Geography
Taiwan is approximately 160 kilometres from Mainland China, and lies on the western edge of the so-called “Ring of Fire” – that terrorises everything that breaths around the Pacific Ocean with earthquakes and fire spitting mountains. This particular geology also mean that Taiwan is mountainous, with some of the highest peaks in Northeast Asia.
As a subtropical island, Taiwan enjoys only two seasons rather than the more conventional four. What this comes down to is heavy monsoon rains during the summer, with every now and then a typhoon that storms in from the Philippines. (A happy summer in this place is one where you don’t suffer wet and unbearably humid weather for months on end.) Thanks to this type of climate greenery abounds, but to really appreciate it you have to flee the city for the mountains. Apparently there are also bears and several different types of deer to be seen in the mountainous areas, but since I usually don’t make it any further than the neighbourhood convenience store over the weekends, I can unfortunately not confirm this.
History
According to the Lonely Planet – that’s lying right next to me as I’m writing this (how else would I have known about the deer and bears?) – people have been around in Taiwan for more than 10,000 years. The first inhabitants had migrated from other islands in the area, and they shared a genetic heritage with people in neighbouring Philippines. By the time the first Chinese people arrived, two aboriginal groups co-existed on the island – those who lived on the plains, with the other group mostly keeping to the mountains.
From the fifteenth century onward, Chinese immigrants arrived in larger numbers. Because most of them hailed from the Fujian Province in China, the mother tongue of most Taiwanese people today sounds similar to the Fujian dialect of Chinese (although Mandarin is the official language of Taiwan).
In the year 1517 the Portuguese dropped anchor, and called the place Ilha Formosa. (The latter translates as “Beautiful Island.” It was, however, the Chinese who gave Taiwan her more descriptive current name: Bay of Terraces). The Dutch arrived in 1624, and they enjoyed some good bear and deer hunting until a Ming loyalist called Cheng Cheng-kung chased them away in 1661. Because the Qing dynasty had been filling the throne in Beijing at the time, they took charge of the island in 1682. For the next two hundred years large scale immigration took place of the people whose language is similar to that of modern day Taiwanese.
The next big happening in Taiwanese history came with Japan taking over control in 1895. Taiwan was one the prizes that landed in the lap of the Japanese emperor after a victorious war against China. For the nest half century Taiwan was part of the growing Japanese empire. By the time Japan had lost the Second World War, affairs in China had changed to such a degree that Taiwan’s history was on the verge of irrevocable transformation.
The moment the Japanese pulled out of China, the civil war between the communists and Chiang Kai-shek’s government entered its last, and bloodiest phase. At the start of 1949, Chiang realised his days in the motherland have been counted. He decided to gather on a fleet of ships all the cultural treasures of the National Palace Museum, all the money he could lay his hands on in China’s national bank, almost a million and a half supporters and 600,000 Nationalist soldiers, and to take a break from all the fighting on the lovely island of Taiwan. The idea was to retake the Motherland “within two years” with well-rested troops – and of course to return the treasures to its original home in Beijing.
In the end, Chiang and all his troops grew old in Taiwan (Chiang died in 1975 at the age of 87), and as most people know the communists still own the throne in China.
Politics
Chiang arrived in 1949 not only armed with troops, supporters, money and Ming vases – he also had the foresight to bring along the flag, title and necessary politicians to give him the right to continue calling himself the Chief of China. He landed on these shores as the president of the Republic of china, and at the time of his death in 1975, he was still the president of the Republic of China.
Until the seventies most of the non-communist world agreed with Chiang that his government in Taiwan was the rightful rulers of China. Things started to change in that decade, though, and today only a handful of states still recognize the claims of the Taipei government.
So, the United Nations kicked the from Taiwan out in 1971, and most countries followed suit by closing their embassies in subsequent years – only to continue doing business as usual shortly afterwards as so-called “Trade Offices.” What is Taiwan then if not the physical address of the government of China? From 1949 onwards Taiwan had for all practical purposes been governed as separate from Mainland China – even though any Taiwanese would have been thrown in jail if he had suggested anything of the kind. Since the time the government leaders had received the memo that they were no longer regarded as the political masters of China – with Taiwan as one of her provinces – they’ve struggled with a political identity crisis. They nevertheless still had a job to do – to act as a responsible government for the 25 million people in Taiwan.
Why not just change the name to the Republic of Taiwan? To ask this question is to pinch a nerve under the local population. Some Taiwanese believe that the island should at some point reunite with the motherland. Others argue that Taiwan should be recognized for what she is, and has been for the past fifty years: a sovereign state. And in this strange political situation the last group of people that desire an official name change for Taiwan, is the communist government in Beijing. They believe the moment Taiwan gets a name that accurately reflects the reality, is the moment Taiwan declares her independence from the motherland. And then all hell will break loose.
And so, until the present day, the city of Taipei plays host to the government of the “Republic of China,” with a provincial government in another Taiwanese city that that is responsible for the “province” of Taiwan – on paper, that is.
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This article originally appeared on BrandSmit.net.
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