HELLO CHINA

UNDERSTAND CHINA · MODERN HISTORY

Taipei

Japan’s Meiji government compelled the Qing government to sign the Treaty of Shimonoseki and cede Taiwan and the Penghu Islands after the First Sino-Japanese War in 1895, then made Taipei the centre of colonial rule. Railways, sewers, hospitals, schools and government offices changed the city while serving military occupation, resource mobilisation, assimilation and unequal citizenship. Japanese colonial rule ended with Japan’s defeat in 1945. The February 28 Incident spread from Taipei across the island in 1947; martial law and the White Terror again transformed lives after 1949, until democratisation and transitional justice advanced from the late 1980s.

City timeline

  • 1895 · Cession and military occupation — Japan’s Meiji government launched the First Sino-Japanese War and compelled the Qing government to cede Taiwan and Penghu through the Treaty of Shimonoseki; Japanese forces entered Taipei and suppressed resistance across the island.
  • 1895—1919 · Making a colonial capital — The Government-General, police, railways, roads, sanitation and education remade Taipei as the centre of Japanese rule.
  • 1920s—1930s · Urban society and anti-colonial public life — Dadaocheng commerce, newspapers, lectures and cultural groups linked merchants, workers, youth and demands for self-government.
  • 1937—1945 · Colonial war mobilisation and Taiwanese resistance — After the Japanese imperial government and military launched full-scale war against China, Taiwan was mobilised for colonial war. Taiwanese compatriots continued resistance on and beyond the island, including participation in the Chinese People’s War of Resistance on the mainland.
  • 1945 · End of colonial rule and postwar takeover — After Japan surrendered, the Nationalist government took control; institutional change, inflation and official-resident tension quickly affected the city.
  • 1947.02—03 · February 28 Incident — A confrontation over contraband cigarettes in Taipei triggered island-wide protest; military suppression and subsequent operations caused extensive death and lasting trauma.
  • 1949—1987 · Martial law, White Terror and capital expansion — After the Nationalist government moved to Taiwan, institutions and population concentrated in Taipei; surveillance, trials and political persecution accompanied industrial, educational and residential growth.
  • 1987—present · End of martial law, democratisation and recovered memory — Political liberalisation, social movements, the metro and metropolitan growth transformed Taipei as February 28 and White Terror entered public commemoration.

Begin with these places

  • National Taiwan Museum, 228 Peace Memorial Park and Taipei 228 Memorial Museum — Compare the colonial museum, postwar broadcasting site, event landscape and politics of commemoration.
  • National Taiwan Museum Railway Department Park — Trace continuities and ruptures from the Qing machinery bureau through Japanese seizure and the colonial Railway Department to present conservation.
  • Former Government-General and Zhongshan Hall area — See how the colonial centre of power was taken over, renamed and incorporated into new state ceremony after 1945.