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* Montenegro. ''The World Factbook''. Central Intelligence Agency. |
* Montenegro from ''UCB Libraries GovPubs'' |
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* Montenegro profile from the BBC News |
* Culture Corner – leading Montenegrin web portal for culture |
* Official Website National Parks Montenegro |
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'''Taiwan''', officially the '''Republic of China''' ('''ROC'''), is a country in East Asia. It shares maritime borders with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast, and the Philippines to the south. The main island of Taiwan, formerly known as ''Formosa'', has an area of , with mountain ranges dominating the eastern two-thirds and plains in the western third, where its highly urbanised population is concentrated. The capital is Taipei, which, along with New Taipei and Keelung, forms the largest metropolitan area of Taiwan. Other major cities include Kaohsiung, Taichung, Tainan and Taoyuan. With 23.45 million inhabitants, Taiwan is among the most densely populated countries in the world. |
Austronesian-speaking ancestors of Taiwanese indigenous peoples settled the island around 6,000 years ago. In the 17th century, large-scale Han Chinese immigration to western Taiwan began under a Dutch colony and continued under the Kingdom of Tungning. The island was annexed in 1683 by the Qing dynasty of China, and ceded to the Empire of Japan in 1895. The Republic of China, which had overthrown the Qing in 1911, took control of Taiwan on behalf of the World War II Allies following the surrender of Japan in 1945. The resumption of the Chinese Civil War resulted in the ROC's loss of mainland China to forces of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and retreat to Taiwan in 1949. Its effective jurisdiction has since been limited to Taiwan and numerous smaller islands. |
In the early 1960s, Taiwan entered a period of rapid economic growth and industrialisation called the "Taiwan Miracle". In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the ROC transitioned from a one-party military dictatorship to a multi-party democracy with a semi-presidential system. Taiwan's export-oriented industrial economy is the 21st-largest in the world by nominal GDP, and 20th-largest by PPP measures, with major contributions from steel, machinery, electronics and chemicals manufacturing. Taiwan is a developed country, ranking 15th in GDP per capita. It is ranked highly in terms of political and civil liberties, education, health care and human development. |
The political status of Taiwan is contentious. The ROC no longer represents China as a member of the United Nations, after UN members voted in 1971 to recognize the PRC instead. Meanwhile, the ROC continued to claim to be the legitimate representative of China and its territory, although this has been downplayed since its democratization in the 1990s. Taiwan is claimed by the PRC, which refuses diplomatic relations with countries that recognise the ROC. Taiwan maintains official diplomatic relations with 14 out of 193 UN member states and the Holy See, though many others maintain unofficial diplomatic ties with Taiwan through representative offices and institutions that function as ''de facto'' embassies and consulates. International organisations in which the PRC participates either refuse to grant membership to Taiwan or allow it to participate only on a non-state basis under various names. Domestically, the major political contention is between parties favouring eventual Chinese unification and promoting a pan-Chinese identity contrasted with those aspiring to formal international recognition and promoting a Taiwanese identity, although both sides have moderated their positions to broaden their appeal. |
==Name== |
Various names for the island of Taiwan remain in use, each derived from explorers or rulers during a particular historical period. The name Formosa () dates from 1542, when Portuguese sailors sighted an uncharted island and noted it on their maps as ''Ilha Formosa'' ("beautiful island"). The name ''Formosa'' eventually "replaced all others in European literature" and remained in common use among English speakers into the 20th century. |
In the early 17th century, the Dutch East India Company established a commercial post at Fort Zeelandia (modern-day Anping, Tainan) on a coastal sandbar called "Tayouan", after their ethnonym for a nearby Taiwanese aboriginal tribe, possibly Taivoan people, written by the Dutch and Portuguese variously as ''Taiouwang'', ''Tayowan'', ''Teijoan'', etc. This name was also adopted into the Chinese vernacular (in particular, Hokkien, as ) as the name of the sandbar and nearby area (Tainan). The modern word "Taiwan" is derived from this usage, which is written in different transliterations ( and ) in Chinese historical records. The area occupied by modern-day Tainan was the first permanent settlement by both European colonists and Chinese immigrants. The settlement grew to be the island's most important trading centre and served as its capital until 1887. |
Use of the current Chinese name () became official as early as 1684 with the establishment of Taiwan Prefecture which centred in modern-day Tainan. Through its rapid development the entire Formosan mainland eventually became known as "Taiwan". |
In his ''Daoyi Zhilüe'' (1349), Wang Dayuan used "Liuqiu" as a name for the island of Taiwan, or the part of it closest to Penghu. |
Elsewhere, the name was used for the Ryukyu Islands in general or Okinawa, the largest of them; indeed the name ''Ryūkyū'' is the Japanese form of ''Liúqiú''. The name also appears in the ''Book of Sui'' (636) and other early works, but scholars cannot agree on whether these references are to the Ryukyus, Taiwan or even Luzon. |
The official name of the country in English is the "Republic of China"; it has also been known under various names throughout its existence. Shortly after the ROC's establishment in 1912, while it was still located on the Chinese mainland, the government used the short form "China" ('''' ()) to refer to itself, which derives from '''' ("central" or "middle") and '''' ("state, nation-state"), a term which also developed under the Zhou dynasty in reference to its royal demesne, and the name was then applied to the area around Luoyi (present-day Luoyang) during the Eastern Zhou and then to China's Central Plain before being used as an occasional synonym for the state during the Qing era. |
During the 1950s and 1960s, after the government had withdrawn to Taiwan upon losing the Chinese Civil War, it was commonly referred to as "Nationalist China" (or "Free China") to differentiate it from "Communist China" (or "Red China"). |
It was a member of the United Nations representing China until 1971, when it lost its seat to the People's Republic of China. Over subsequent decades, the Republic of China has become commonly known as "Taiwan", after the main island. In some contexts, especially ROC government publications, the name is written as "Republic of China (Taiwan)", "Republic of China/Taiwan", or sometimes "Taiwan (ROC)". |
The Republic of China participates in most international forums and organizations under the name "Chinese Taipei" as a compromise with the People's Republic of China. For instance, it is the name under which it has participated in the Olympic Games as well as the World Trade Organization. In 2009, after reaching an agreement with Beijing, the Republic of China participated in the World Health Organization for the first time in 38 years, under the name "Chinese Taipei". |
==History== |
===Early settlement (to 1683)=== |
Tsou man |
Taiwan was joined to the Asian mainland in the Late Pleistocene, until sea levels rose about 10,000 years ago. Fragmentary human remains dated 20,000 to 30,000 years ago have been found on the island, as well as later artifacts of a Paleolithic culture. |
Around 6,000 years ago, Taiwan was settled by farmers, most likely from what is now southeast China. |
They are believed to be the ancestors of today's Taiwanese indigenous peoples, whose languages belong to the Austronesian language family, but show much greater diversity than the rest of the family, which spans a huge area from Maritime Southeast Asia west to Madagascar and east as far as New Zealand, Hawaii and Easter Island. This has led linguists to propose Taiwan as the urheimat of the family, from which seafaring peoples dispersed across Southeast Asia and the Pacific and Indian Oceans. |
Han Chinese fishermen began settling in the Penghu islands in the 13th century. Hostile tribes, and a lack of valuable trade products, meant that few outsiders visited the main island until the 16th century. During the 16th century, visits to the coast by fishermen and traders from Fujian, as well as Chinese and Japanese pirates, became more frequent. |
The Dutch East India Company attempted to establish a trading outpost on the Penghu Islands (Pescadores) in 1622, but was driven off by Ming forces. |
In 1624, the company established a stronghold called Fort Zeelandia on the coastal islet of Tayouan, which is now part of the main island at Anping, Tainan. |
When the Dutch arrived, they found southwestern Taiwan already frequented by a mostly-transient Chinese population numbering close to 1,500. David Wright, a Scottish agent of the company who lived on the island in the 1650s, described the lowland areas of the island as being divided among 11 chiefdoms ranging in size from two settlements to 72. Some of these fell under Dutch control, including the Kingdom of Middag in the central western plains, while others remained independent. The Company encouraged farmers to immigrate from Fujian and work the lands under Dutch control. By the 1660s, some 30,000 to 50,000 Chinese were living on the island. |
Fort Zeelandia, the Governor's residence in Dutch Formosa |
In 1626, the Spanish Empire landed on and occupied northern Taiwan as a trading base, first at Keelung and in 1628 building Fort San Domingo at Tamsui. This colony lasted 16 years until 1642, when the last Spanish fortress fell to Dutch forces. The Dutch then marched south, subduing hundreds of villages in the western plains between their new possessions in the north and their base at Tayouan. |
Following the fall of the Ming dynasty in Beijing in 1644, Koxinga (Zheng Chenggong) pledged allegiance to the Yongli Emperor of Southern Ming and attacked the Qing dynasty along the southeastern coast of China. In 1661, under increasing Qing pressure, he moved his forces from his base in Xiamen to Taiwan, expelling the Dutch in the following year. Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and some analysts consider his regime to be loyal to the Ming, while others argue that he acted as an independent ruler and his intentions were unclear. |
After being ousted from Taiwan, the Dutch allied with the new Qing dynasty in China against the Zheng regime in Taiwan. Following some skirmishes the Dutch retook the northern fortress at Keelung in 1664. Zheng Jing sent troops to dislodge the Dutch, but they were unsuccessful. The Dutch held out at Keelung until 1668, when aborigine resistance, and the lack of progress in retaking any other parts of the island persuaded the colonial authorities to abandon this final stronghold and withdraw from Taiwan altogether. |
===Qing rule (1683–1895)=== |
Hunting deer, painted in 1746 |
In 1683, following the defeat of Koxinga's grandson by an armada led by Admiral Shi Lang of southern Fujian, the Qing dynasty formally annexed Taiwan, placing it under the jurisdiction of Fujian province. The Qing imperial government tried to reduce piracy and vagrancy in the area, issuing a series of edicts to manage immigration and respect aboriginal land rights. Immigrants mostly from southern Fujian continued to enter Taiwan. The border between taxpaying lands and what was considered "savage" lands shifted eastward, with some aborigines becoming sinicized while others retreated into the mountains. During this time, there were a number of conflicts between different ethnic groups of Han Chinese, Quanzhou Minnanese feuding with Zhangzhou and Hakkas peasants, and major clan fights between Minnans (Hoklos), Hakkas and aborigines too. |
There were more than a hundred rebellions, riots, and instances of civil strife during the Qing's administration, including the Lin Shuangwen rebellion (1786–1788). Their frequency was evoked by the common saying "every three years an uprising, every five years a rebellion" (三年一反、五年一亂), primarily in reference to the period between 1820 and 1850. |
Northern Taiwan and the Penghu Islands were the scene of subsidiary campaigns in the Sino-French War (August 1884 to April 1885). The French occupied Keelung on 1 October 1884, but were repulsed from Tamsui a few days later. The French won some tactical victories but were unable to exploit them, and the Keelung Campaign ended in stalemate. The Pescadores Campaign, beginning on 31 March 1885, was a French victory, but had no long-term consequences. The French evacuated both Keelung and the Penghu archipelago after the end of the war. |
In 1887, the Qing upgraded the island's administration from being the Taiwan Prefecture of Fujian Province to Fujian-Taiwan-Province, the twentieth in the empire, with its capital at Taipei. This was accompanied by a modernization drive that included building China's first railway. |
===Japanese rule (1895–1945)=== |
Japanese colonial soldiers march Taiwanese captured after the Tapani Incident in 1915 from the Tainan jail to court. |
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