History of Taiwan: What Actually Happened?

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The history of Taiwan is astonishing. Politically, Taiwan— was a warlord culture. The Portuguese, when passing by the island in the mid-1540s, called the island “Ilha Formosa,” which means “Beautiful Island.”
Then the Dutch came in the 1620s, searching for a base of operations for the Dutch East India Company.
Then the Han Chinese came in the 17th century. Many of these Han Chinese were refugees from the wars in China. This influx caused an explosive reaction.
And then came the Japanese in 1894! Taiwan was subjugated to a Japanese program of inculcation. All the people of Taiwan had to learn Japanese, and Shinto shrines cropped up everywhere.

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[brianclarence]

No mention of Chiang Kai shek at all. That is the most important history in Taiwan and gets no mention here.

[WildBillCox]

Did I fall asleep during the Chiang Kai-Shek part? I would suggest that's incredibly important to the story you tell.

[morejoy]

That was one of the most muxed up and conflated accounts of the history of Taiwan. The narrator tried to condense far too much information in about other issues such as the opium war where he says "Britain tried to corrupt.China with opium" (Oh dear ...). He also somehow manages tp relate Taiwan independence protests to the Tianenman 1989 swre massacre, talks about HK.
Tbh, It's a rushed job.
On the positive side he does explain that Taiwanese abhoriginals are not "Chinese" per se but even then he sensationalises it with stories if "head hunting".
oh well

[ammonlu]

One very awkward mistake…the picture shown at 11:10 is mistakenly 陈毅, not 陈仪； ( same pronunciation) the former was a communist leader who had never been to Taiwan; for him to rule over Taiwan would mean Taiwan has been under communists’ control, which never happened

[Anti-CornLawLeague]

No mention of the losing side of the Chinese Civil War fleeing to the island?

[oliviadekroon]

Some mistakes: 1) Taiwanese did not travel to Beijing to stage protests. 2) The Tank Man did not climb on the tank. 3) The man in the photo was one of the student leaders called 吾爾開希， he was not the Tank Man. 4)二二八事件中林江邁並沒有被打死。

[tanchiiann]

Many informations in this video are misleading. Even the characters in the stories used the wrong people photoes. I can't further watching anymore😑😑😑... Grade F presentation, which won a lot of believers.

[NM-rztq]

The Four Nobel Truths (of Buddhism) are

1. Suffering
2. The arising of suffering
3. The cessation of suffering
4. The path leading to the cessation of suffering

[donnakeith]

What about FORMOSA?? You didn't mention that part.

[curtf]

Your video gets an F. You know nothing about Taiwanese history. You claimed that Han people came to Taiwan in 230CE, 1400 years too early. You had the 228 incident three weeks early. The picture of ChenYi was of the CCP foreign minister, not the KMT governor of Taiwan. You didn’t talk about the Chinese Civil War that brought Chiang Kai-Shek and the KMT government to the island. You suggested that Taiwanese students started the TianAnMen protests. You tried to creat links between Taiwan’s history and China’s history that don’t exist. This video stinks of the CCP’s United Front.

[yichinchen]

Some corrections:
pronunciation for “Qing” is more like “Ching”. Not “queen”
The “5 stars flag”(people’s republic of China flag) doesn’t exist till 1949. 🇨🇳

You should use the republic of China 🇹🇼

[tiro_taiwan]

Some additional information and correction are listed, not like some other comments could just say oh it is all wrong
0:09 It is not came from Southeast Asia, they were believed to coming from west mainland. And it is them that were actually the ancestors of the Austronesian people, spreading northward from Taiwan to easternmost Easter Island, southernmost New Zealand, westernmost Madagascar by boat after sea level rising like that in movie Moana.
2:12 Not that early bro, the cultural and immigration communication from China to Taiwan started in 1171 when Song dynasty made Penghu its territory. And the these communication did not become active until the 17th century.
4:07 Madou Agreement was a peace treaty signed with elders from Mattau Tribe in 1635 after the fight, not 1636, 1636 was the year first peace ceremony(called Landdag after 1641) in the Agreement was held in Sinckan Tribe, it became a regular local meeting between Dutch authorities and aboriginal tribes after that.
4:29 1626, Spanish controlled north of Taiwan, but forced out in 1642 by Dutch. After that, Dutch took over the full east of Taiwan until they lose to Zheng.
And Zheng Chenggong is a pre-general from the Great Ming, which had been wiped out by the Great Qing. He established the Kingdom of Tungning(Tywan by British) in Taiwan, to make it a base that prepared to rebuild the Ming. Fail overall.
5:25 It is the Zheng Keshuang, Zheng Chenggong's grandson, that surrendered to Qing.
5:29 He is the third emperor.
The Qing General Shi Lang, who had led the army to a great victory over Tywan, recommended Xuanye should include Taiwan, which is very geographically important, into Qing's territory. Finally, Xuanye decided to "rule Taiwan to prevent Taiwan", and it is when Taiwan was first included in the territory of Chinese dynasty.
6:00 Although in Opium War British twice attacked on Taiwan, it actually had little to do with Taiwan.
6:56 The Sino-French War that infected Taiwan was due to a conflict between France who attacted on Vietnam and Qing who had had a protection agreement with Vietnam. French won at last.
7:32 The Sino-Japanese War was caused by a conflict that Japan refuse to withdrew troops from Korea with the Qing after they helped Korea calming chaos together.
So the Treaty of Shimonoseki is not sign by Taiwan governor but Qing government by Representative Li Hongzhang, that's why he was hated by some of the Taiwanese at that period.
7:46 The Republic of Formosa was briefly established by Taiwanese in 1895 to disobey the Qing treaty before Japan came over to Taiwan, and soonly annihilated by Japanese after just 151 days.
7:52 If you have interest, play the game The Legend of Tianding.
9:35 If you have interest, watch the movie Seediq Bale.
10:07 That is a incorrect map, at that time the People's Republic of China hasn't been founded yet but the Republic of China with a territory a lot more larger.
10:20 If you have interest, the song TAKAO is about the Takasago Volunteers.
10:30 If you have interest, the game Raid on Taihoku is about the US Raid on Taipei.
10:48 Japan has accepted the Potsdam Declaration that handed Taiwan over to the ROC in Hirohito Surrender Broadcast.
12:06 It is because of that 1949 the government of ROC led by Chinese Nationalist Party was forced to give up its mainland territory and retreat to Taiwan in the Chinese Civil War with Chinese Communist Party, who founded the People's Republic of China in the same year after that and took over the ROC's previous mainland territory except Taiwan and few surrounding island.
And it is the world longest martial law, this period is called "the White Terror", if you have interest, play the game Detention(has a adapted movie and series as well).
12:18 It was after the PRC joining and the ROC quitting the UN in 1971, and the establishment of diplomatic relations between the PRC and the US in 1979.
12:56 Excuse me WTF. The Tiananmen Incident was initiated by Chinese people themselves and was brutally suppressed by the Chinese People's Liberation Army sent by CCP. It has nothing to do with Taiwan university students at all.
13:45 Most of the Taiwanese people choose the current stage though. The ROC is fine still. What people don't need is a threaten from PRC overall.

[mariacheng]

10:04 The Chinese flag was used incorrectly. The PRC had not yet been founded at that time. The correct national flag should be the ROC flag.

11:05 When the KMT Government took over Taiwan in 1945, the PRC had not yet established. You mistakenly used the photo of Chen Yiˋ, one of the top ten marshals of the PRC. It should be General Chen Yiˊ who took over Taiwan. He was 18 years older than the aforementioned Chen Yiˋ.

[KP-xibj]

So, Taiwan never belonged to Japan or China from the beginning?

[highontaiwan]

Nice video. Good summary of the more distant history. The only suggestion I have is that the pronunciation of some of the names were atrocious. 😅

[CaptPike]

China has no claim to the proud independent country of Taiwan.

[bowlampar]

According to ancient Chinese historical record, Formosa Island used to be part of an extended land from Mainland Fujian Province, but due to sea level rises, the connected continental plate to China fallen below Taiwan Straits, hence created an island archipelago known as 'Taiwan' consists of many islets.

[oljanrooney]

I don't really get why people especially from Western sphere can determine the identity of Taiwanese as Chinese. How come do they know better than Taiwanese people? This is an offence to the Taiwanese people and maybe can come from the innocent ignorance rather from tendency or agenda against Taiwan. Let people of Taiwan to decide about their identity and respect their choices. Just because they speak Mandarin as an official language, doesnt mean that they are Chinese. Are people from USA English people since they speak English? Nope. So, the same applies for Taiwanese people.

[chongging]

Independent Taiwan is ROC 🇹🇼 and communist China is PRC 🇨🇳

This flag - 🇹🇼 - flew in the mainland of China under Dr. Sun Yat-Sen before the KMT Party's Chiang Kai-Shek led Han Chinese started moving over to Daiwan.. therefore, calling Taiwan "China" is not completely wrong.

What created this initial confusion of which China is the "real" China is during the Chinese Civil War (1927-1949) the PRC/Communists 🇨🇳, influenced by Mao Zedong's Yale-China Association (key name being Yale, as in Yale University), colluded with Japanese agents to weaken the ROC/KMT 🇹🇼 forces, thereby allowing the PRC to politically defeat the ROC. During this time the KMT led Han migrated to Daiwan where even the Chinese National Museum is split between two locations - Peking/Bejing and Daibei/Taipei.

One can conclude that the choice to make one or the other the "Official China" is inevitably a political decision. Both hold strategic value.. that's why nations play both sides, usually leaving Taiwan by the wayside because Taiwan doesn't need to overtly tout its importance on the World Stage.

Just like most other nations in world conflicts these two neighbors do NOT hate one another.. only their governing bodies pretend to.

Taiwan has one of the most successful digital democracies in the world because they consider everyone's opinion.

[aleksaradosavljevic]

Your videos are so educational that I can learn a lot from them for my own personal use for fun.