SUNDAY, 11 MAY 2003
All the material in this book (with the exception of a few paragraphs) date from the Taiwan period of my life. It is important to mention that this book is not about Taiwan; that certain themes saw further development in this environment, and others emerged, is indeed important. A few pages on this specific environment would therefore not be inappropriate.
Geography
Taiwan is approximately 160 kilometres from Mainland China. It lies on the western edge of the so-called “Ring of Fire” – a path around the Pacific Ocean that terrorises populations with earthquakes and volcanoes. No surprise then that Taiwan is mountainous, with some of the highest peaks in Northeast Asia.
A subtropical location means Taiwan enjoys long, hot, and humid summers and short, cool winters. Summers are characterised by heavy monsoon rains, with every now and then a typhoon that storms in from the Philippines or from out in the Pacific Ocean.
As could be expected of a subtropical island, greenery abounds. Apparently, there are also bears and several different types of deer to be seen in the mountainous areas, and if the writer could make it past the neighbourhood convenience store over the weekends, he would surely confirm this.
History
According to the Lonely Planet, humans have called Taiwan home for more than 10,000 years. The first inhabitants, who shared a genetic heritage with people in the neighbouring Philippines, migrated from other islands in the area. By the time the first Chinese people arrived, two aboriginal groups co-existed on the island – tribes who lived on the plains, with other tribes 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 took a look around and called the place Ilha Formosa, which translates as “Beautiful Island.” (It was the Chinese who gave Taiwan her current name: Bay of Terraces.) The Dutch dropped anchor in 1624, and they enjoyed some good bear and deer hunting until a Ming loyalist called Zheng Chenggong 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.[1]
The next big event in Taiwanese history occurred in 1895. Taiwan was one of the prizes that landed in the lap of the Japanese emperor after a victorious war against China. As part of the growing Japanese empire for the next half century, Taiwan saw a complete overhaul of its infrastructure and industry. By the time Japan lost the Second World War, affairs in China had changed to such a degree that Taiwan’s history was on the verge of another dramatic 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 the cultural treasures of the National Palace Museum, all the money he could lay his hands on in China’s national bank, about a million and a half supporters and 600,000 Nationalist soldiers, and retreat from all the fighting to 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 their original home in Beijing.
In the end, Chiang and all his troops grew old in Taiwan. Chiang died in Taipei 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 the Motherland. He landed on these shores as the president of the Republic of China, and by the time he breathed his last, 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 all of China. Things started to change in that decade, though, and today only a handful of states still recognise the claims of the Taipei government.
After the United Nations kicked the representative from Taiwan out in 1971, 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 they had suggested anything of the kind until the late 1980s. From the day the top honchos in Taipei received the memo 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. Some Taiwanese believe that the island should at some point reunite with the motherland. Others argue that Taiwan should be recognised 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 want to see 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.
This, then, is the geography, history, and unusual political state of the country in which I have found myself the past four years.
[1] Mandarin is the Beijing dialect of Chinese. Although Chinese consists of numerous dialects, the Beijing dialect serves as the official language of China, Taiwan, and as one of three official languages of Singapore.
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