structure in Taiwan, thereby
strengthening its rule over the
territory. In 1684 (23rd
year of the
reign of Emperor Kangxi) a Taiwan-Xiamen
Patrol Command and a Taiwan Prefecture Administration
were set up under the jurisdiction of
Fujian Province.
These in turn exercised
jurisdiction over three counties
on
the island: Taiwan (present-day Tainan), Fengshan
(present-day Gaoxiong) and Zhuluo (present-day
Jiayi).
In 1714 (53rd year of the reign of
Emperor Kangxi) the
Qing government ordered the
mapping of Taiwan to
determine its
size. In 1721 (60th year of the reign of
Emperor Kangxi) an office of imperial supervisor of
inspecting Taiwan was created and the
Taiwan-Xiamen
Patrol Command was renamed
Prefecture Administration of
Taiwan and
Xiamen, incorporating the
subsequently-created Zhanghua County and Danshui Canton.
In 1727 (5th year of the reign of
Emperor Yongzheng) the
administration
on the island was reconstituted as the
Prefecture Administration of Taiwan (which was later
renamed Prefecture Command for 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 Taibei Prefecture, Jilong Canton and
three
counties of Danshui, Xinzhu and Yilan
in 1875 (1st year
of the reign of Emperor
Guangxu). In 1885 (11th year of
the
reign of Emperor Guangxu), the government formally
made Taiwan a full province covering three
prefectures
and one subprefecture and
incorporating 11 counties and
5 cantons. Liu
Mingchuan was appointed first Governor of
Taiwan. During his tenure of office, railways were laid,
mines opened, telegraph service
installed, merchant
ships built, industries
started and new-style schools
set up.
Considerable social, economic and cultural
advancement in Taiwan was achieved as a result.
After the Chinese people's victory in
the war against
Japanese aggression in
1945, the Chinese government
reinstated its
administrative authority in Taiwan
Province.
Chinese on both sides of
the Taiwan Straits carried out
a prolonged,
unremitting struggle against foreign
invasion and occupation of Taiwan. Since the late 15th
century Western colonialists started
to grab and conquer
colonies in a big way. In
1624 (4th year of the reign of
Ming Emperor
Tianqi) Dutch colonialists invaded and
occupied the southern part of Taiwan. Two years later
Spanish colonialists seized the
northern part of Taiwan.
In 1642 (15th
year of the reign of Ming Emperor
Chongzhen) the Dutch evicted the Spaniards and took over
north Taiwan. The Chinese people on
both sides of the
Straits waged various forms
of struggle including armed
insurrections
against the invasion and occupation of
Taiwan by foreign colonialists. In 1661 (18th year of
the reign of Qing Emperor Shunzhi)
General Zheng
Chenggong (Koxinga) led an
expedition to Taiwan and
expelled the
Dutch colonialists from the island in the
following year.
Japan launched a war of
aggression against China in 1894
(20th
year of the reign of Qing Emperor Guangxu). In the
ensuing year, as a result of defeat the Qing
government
was forced to sign the
Treaty of Shimonoseki, 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. In Taiwan
itself, people wailed and bemoaned the betrayal
and went
on general strikes. General Liu Yongfu
and others of the
garrison command stood with
Taiwan compatriots and put
up a fierce
fight against the Japanese landing forces.
To support this struggle, people on the mainland,
particularly in the southeastern
region, showed their
solidarity by
generous donations or organizing
volunteers to Taiwan to fight the Japanese forces.
Taiwan compatriots never ceased 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 grueling war
against
Japanese aggression the Chinese people
won final victory
and recovered the lost
territory of Taiwan in 1945.
Taiwan
compatriots displayed an outburst of passion and
celebrated the great triumph of their return to
the fold
of the motherland by setting off big
bangs of fireworks
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 world-wide struggle against
Fascism, received
extensive support from
people all over the world. During
the
Second World War 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 1 December 1943 stated:
"It is the
purpose of the three great
Allies that Japan shall be
stripped of 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
has 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 26 July 1945
(subsequently adhered to by the Soviet
Union)
reiterated: "The terms of the
Cairo Declaration shall be
carried
out." On 15 August of the same year, Japan
declared surrender. The instrument of 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 25 October the
ceremony for accepting Japan's surrender in Taiwan
Province of the China war theater of the Allied
powers
was held in Taibei. On the occasion
the chief officer
for accepting the surrender
proclaimed on behalf of the
Chinese
government that from that day forward Taiwan and
the Penghu Archipelago had again been
incorporated
formally into the territory
of China and that the
territory,
people, and administration had now been
placed under the sovereignty of China. From that point
in time forward, Taiwan and Penghu had
been put back
under the jurisdiction of
Chinese sovereignty.
Since the
founding of the People's Republic of China,
157 countries have established diplomatic
relations with
China. All these countries
recognize that there is only
one China and
that the Government of the People's
Republic of China is the sole legal government of China
and Taiwan is part of China.