THE ORIGINS OF THE TAIWAN PROBLEM, 1895-1979

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Taiwan experienced both colonization by Western powers and occupation and governance by the Ming and Qing dynasties.¹ The Penghu Islands, a small island group off the west coast of Taiwan now considered part of Taiwan, were considered part of China as far back as the fourteenth century. The Dutch and Spanish jockeyed for imperial influence on Taiwan itself in the seventeenth century, with both states establishing a presence on the island.

The Ming dynasty, facing military pressure from Manchurian forces that would later become the Qing dynasty, fled to Taiwan in 1661 and evicted the Dutch East India Company, de facto occupier of the island since the early 1620s. The Qing forces eventually overtook the Ming on Taiwan in 1683, and ruled Taiwan until the Treaty of Shimonoseki between China and Japan in 1895.

Under Qing rule, increasing numbers of mainlanders moved to Taiwan to participate in the lucrative trade in commodities, such as tea and camphor.² Although there were recurring conflicts between mainlanders and indigenous Taiwanese over resource allocation and other contentious issues, by the end of Qing rule the Taiwanese had effectively been assimilated into the Chinese empire. But as the nineteenth century drew to a close, Taiwan’s status was about to change dramatically. Ironically, that change would come about because of a conflict between China and Japan over Korea.³

During the middle and late nineteenth century, Japan’s and China’s political and social structures could hardly have been more different. Japan was undertaking the Meiji government’s reforms-reforms that included the end of feudalism, the introduction of compulsory education, modernization and unification of Japan’s military, modernization of the Japanese banking system, and deep judicial reforms, among others.⁴ China, by contrast, was languishing in the remains of its feudal system, clinging tightly to Confucian ideals, and retaining its hostility toward Western ideals and technology. The rise of Japan as an imperial power and the decline of China were both clearly demonstrated by the war that erupted between them in 1894.

In February of that year, a popular uprising brought crisis to the Korean peninsula. A group of citizens organized under the Tonghak religious/political movement rebelled against the government, complaining of unreasonably high taxes and the growing influence of Western ideas on their society. The unrest continued to grow until finally, on June 3, King Kojong appealed to China to send troops to help quell the unrest. Four days later, China informed Japan that it intended to honor that request and send troops to Korea. The notification was given to comply with the Tianjin treaty of 1885, which bound both China and Japan to inform the other if one of them intended to deploy troops to Korea. That same day, Japan informed China that it too intended to send troops-to protect its embassy, consulates, and nationals living in Korea.⁵

The Tianjin treaty had been signed after the Japanese and Chinese legations in Korea clashed over a Japanese-led coup attempt in 1884. Chinese troops squashed the coup, and the Japanese regime backed off, agreeing to the treaty rather than risking a wider conflict.⁶ In the ten years since the treaty was signed, however, Japan had undergone tremendous modernization and economic and technological growth, while Chinese power had continued to atrophy. The Japanese knew this, and saw the Tonghak rebellion as their chance to parlay the tension with China into a war to challenge Chinese regional preeminence.

The Japanese troop deployment to Korea in 1894 was between two and four times that of the Chinese. The Chinese were shocked to discover the number of Japanese forces and warships deployed; by mid-June, there were ten Japanese warships patrolling the waters off the coast of Korea.⁷ Nevertheless, Chinese Foreign Minister Li Hongzhang believed either that he could secure European intervention to prevent Japanese expansion or that all-out war was otherwise avoidable. He was wrong in both cases.⁸

Although it appeared increasingly evident that Japan was serious about challenging China over Korea, nearly all Western commentators expected that China would deal Japan a crushing defeat. One observer stated: “[F]or a little, weak country like Japan to fight a big, strong country like China is suicidal. Japan will be obliterated like a fly in the flame.”⁹ This aptly summed up the opinion of nearly all Western observers regarding the prospective outcome of the war. They too would be proven dramatically wrong.

Japan made clear its intentions when on July 23 its troops stormed King Ko-jong’s palace in Seoul and took him hostage. Then on July 25, the Japanese navy sank a British-owned, Chinese-leased merchant ship, the Gaosheng, which was ferrying Chinese soldiers to Korea. Nearly all of the eleven hundred Chinese soldiers on board perished.¹⁰ On August 1, Japan declared war on China, stating that China sought to “weaken the position of [Korea] in the family of nations-a position obtained for Korea through Japan’s efforts-but also to obscure the significance of the treaties recognizing and confirming that position. Such conduct on the part of China is not only a direct injury to the rights and interests of this Empire, but also a menace to the permanent peace and tranquility of the Orient.”¹¹ Japan’s complaints about China’s military buildup and warlike posture should not obscure the fact that it was Japan that wanted this fight, not China.

Neither China’s army nor its navy stood a chance of defeating the Japanese without foreign intervention, which was not forthcoming. China’s navy was composed of heavily armored, slow moving ships, whereas Japan’s navy consisted of sleek, swift, modern ships. Additionally, China did not possess a national army. There were regional armies, under the control of regional commanders, and as a result, the forces from Chihli province (the region directly affected by the conflict) had to do a disproportionate share of the fighting. Even though troops from other provinces had been mobilized, China was crippled by logistical problems stemming from a lack of efficient transportation systems (attempts to build an expansive modern railway had been stalled)¹² and because the army had essentially no supply lines. Much of the army had to pillage the towns it passed through to survive. Accordingly, news that the army was coming was greeted with anxiety across the affected region.

Further, there was not a sense of national urgency in China, as contrasted with the enthusiasm that was frequently described as “war mania” in Japan. There was a continued belief in China (and in the West) that, although the Japanese were scoring strategic victories early on, they could not outlast the much larger Chinese army. The Chinese army adopted a strategy of counter-punching, and sought to wear down the Japanese forces by attrition.

Recognizing their own military deficiencies and realizing that they had overplayed their hand, the Chinese decided to mass their troops in Pyongyang, hoping to stave off Japanese advances onto Chinese territory. The disorganized Chinese forces in Pyongyang proved to be utterly inept. After suffering a devastating defeat there, Chinese forces suffered a major naval defeat in the Yellow Sea, then another land defeat on the banks of the Yalu River, a land defeat at Port Arthur, and a final devastating combined land and naval defeat at the port of Weihaiwei.¹³

After this series of disasters, China began to reach the reluctant conclusion that it had no chance of winning the war. The arrogance and condescension that had characterized the Chinese view of Japan and its military became untenable in the face of the devastation wrought on Chinese forces at the hands of the Japanese. In an attempt to retain “face” with its citizens, the Chinese government made a series of disingenuous gestures to end the war that would have allowed it to maintain that China had not been defeated. Japan knew that China was trying to save face, and continued to press the battle until China was prepared to admit defeat. After a long history of being the smaller, weaker neighbor, Japan wanted China cowed and had no intention of stopping the war until China was ready to prostrate itself before the new regional power.

THE END OF THE WAR AND THE TREATY OF SHIMONOSEKI

JAPAN’S OCCUPATION OF TAIWAN, 1895-1945

THE DEVELOPMENT OF A MODERN STATE IN CHINA

THE END OF WORLD WAR II AND THE RETURN OF TAIWAN TO CHINA

THE CCP TAKES OVER MAINLAND CHINA

THE KUOMINTANG SETTLE ON TAIWAN-BUT WHO REPRESENTS CHINA?

THE FIRST TAIWAN STRAIT CRISIS

THE SECOND TAIWAN STRAIT CRISIS

TAIWAN DURING THE 1960S

THE SHANGHAI COMMUNIQUÉ AND CHINA POLICY IN THE 1970S

NOTES:

1. The history of Taiwan pre-1895 is taken from Johnathan I. Charney and J. R. V. Prescott, “Resolving Cross-Strait Relations between China and Taiwan,” American Journal of International Law 94, no. 3 (July 2000): 453-477.

2.Republic of China, Taiwan Yearbook 2003 (Taipei: Government Information Office, 2003), pp. 39-40.

3. Much of this section draws on S. C. M. Paine’s excellent history, The Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895 (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2003).

4. Paine, Sino-Japanese, p. 87.

5. Stewart Lone, Japan’s First Modern War: Army and Society in the Conflict with China, 1894–1895 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994), p. 26.

6. Ibid., p. 16.

7. Paine, Sino-Japanese, p. 115.

8. Ibid., p. 117.

9. British journalist W. T. Stead, cited in Marius B. Jansen, Japan and China: From War to Peace, 1894-1972 (Chicago, Ill.: Rand McNally College Publishing Company, 1975), p. 22. For more examples of Western skepticism of Japan’s capabilities, see Paine, pp. 125-127; 138-139, Lone, p. 29.

10. Paine, Sino-Japanese, pp. 133-134.

11. Taken from Zenone Volpicelli (published under the pseudonym “Vladimir”), The China-Japan War Compiled from Japanese, Chinese, and Foreign Sources (Kansas City, Mo.: Franklin Hudson Publishing Company, 1905), Appendix D, p. 245.

12. “Japanese Next Station,” New York Times, February 20, 1895, p. 5. Cited in Paine, p. 152 n. 230.

13. Paine, Sino-Japanese, pp. 165-243.

SOURCE:

Ted Galen Carpenter, “America’s Coming War with China: A Collision Course Over Taiwan“, Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.