Japan-Taiwan Relations
Relations between Japan and Taiwan have ranged from hostility in 1874, to colonial occupation in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, to the current relationship of active commercial trade and diplomacy. Since 1972, official relations have been strained by the international acceptance of the People's Republic of China (PRC) as the legitimate government of China, but economic relations have continued and expanded in the face of this difficulty.
Early Contacts
The first significant contact between Japan and Taiwan came when Japan sent a force to Taiwan in 1871 to punish the Taiwanese for the murder of a group of shipwrecked sailors from the Ryukyu Islands. China's foreign ministry accepted responsibility for the actions of the Taiwanese natives and paid an indemnity. In doing so, China asserted its sovereignty over Taiwan and effectively accepted Japan's control over the Ryukyus.
Some twenty years later, following the Sino-Japanese War of 1895, China was forced to cede Taiwan and neighboring islands to Japan, and Taiwan was formally colonized as part of Japan's Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere in 1923. The indigenous Taiwanese population were thus brought into the Japanese empire as subjects (not citizens) and were indoctrinated much as the Korean population was, being forced to adopt Japanese names and wear Japanese clothing.
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