Andrade portray it as if the Dutch encouraged "immigration" into Taiwan. This is not the case: the Dutch encouraged contract laborers to come from China: they usually received a contract for three years, and they came without their families. After some time, the laborers stayed on, and intermarried with aboriginal women. Thus almost all Taiwanese see themselves as more of a mixture of aboriginals and the immigrants from Fukien, and not as "Chinese".

By the end of the Dutch period, there were approx. 25,000 farmers from China living on the island + 1-2,000 fishermen along the coast. At the beginning of the Dutch period, a Dutch minister had done a survey up and down the coast, and he had counted between 500 and 800 fishermen and traders, living in small homesteads along the coast.

The larger waves of immigration started after 1683, when the Manchu reconquered the island and defeated Cheng Cheng-kung's son. Much of this immigration was to escape the hunger and perpetual wars taking place in China -- not a conquest on behalf of the Chinese emperor. In fact, the Chi'ng emperors did sent expeditions to the island every once in a while, but these were often beaten back: "every three years an uprising, every five years a revolution" was the common saying in the 18th and early 19th century.

With regard to the "Chinese" character vs. the "Taiwanese" character of Taiwan, I would agree with Michael Turton's commentary.

Not at all at the 'terribly informed' level going on here....

But how are the 'Austronesian aborigines' doing in Taiwan?

Have they enjoyed the company of their Chinese fellow-islanders?

Michael Turton's point is well taken. Culture is not monolithic, and he’s right to speak in terms of Chinese cultures, plural, since different regions of China have their own cuisines, their own architectural styles, even their own languages, as different from each other as Spanish is from Romanian. That said, it's hard to deny that Taiwan's dominant culture is Chinese. What I try to show in the book is that it could have turned out differently. In the early 1600s Taiwan's inhabitants were, as danstr noted in his post, Malayo-Polynesian (or Austronesian). The Japanese were landing there, as were Chinese pirates, Portuguese castaways, Spanish priests, and, most importantly, the Dutch, who established the first formal colony.

So it's odd that despite the fact that the Dutch were the first to establish political control (followed by the Spanish in northern Taiwan two years later), the island nonetheless ended up culturally and politically Chinese. In fact, Taiwan was the only overseas territory added to Late Imperial China. And the really strange thing is that Taiwan became Chinese thanks largely to Dutch colonial policies! So Taiwan's story has a lot to teach us about globalization and colonization. It also helps us understand Taiwan today, because the island’s current brand of Chinese culture is partly a result of the blending that began occurring way back then, in the early stages of Taiwanese history.

There is little doubt that in the 16th and early 17th century, the Chinese were aggressively engaged in trade throughout SE Asia, and part of a global network of trade, as pointed out by Andrade, centered on China's demand for silver. That this ended up turning out quite badly for China, as the Qing dynasty weakened, doesn't negate that China has its own role to play in these global networks.

How it came to pass that European powers aggressively colonized Asia while China and Japan turned their back on outward expansions is a really interesting question that is at the heart of Andrade's book.

"JHM-IV" ??? I happen to have a cousin with those exact initials... Could it be?

I'm just wondering how anyone comes to understand the subjugating economic and cultural imperatives forced upon China, Japan, and the rest of East Asia by Western imperial forces as "a pursuit of trading riches and power." It seems relatively clear to me that China in particular, was not pursuing, at least not with complete willingness, the so called trade of "riches and power," which quite directly resulted in mass drug addiction, war, famine, poverty, rebellion, and ultimately the collapse of a system which had worked relatively well for a thousand years. This is quite literally akin to saying that Kurtz was "trading" with the natives.

As for an "early look at globalization," maybe. If you look at globalization as Clinton did, and see visions through the fog of global, mutually shared economic, cultural, and technological prosperity, then this early look is obviously off the mark. If however, you see globalization as the brutal process in which every country looks more and more like the USA, then this very well may have been the start.

I'm just glad I can sip a venti soy no whip caramel mocha latte (purchased with my american express card I just got next door) as I stroll through the Forbidden City.

Thanks Michael,

I think the problem here is the attempt to disassociate the topic of Andrade's book -- the original sinification of Taiwan -- from the political aspects of the question of "Chineseness" in terms of present-day China-Taiwan relations.

Andrade, in his preface, was taking pains to make sure that his title was _not interpreted_ in that context, and in doing so, perhaps got a bit casual in reiterating the taiwan-is-more-chinese-than-china trope.

Proving I think, that it will be _impossible_ to separate his title from current-day reality!

but it indicates something about the local culture. In the early 70s, while in the Peace Corps, I was taking a bit of vacation time and visiting Taiwan. My buddies and I took a tout to Tarako Gorge which included a stop at a town where marble was shaped (and sold to tourists) and where a fair number of the 'aborigines' lived and worked, and some were at the tourist bus stop wearing their colorful indigenous outfits, etc. etc.. I did not at the time speak any Chinese, just Korean and Malay. But I could speak to the aborigines using Malay. Very interesting. It wasn't quite the same, but it was close enough.