For most of Taiwanese, the truth of Taiwan’s history is ambiguous because it was written by colonial rulers which full of myths and lies. “Depression” is the conscience of intellectuals in Taiwan. The author - Ong Lok-Tek, a Taiwanese language scholar, wrote this important masterpiece when he exiled in Japan during the period of White Terror of Taiwan. Taiwan’s history of depression is the first book that was written in Taiwanese’s point of view, and it includes more than four hundred years Taiwan history bases on rigorous research. It was written in Japanese first in 1964, and translated to Chinese few years later. For the readers, it just liked a big shocker that crushed the illusion of fabricated history of Taiwan, and the real history was contrary to the announcement of China’s unification who believed “Taiwan is an inalienable part of China.” Therefore, the Chinese Communist Party condemned Taiwan’s history of depression as poor quality book, and the KMT (Kuomintang) put it as a banned book.
In the past, Taiwan and Penghu used to be the islands of Chinese exile prisoners and those people were restless renegades in Chinese’s mind. In 1624, Dutch East India Company established its outpost at Tayuan (South Taiwan), and Spain established its outpost at Keelung (North Taiwan) for business purposes. Both of them traded Taiwan as a relay station to China and Japan, so Taiwan became an independent economic circle type. Then Spain was expelled by Dutch in 1642. In 1661, Koxinga, a Ming loyalist and the arch commander of the Ming troops, logged in Taiwan, and expelled Dutch. The creed of Koxinga which was against the Qing Dynasty and restore the Ming Dynasty, and it is very similar with KMT who wants to counterattack against the mainland. After that, Shi Lang, a Ming-Qing admiral, beat Koxinga’s grandson and logged Taiwan. Then, Qing Dynasty announced an illegal immigration decree, and one of the provisions was not allowed to bring families to Taiwan which caused the most males that came from China had to intermarry with female native Taiwanese which wiped out the existence of some native Taiwanese tribes.
Two hundred years of Qing Dynasty rule in Taiwan focused on the suppression of rebellion and appeased people. During the reign of the Qing Dynasty, Japan tried to log Taiwan in 1874, Sino-French War was happened in 1884, Matthew Calbraith Perry, a Commodore of the U.S Navy, investigated the coal production in North Taiwan, those acts leaded to the attention of the Qing Dynasty in Taiwan. After First Sino-Japanese War, Treaty of Maguan was signed at 1895, between the Empire of Japan and Qing Empire of China which ceded Taiwan to Japan.
In Ong’s point of view, Taiwan is Chinese’s colony just like Taiwan is Japan’s colony because China has never treated Taiwanese as national people. For China, Taiwan is an island of criminals, traitors and bandits.
Colonial Schedule
1624~1642 Spain
1624~1661 Dutch
1661~1683 Koxinga
1683~1895 Qing Empire
1895~1945 Japan
1945~ KMT
