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The Development of Formosan Nationalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Maurice Meisner
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Extract

Eighteen years ago Formosa was liberated from half a century of Japanese colonial rule. When Kuomintang soldiers and administrators arrived to reassert Chinese sovereignty over the island province in October 1945 they were enthusiastically welcomed as liberators by the For-mosans. Within a few months, however, the Kuomintang had succeeded in alienating virtually all segments of the native population by inaugurating a military régime that treated Formosa as a conquered territory rather than a liberated area. The mass pillaging, official corruption and political repression that marked the early period of Kuomintang rule in Formosa set in motion the tragic events that culminated in the revolt of February 1947 in the course of which at least 10,000 Formosans were massacred. The Kuomintang has since done little to heal the scars of 1947 and today most of the 10,000,000 Formosans look upon the nearly 2,000,000 mainlanders who fled to Formosa with the collapse of Kuomintang rule as foreign overlords and describe the Chinese Nationalist régime as a colonial tyranny far more oppressive than the former Japanese rule. That the overwhelming majority of Formosans favour the establishment of an independent Formosan state, without ties to mainland China and, preferably, without the presence of mainlanders, is a fact that can no longer be ignored in considering the present condition and future status of Formosa.

Type
Formosa
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 15 , September 1963 , pp. 91 - 106
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1963

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References

1 See, for example, Kiansin, Ko, “The Legal Status of Formosa from the Viewpoint of International Law,” Formosan Quarterly, Vol. 1, No. 2 (10 1962), pp. 37–40.Google Scholar

2 Cionghai, Niu, “The Formation of the Formosan Nation,” Formosan Quarterly, Vol. 1, No. 2 (10 1962), p. 46.Google Scholar

3 “Every three years a disorder, and every five years a rebellion” is a Formosan saying that dates from the period of Ch'ing rule.

4 Davidson, James W., The Island of Formosa, Past and Present (New York and London, 1903), pp. 276–277.Google Scholar

5 For a contemporary account of the formation of the “Formosan Democratic Republic” see Davidson, 277–284.Google Scholar

6 Davidson, , p. 278.Google Scholar

7 Ibid. p. 279. According to a Japanese account 70–80,000 native Formosans were aimed and organised military resistance to the far superior Japanese forces continued for over six months, followed by several years of active guerilla warfare. It is interesting to note that a Japanese writing in 1907 attributed the difficulties of the Japanese military campaign in the latter half of 1895 to the Chinese adeptness at guerrilla warfare. Takekoshi, Yosaburo, Japanese Rule in Formosa (London, 1907), pp. 82 & 88.Google Scholar

8 Davidson, , p. 279.Google Scholar

9 Barclay, George W., Colonial Development and Population in Taiwan (Princeton, 1954), p. 33.Google Scholar

10 Grajdanzev, Andrew J., Formosa Today (New York, 1942), p. 91.Google Scholar

11 For statistics cm the growth of Fonnosan cities see Barclay, , op. cit., pp. 116Google Scholaret seq. Between 1920–40, the rate of growth of the Fonnosan urban population was approximately twice that of the population as a whole.

12 In 1930 29% of the Formosans living in the seven cities of “municipal rank” were engaged in commerce and 6·4% were government workers and professionals. Barclay p. 129.

13 Formosan Quarterly, Vol. I, No. 2 (10 1962), p. 52Google Scholar

14 For a description of the early period of Kuomintang rule in Formosa, see Ballantine, Joseph W., Formosa (Washington, 1952), pp. 57–62.Google Scholar

15 New Taiwan Monthly (09 1946), pp. 1–3.Google Scholar

16 New Taiwan Monthly (01–02 1947), p. 1.Google Scholar

17 When the Nationalist “Administrator-General” of Formosa, General Chen Yi realised he did not have sufficient military forces to quell the revolt, he agreed to the major demands of the Formosans and persuaded the revolutionaries to lay down their arms. On March 8, 50,000 Nationalist troops arrived from the mainland and inaugurated a reign of terror which lasted for most of the month. The figure of 10,000 Formosan deaths was first reported by Tillman Durdin, upon the basis of the accounts of foreign observers, in the New York Times on 03 29, 1947 (p. 6). Some Formosan sources put the number at 20,000.Google Scholar

18 China News (Taipei), 11 22, 1960.Google Scholar

19 China News (Taipei), 11 21, 1960.Google Scholar

20 One Formosan college graduate who served as a lieutenant in the Nationalist army between 1956–58 reported that while 40 per cent, of the soldiers in his division were Formosan (a division of the Nationalist army normally consists of about 12,000 men), there were only 12 Formosan officers in the entire division. Jiurian, Ng, “A Formosan Officer's Memoirs,” Formosan Quarterly, Vol. 1, No. 3 (01 1963), p. 81.Google Scholar

21 A characteristic example of this attitude has been described by a former Formosan member of the Kuomintang army: “In the Nationalist Army the use of the Japanese language was not permitted, but we Fonnosans used Japanese loudly on purpose. It was not by accident that we wrote letters in Japanese. We knew our letters were censored but we wrote them in the prohibited language intentionally. It was not from our love of Japan that we used Japanese, but the use of it certainly had a nuisance value as our tiny means of retaliation against the Nationalist regime.” Formosan Quarterly, Vol. 1, No. 3 (01 1963), p. 80.Google Scholar

22 “Taiwan-Jen yü ta-Iu-jen” (Formosans and Mainlanders), Tsu-yu Chung-kuo (Free China), Vol. 23, No. 2 (07 16, 1960), p. 36.Google Scholar

23 See, for example, Nien-hua, Cheng, “Shih-lun so-wei Tai-wan tu-li yun-tung” (An Examination of the So-Called Formosan Independence Movement), Hai-wei lun-t'an (World Forum), Vol. I, No. 12 (12 1960), pp. 2–7.Google Scholar

24 For an excellent discussion of the “elements of nationhood,” see Emerson, Rupert, From Empire to Nation (Boston, 1960), pp. 102–131.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

25 Emerson, , p. 95.Google Scholar