The History of Taiwan

Modern Taiwan begins with Japanese colonial rule and has gone through three periods: the Japanese occupation (1895-1945), the Kuomintang authoritarian regime (1946-mid 1980s), and the Democratic period (late 1980s-present). This article explores modern Taiwan’s economic development in each of the three periods, analyses the main contributing factors, and finally comes to the conclusion that with the beginning of Taiwan’s Democratic period, Taiwan’s business firms found great profits in the mainland, and since then its economic growth has become increasingly dependent on mainland China as a result of the mainland attractiveness and chances after the open-up policy and the needs of Taiwan’s economic growth.

To begin with, in the colonial period, Taiwan’s economy was under the control of the Japanese administration and served for Japan’s homelands needs, while it had little connection with mainland China. Japan was desperate to prove to the West that it was a modern state –a colonizer, not a territory eligible for colonization by others, and the Japanese got Taiwan as a colony by the Treaty of Shimonoseki on April 17, 1895. Since Taiwan could give Japan unprecedented access to mainland China, the ambitious politicians in Japan envisioned Taiwan as a laboratory for demonstrating Japan’s parity with other modern imperial states. Under Japanese rule, Taiwan’s first modern industries started from the agricultural processing businesses. The colonial government also developed both hard and soft infrastructure to increase productivity. By 1905, only ten years after colonization, Taiwan was self-supporting, and by the 1940s, Taiwan was developing heavy industry and consumer manufacturing. During the colonial period, Taiwan’s economy served...

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...licy and the demand of Taiwan’s economic growth.

Works Cited

1. Richard Edmonds and Steven Goldstein eds., Taiwan in the Twentieth Century: A Retrospective View (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).

2. Robert Sutter, Taiwan, Entering the 21st Century (U. Press of America, 1988).

3. Denny Roy, Taiwan: A Political History (NY: Cornell University Press, 2003).

4. Shelley Rigger, Why Taiwan Matters (Rowman and Littlefield: 2011)

5. Steven M. Goldstein and Julian Chang, eds. Presidential Politics in Taiwan: The administration of Chen Shui-bian (Norwalk:EastBridge, 2008)

6. Douglas Fuller, “The Cross-Strait Economic Relationship’s Impact on Development in Taiwan and China: Adversaries and Partners,” Asian Survey 48/2 (March/April 2008) 199-214.

7. Murray Scott Tanner, Chinese Economic Coercion Against Taiwan: A Tricky Weapons to Use (Rand Corp. 2006)