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FORBIDDEN
NATION
A History of Taiwan
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FORBIDDEN
NATION
A History of Taiwan
Jonathan Manthorpe
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FORBIDDEN NATION
Copyright © Jonathan Manthorpe, 2005.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner
whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in
critical articles or reviews.
First published 2002 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN™
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MACMILLANdivision of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd.
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countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries.
ISBN 1-4039-6981-7 hardback
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Forbidden nation: the history of Taiwan/ Jonathan Manthorpe.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 1-4039-6981-7
1. Taiwan—History—2000– I. Title: History of Taiwan. II. Title.
DS799.844.M36 2005
951.24’9—dc22
2005047413
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Design by Letra Libre, Inc.
First edition: October 2005
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Printed in the United States of America
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgments vii
Preface xi
Maps xv
Chapter One: Two Shots on Chinhua Road 1
Chapter Two: A Leaf on the Waves 21
Chapter Three: Barbarian Territory 35
Chapter Four: Pirate Haven 43
Chapter Five: The House of Cheng 53
Chapter Six: The Siege of Fort Zeelandia 65
Chapter Seven: The Prince Who Became a God 83
Chapter Eight: Deliverance and Defeat 99
Chapter Nine: A State of Constant Rebellion 111
Chapter Ten: The Wolves Circle 125
Chapter Eleven: A Modern Province 141
Chapter Twelve: The Taiwan Republic 157
Chapter Thirteen: Becoming Japanese 165
Chapter Fourteen: Missionaries and Filibusters 179
Chapter Fifteen: New Beginning, New Betrayal 187
Chapter Sixteen: The Unsinkable Aircraft Carrier 195
Chapter Seventeen: Reform and Terror 201
Chapter Eighteen: Strategic Ambiguity 211
Chapter Nineteen: The Perils of Democracy 227
Chapter Twenty: 29,518 Votes 239
Notes 257
Bibliography 265
Index 267
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My first visit to Taiwan was in the mid-1970s. Chiang Kai-shek had died a few
months before and the government was a colonial military dictatorship thinly
glossed with some trappings of democracy. The authorities regarded visiting
foreign journalists with only marginally less suspicion than did the mainland
government in Beijing. My impression was of a forbidding and unhappy place.
That visit was part of my first tour of Asia and the beginning of my career
as a foreign correspondent. I went on to postings in Europe and Africa before
returning to Asia and a base in Hong Kong in 1993. I visited Taiwan soon
after my return to Asia. It was a different place from the one I remembered.
Taipei was vibrant and cosmopolitan, already showing the signs of renewal
that have made it one of the most attractive cities in Asia. The general mood
was optimistic and life seemed to offer a wealth of possibilities. In Africa I had
reported on many countries attempting to make the transition from colonial
rule to democracy. Taiwan, in contrast, was clearly making the same transition
with many more hopes of success than I had seen in places like Zimbabwe,
Zambia, Angola, Namibia, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and South Africa. It was clear
too that political and social changes were more soundly based in Taiwan than
in some other Asian countries where similar transitions were underway at the
same period. I wondered what had given Taiwan its advantage. I started ex-
ploring the island’s history even as I reported on the final stages of democratic
transition in the 1990s. This book is the product of that exploration and my
response to what I found.
Writing in English about societies that use variations of the Chinese lan-
guage and written characters poses a very basic problem. How should one
spell Chinese names using the Roman alphabet? This problem goes beyond
accuracy; it is a highly political issue. Many sounds used in the Chinese lan-
guage and dialects have no easy equivalent in English. Several systems have
been developed over the years and under different political regimes. Thus
the system that a writer in English uses is frequently seen as a political state-
ment of his or her approach to the subject. There are two main systems for
the Romanization of Chinese names. There is the Wade-Giles system, first
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developed in the mid-nineteenth century and which is used on Taiwan, and
there is pinyin, a simplified form which was instituted by the Communists
after they came to power on the mainland in 1949. I have had long discus-
sions with both Taiwanese and Chinese about which system I should use.
My main debt on these questions of English spelling is to Dr. Charles Yang,
former president of the Taiwan Cultural Association in Vancouver, and
Mark Yang. They gave thoughtful advice not only on the question of names,
but on several other aspects of the manuscript.
While I tend to regard the Wade-Giles system as giving a better rendering
of Chinese in the Roman alphabet than does pinyin, I have decided to com-
promise in favor of the reader. Most readers will now be familiar with main-
land names rendered in pinyin. For example, Beijing is now established as the
English spelling of the name of the Chinese capital rather than the older
Wade-Giles version, Peking. Similarly, Mao Zedong is now the more common
spelling of the name of the Communist revolutionary leader in place of Mao
Tse-tung under the Wade-Giles system. So I have used pinyin spelling for
mainland names and Wade-Giles for those on Taiwan. Where older names,
such as the Fujian provincial port city of Amoy, appear in quotations I have
put the modern name, in this case Xiamen, in brackets.
There are similar questions about how to render Japanese characters into
English. There are, for example, several ways of expressing the long “o” which
occurs at the end of many Japanese names such as Tokyo and Kyoto. After
much discussion I have decided to follow the stance of most English-language
Japanese publications, which is not to include any accent at all.
The gestation period of this book has been so long that the list of those
whose help and guidance I should recognize is massive. I must therefore con-
fine myself to people most directly involved or consulted in the production of
this book. I cannot neglect to mention, however, my editors at the Southam
News Service—Nick Hills, Jim Travers, and Aileen McCabe—without whose
support my career as a foreign correspondent would not have followed the
same path.
Robert Mackwood of the Seventh Avenue Literary Agency understood the
idea of the book from the start and championed it through thick and thin.
Toby Wahl of Palgrave Macmillan has been an essential link, tempering and
bending the author’s inclination to explore the story’s side streams toward
what’s best for the reader. Alan Bradshaw of Palgrave Macmillan has done a
splendid job of editing the manuscript as well as engaging in an interesting ex-
ploration of those English words and phrases that need translation when they
cross the Canada-United States border. I am indebted to many members of
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Vancouver’s community of immigrants from Taiwan, especially Dr. Charles
Yang and James Chou, for their encouragement and readiness to spend hours
drinking tea and chatting in order to help me understand aspects of Taiwan’s
story. On Taiwan I am grateful to Kang Tien-wang and the staff of the Taipei
Artist Village, where much of this book was written; my stay there would have
been a more emotionally exhausting experience without the delightful com-
pany of that community. Dr. Thomas Chen, Taiwan’s representative in
Canada, and several members of the staff of the Government Information Of-
fice in Taipei were of essential help in arranging interviews for me with a broad
range of people on the island. I am grateful for the assistance of Peter Chen,
Wendy Lin Ching-wen, Carmen Tsai, James Yu, Jason Yuan, and Liu Wei-ling.
Several rotations of diplomats at Canada’s unofficial embassy in Taipei, the
Canadian Trade Office, have been of unstinting assistance during my many
visits to Taiwan over the years. Office directors David Mulroney, Ted Lipman,
and Gordon Holden have all offered advice and analysis from their bountiful
experience in the region. Many staff members have been equally helpful. In
the context of this book I must mention James Mitchell, Weldon Epp, Sylvia
Yan, and Sumeeta Chandavarkar.
Among those who talked to me about their visions of Taiwan’s past, pres-
ent, and future were Mayaw Biho, convener of the Amis Tribe Film Festival,
Dr. Bien Chiang of the Institute of Ethnology at Academica Sinica, and Ku
Lin-lin of the Graduate School of Journalism at the National Taiwan Univer-
sity. There was Voyu Yakumangana of the Association for Taiwan Indigenous
People’s Policies; Wei Ti, professor of mass communications at Tamkang Uni-
versity and a member of Taiwan Media Watch; and Dr. Chao Chien-min of
the Sun Yat-sen Graduate Institute for Social Science and Humanities at
Chengchi University. Yao Chia-wen, president of the Examination Yuan, was
generous with his time recalling his experiences of the 1979 Kaohsiung Inci-
dent, and as a political prisoner afterward, and discussing his current plans for
Taiwan’s constitutional reform. Dr. Ho Szu-yin, the director of International
Affairs for the Kuomintang and professor at the Department of Political Sci-
ence of Chengchi University, was a valuable source of views on Taiwan’s polit-
ical present and future. Dr. Hung Chien-chao of the Kuomintang-linked
National Policy Foundation was a pleasure to meet and talk to after having en-
joyed and benefited from his writing for so many years. Peng Ming-min, sen-
ior advisor to President Chen Shui-bian, and the father of the modern
movement for Taiwan nationhood, was as welcoming and eager to exchange
views as he has always been. Dr. Leng Tse-kang of the Institute of International
relations at Chengchi University was most helpful in giving regional context
