Formosa (Taiwan) Under Japanese Rule

Abstract

T AIWAN, or Formosa, an island of 13,807 sq. miles lying off the Chinese coastal province of Fukien and peopled by nearly six million Chinese, is the oldest Japanese colony the population of which is not assimilated with the Japanese. Fortyseven years have passed since the establishment of the Japanese rule on the island. Now that hundred millions of natives in Eastern and Southeastern Asia have been brought under Japanese domination, at least temporarily, the experience of Formosa under Japanese rule may throw light on their prospective fate as colonial subjects of Japan. The question which will be discussed here is how successful were the Japanese in the economic exploitation of Formosa and its inhabitants. But, first, let us see how the island :amne under the Japanese and what the Japanese found there. It is usually believed that Taiwan became a part of the Japanese Empire through the treaty of Shimonoseki signed on April 17, 1895, by which defeated China ceded to Japan Taiwan and the Pescadores. But actually the cession of the island by the Manchu Government was not sufficient to make Japan the master of the island. On May 23, 1895, Taiwan was proclaimed a Republic, with the governor of Taiwan province (Tang Ching-sung) as its first president, and a constituent assembly was called to work out the constitution. Japanese historians treat this declaration of independence as a clumsy manoeuvre on the part of the Peking Government to attract the attention of the Western Powers to the fate of the island. If this were the case, the Western Powers did not understand or did not want to understand that cession of Taiwan might imperil China's sea communications with the Western world. The coming problem of roads to China, so acutely felt in the present war, had its origin in the indifference of the Powers to Japanese annexation of Taiwan in 1895. The new Republic of Taiwan did not recognize the cession of the island by the Manchu Government and wanted to defend its independence with arms. The representative of the Manchu Govern-