L’Isle Formose et Partie des Costes de la Chine

Title

L’Isle Formose et Partie des Costes de la Chine

Description

Map shows the island of Taiwan, formerly Formosa and the Penghu Islands off the eastern coast of China.

ca. 1754

Artist

Bellin (1703-1772)

Jacques-Nicolas Bellin (1703 Paris -1772 Versailles) was a French cartographer, engineer-geographer, marine hydrographer. As a contributor to the Encyclopédie, he wrote more than a thousand articles on maritime topics. As a cartographer, Bellin distinguished himself primarily in the field of sea cartography. From 1721 he worked for the Dépot des Cartes et Plans de la Marine, from 1741 until his death as an engineer-hydrograph of the Navy. In 1753 his atlas Neptune français, which covered all the coasts of France, was published, and in 1756 the hydrography françoise covering all seas of the earth. In 1764 the five-volume Petit Atlas maritime was published, which Bellin prepared on the orders of the Minister of the Navy, Choiseul. In addition, he wrote a number of geographical works and with Nouvelle méthode pour apprendre la geographie (1769) a geographic textbook for teaching. His maps illustrated, among other things, Bougainville's work Voyage autour du monde, published in 1771. As a co-author of the Encyclopédie edited by Diderot and d'Alembert, Bellin wrote more than a thousand articles in the field of shipping and navy.

Historical Description

Recent research assumes that Taiwan was the original homeland of the Austronesians, to whom the Polynesians belong. The linguistic and genetic relationship between the Polynesians and the indigenous peoples of Taiwan is particularly striking. It is possible that the exodus of the Polynesians' ancestors was triggered by immigration from mainland China. During the Song and Yuan dynasties, the Pescadores to the west of Taiwan were integrated into the Chinese Empire and made part of Fujian province. During the first half of the 1st millennium, the cultures on the Chinese mainland and the islands off the coast presented a culturally and linguistically similar picture. After the Sinicization of these areas by the Han dynasty, there was no longer any cultural connection between Taiwan and China for a long time. However, the indigenous peoples of Taiwan maintained trade relations to the south, e.g. with the Philippines. In 1517, the Portuguese discovered the island, which they named Ilha Formosa - the "Beautiful Island". In 1624, Dutch sailors and the Dutch East India Company occupied the south of the island and made Tainan the capital. In 1626, Spaniards conquered the north and established settlements at Keelung and Tamsui, but were ousted again by the Dutch in 1641. The influence of the Dutch colonial administration on the culture of the indigenous peoples was considerable: the appointment of chieftains in the more or less rule-free cultures changed the tribal structures, while Christian missionary work reversed the mythological ideas and traditional ways of life. New norms of behavior and thought, new village and ruling structures emerged. Between 1624 and 1644, there were further waves of Han immigration. As the Manchus continued to advance on the Chinese mainland and the end of the Ming dynasty loomed, the Ming loyalist Zheng Chenggong fled to Taiwan in 1661 with 35,000 soldiers in 400 junks. His troops besieged the Dutch main base Fort Zeelandia for 9 months. This surrendered in 1662, ending the Dutch colonial period in Taiwan. However, the Ming loyalists were subjugated by the Qing dynasty founded by the Manchurians in 1682. It placed the island under the control of mainland China for the first time and gave it the status of a prefecture of Fujian Province in 1684. Located on the edge of the empire, Taiwan remained a little-noticed possession on the periphery of China for a long time. The "civilization" of the indigenous peoples begun by the Europeans was continued by the Chinese. Buddhism and Confucianism were introduced under the Chinese, which greatly supplanted the Christianity spread by the Dutch. In the last decades of Qing rule over Taiwan in the second half of the 19th century, the island increasingly became the focus of European colonial powers and Japan. The Prussian East Asia Expedition of 1859 to 1862 also explored the possibility of taking possession of Formosa as a colony, but this was not seriously attempted due to a lack of resources. In 1886, Taiwan was separated from Fujian Province and formally granted the status of a Chinese province. After the end of the First Sino-Japanese War in 1894/95, China was forced to cede the island to Japan in the Treaty of Shimonoseki. During the Second World War, the Kuomintang terminated all treaties with Japan and the reconquest of Taiwan became a war aim. After Japan's surrender, Kuomintang troops occupied the island. As Taiwan had experienced a considerable economic boom under Japanese rule, living conditions were better than on the war-ravaged mainland. In 1949, Taiwan was the retreat for 1.2 million Kuomintang supporters under Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek after the defeat of the Communists led by Mao Zedong, who proclaimed the People's Republic of China as a result. Taiwan, along with numerous smaller islands, thus became the sole territory of the Republic of China. Since the 1950s, Taiwan has enjoyed a long period of economic growth, producing increasingly complex goods over time. Initially, the industrially manufactured export goods were textiles and simple plastic products, later chemical products, bicycles etc. and finally highly complex products such as semiconductors and computer accessories. Even after the proclamation of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the government of the Republic of China initially represented the Chinese state at the United Nations and was a permanent member of the UN Security Council. However, as a result of the People's Republic's one-China policy, more and more states broke off diplomatic relations with the Republic of China, which also had to relinquish its UN membership to the People's Republic in 1971 with UN Resolution 2758. Finally, in 1979, the USA also broke off diplomatic contacts after establishing official relations with the People's Republic (Taiwan Relations Act). Today, only a minority of the international community maintains formal diplomatic relations with the government in Taipei. The status of the Republic of China under international law is disputed and the subject of the Taiwan conflict.