- List of rulers of Taiwan
Dutch Empire (1624-1661)
The
Dutch Empire , during the period of the Dutch United Provinces and under the auspices of theDutch East India Company (VOC), attempted to conquerMacau in 1622. Later they colonized thePescadores Islands , where they built a fort inMakung . In 1624, the Chinese attacked, and the Dutch were driven toTaiwan (then called Formosa, meaning "beautiful island"). That year they established Fort Zeelandia on Taiwan's southwest coast. In 1637, the Dutch conqurered Favorolang (present dayHuwei ). The names listed here are the Dutch governors:Republic of Formosa
Following its defeat in the
First Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895),China ceded Taiwan and thePescadores to theEmpire of Japan in perpetuity, with a grace period for inhabitants wishing to remain Chinese (Qing Dynasty ) subjects to sell their property and return to the mainland. The date set for the handover wasJune 2 ,1895 .However, the
Republic of Formosa was formed onMay 25 by a group of Qing officials and local gentry with its capital at Tainan to resist impending Japanese rule. The republic lasted for less than six months; onOctober 21 ,Imperial Japanese Army forces entered the capital and quelled the resistance. The Republic of Taiwan had two presidents:Japanese Empire (1895-1945)
After establishing control over the island, the Japanese used the French Empire model of an occupying force and were instrumental in the
industrialization of the island; they built railroads, asanitation system and apublic school system, among other things. Around 1935, the Japanese began an island-wide assimilation project to bind the island more firmly to the empire.In 1941, war broke out when the Japanese attacked the U.S. naval port of Pearl Harbor in
Hawaii . By 1945, desperate plans were in place to incorporate popular representation of Taiwan into theImperial Diet to end colonial rule of the island and transfer occupying troops to the front lines to fight the Allies.Following the end of
World War II in 1945, under the terms of theInstrument of Surrender of Japan , Japan provisionally accepted thePotsdam Declaration (which referenced the never-signedCairo Declaration ), under which the island was to be transferred to theRepublic of China . ROC troops were authorized to come to Taiwan to accept the surrender of Japanese military forces in General Order No. 1, issued byDouglas MacArthur , the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers, onSeptember 2 ,1945 . ROC troops were later transported to Keelung by the U.S. Navy.Republic of China
ee also
*
Timeline of Taiwanese history
*History of Taiwan
*History of the Republic of China External links
* [http://www.worldstatesmen.org/Taiwan.html WorldStatesmen.org listing]
* [http://www.hostkingdom.net/china.html#Taiwan Regnal Chronologies listing]
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