Although the Chinese government had had reluctantly agreed to transfer the island to Japan, people living on Taiwan had their own agenda. On May 23, Taiwan declared itself a republic and set up an independent government. With that government came an army and a mobilization to resist occupation by the Japanese. The founders of the 1895 Taiwanese “republic” shrewdly took Western political labels and applied them to ad hoc institutions, unsuccessfully attempting to obtain French support against the Japanese occupation.20 It took the Japanese military five months to pacify the island, and for four more years the Taiwanese mounted an insurgency campaign that wore on the Japanese.21 As one Japanese baron put it: “Japan had made no preparations whatever for the administration of the island at the time of its acquisition.”22
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