Forbidden Nation: A History of Taiwan

As someone who plans on spending some time in Taiwan in the near future, I was interested to learn more about its history. I found this book to be a good overview, and it held my attention much more closely than I had expected. I learned some things that I had never suspected about Taiwan's influential history as a focal point of East Asian sea trade (and piracy!). Some reviewers have noted that this book tends to be selective in its focus, giving much more time to ancient history than to modern events (especially recent). This is a valid criticism, perhaps, but personally I enjoyed the historical narrative of pirate kings, wars, and the mysterious mountainous interior, as opposed to the endless modern political debates. -The bottom line: For someone seeking an in-depth analysis of Taiwan's modern status as a nation (or not) and relationship to China, there are other works that focus on that specifically. But if you want a good comprehensive understanding of the forces and events that have shaped Taiwan and its people throughout the ages, I can't think of a better read.

This is a great book about Taiwan history. The author has sharp observation and indepth knowledge of the history of Taiwan. A valuable reference.

Forbidden Nation: A History of Taiwan, by Jonathan Manthorpe, is an insightful study not only of a country, but the peculiar circumstances leading up to its peculiar contemporary existence. The author starts with a look at Taiwan's March 2004 election, examining the fallout from the assassination attempt on President Chen Shuibian. Chen's injury was a violent exclamation point to what had been a very contentious campaign. Perhaps the author chose to focus on this episode as a means of showing how passionate the Taiwanese are about politics. While an attempted assassination far exceeds the bounds of proper decorum when politicking, the act may have been emblematic of Taiwanese perceptions of what was at stake in their society. Add that pivotable moment to a host of others and what unfolds is a comprehensive history of strife, survival, prosperity and ambiguity. Manthorpe backtracks from the travails of present Taiwanese events, providing in subsequent chapters a history of the island from its prehistoric settlement by early humans to the 2004 elections. In relating the history of Taiwan, Manthorpe shows how China's claim to the island holds as much substance as its claim (if it has one)to the officially recognized sovereign nations of Southeast Asia and the Korean Peninsula. What is clarified in the book is Taiwan's role as a convergence point for an intersecting host of people, interests and ideologies. Cold War imperatives produced a dichotomous world view among American policy makers. The world was split between Communist and the so-called Free World. That dichotomy extended to China and Taiwan, with the repressive and corrupt Kuomintang in Taiwan standing vigilant against the Totalitarian hordes of mainland China. Manthorpe highlights the looming threat of an increasingly assertive China. However, he understands that the Kuomintang, dominated by mainlanders, was little more than a colonial master lording it over the native Taiwanese population. It is the native population that Manthorpe brings attention to, driving home the point that native Taiwanese were oppressed or threatened by all parties, Ming and Manchu dynasts, Japanese, Communist and Kuomintang. He also covers America's schizophrenic relations with the island; on one hand, supporting it with rhetoric and weapons, on the other, courting China at the expense of Taiwan's status as a UN recognized nation. Very recently has Taiwan become a true democracy. However aggressive its politics may be, however many vestigial shackles from its martial law days it must shed, it will be a tragedy of monumental proportions if the shining light of Taiwan's democracy were to be blotted out beneath the shadow of mainland tyranny. Manthorpe presents the Chinese threat in stark relief. China's military buildup shows no sign of abating, niether will it likely soften its position on Taiwan, which it considers to be a wayward province. For China, Taiwan's submission to its authority is non-negotia

This review came from the Taipei Times 5 Feb 2006 By Bradley Winterton A warm welcome is due to a particularly fine book on our island home. It's subtitled A History of Taiwan, and its central chapters do indeed survey the island's paradoxical history in the accustomed manner, though with exceptional clarity. But the greatest strength of Forbidden Nation lies in its treatment of Taiwan's current situation, both internally and as seen from an international perspective. The book opens with an account of the shooting incident in Tainan on the eve of the 2004 presidential election, and Jonathan Manthorpe's qualities are immediately apparent. He's meticulous but clear-headed, with both the wood and the trees presented in sharp focus. On the one hand Taiwan's media showed itself "scandal and rumor-obsessed," on the other, US forensic expert Henry Lee was "unable to say conclusively that the assassination attempt had not been staged." Few could fault his presentation of the facts, but at the same time he manages to offer a very balanced and fair-minded assessment of this much-analyzed affair. Then comes the island story, and again the sanity and fairness of the account leaps at you from the page. Everywhere you find the same virtues, displayed in careful yet concise analysis of the pheno-mena, whether it's China's Taiping rebellion or the case of the 18th century impostor George Psalman-azar, who claimed to come from "Formosa." Most readers of this news-paper will probably be familiar with much of what Manthorpe has to say, with interest inevitably centering on which side he is going to come down on when it comes to the big question of "renegade province" or "de facto independence." Here this author doesn't disappoint. It can be fairly stated that he is a firm opponent of China's claims to hegemony. But nevertheless he is also at pains to point out that Taiwan's very geographical position makes it unavoidably and inextricably vulnerable to the claims of neighboring powers. A good example of this author's combination of detail and balance comes with the treatment of the life of Chiang Ching-kuo (½±¸g°ê). You know at once that this will be a test case because Manthorpe opens by saying some Taiwanese loathe his name whereas others fete him to the skies. This, you sense, is just the kind of situation the author relishes. So he proceeds with his account, and the result is that you see Chiang as if in a full-length portrait of some Renaissance prince -- opportunistic and Machiavellian on the one hand, but the man who nevertheless shepherded Taiwan into the democratic fold, from whatever personal motives, on the other. When it comes to the historical basis for China's claim of sovereignty over Taiwan, Manthorpe does not dodge giving his opinion. There's no question that China ever truly ruled the island, he asserts. It's true that prior to the Japanese takeover in 1895 the Qing Dynasty did operate rule of a kind, but this was sporadic, contested, an

Forbidden Nation offers a right-sized introduction to the ill-known and often tortuous history of Formosa, or Taiwan. Plagued by a geographical location that for centuries put the small island at the intersection of big powers, Taiwan is the quasi-perfect laboratory experiment in colonialism, nationhood, and independence. For readers who are interested in getting the seeds of understanding of how Taiwan became what it is today, this is a book to be recommended. The first section, which deals with the pre-1900 years, is quite informative, as is the section on the Japanese colonialism of the island and the impact that this had on social and agricultural development. The same could be said about the author's treatment of the Chiang Kai-shek era. The book, however, could have benefited from added attention to the "White Terror," which is briefly mentioned, and the suffering that the Taiwanese people went through under Chiang's authoritarian rule. There is no doubt as to the author's political allegiance, and throughout the book the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is painted under a far more favorable light than the Nationalist Party (KMT), the party that Chiang exported to Taiwan after he "lost" to the Communists in China in 1949 and which, until 2000, had ruled the island. The author's treatment of the transition from the ironfisted KMT rule towards democracy and liberalization, though condensed, is effective. There is no question, either, of the author's love for Taiwan and its people, or of his fascination with his subject. Where the book is weaker is in its description of the Sino-Taiwanese political complexities, which always loom in the background but are never tackled directly. This gives the impression that somehow contemporary Taiwan can be observed in isolation of its giant, and at times belligerent, neighbor. As a consequence, while Forbidden Nation does an apt job of explaining Taiwan up to the defeat of the KMT at the hands of the DPP in 2000, readers who are interested in learning more about the dynamics that currently define the island and the concept of nationhood (in Taiwan and elsewhere), will have to look elsewhere. For this, former Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui's memoir, The Road to Democracy (Tokyo: PHP, 1999), and Richard Bush's Untying the Knot (Washington: Brookings, 2005), are strongly recommended readings. As an initial map to understanding this reviewer's newly-adopted country, Forbidden Nation was unquestionably a welcome read.