A British Formosa? A thought exercise.

[Dan1988]

With all the current shenanigans going on as of late in Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, and in China as of late, here's one topic that could provide food for thought.

Now, as we all know, thanks to the Opium Wars, Hong Kong was ceded in perpetuity to the British Crown by the Qing dynasty. However, Hong Kong in the 19th century was not at all what the British were looking for - indeed, there were strong complaints coming from Whitehall to the negotiating team over gaining what the Foreign Office viewed as being essentially a worthless piece of shit instead of, say, Canton (Guangzhou). Of course, when we look back in hindsight at the correspondence coming from there, we can view the gripes coming from Whitehall as being pretty silly in retrospect - at least considering what Hong Kong has become since then.

So, with that in mind, I want to focus some attention on Formosa. Now, during the brief reign of the Qing on Taiwan, the island was a backwater of Fujian province. However, it was not a happy relationship, as related by a Chinese phrase used by the bureaucrats early on: "三年一反、五年一亂" (every three years an uprising; every five years a rebellion). So, here's a thought exercise - given that the Qing didn't really develop Taiwan until the 1880's (and even then, it was only half-hearted, what with the stringent immigration restrictions and the like), what if, somehow, the Qing decided to unload Taiwan onto Britain, as well as being forced to cede Hong Kong?

Now, given, Taiwan is obviously much more bigger than HK - more people, more agricultural land which could be used to feed not only the people on the island but also Hong Kong as well, and at least there are some cities. And although, once again, Taiwan would definitely be not what the British were looking for (seeing as none of the Taiwanese ports were ever treaty ports), it would not be hard to see how Britain could turn Taiwan into something of an opportunity. However, adding Taiwan opens up a new load of questions. Amongst them are how Britain would govern Taiwan (would it govern it from HK, or would it be a separate colony, or somewhere in the middle where it shares institutions with HK but remain independent of it), how much Japanese influence there would be in TTL given Taiwan's close proximity to the Japanese archipelago, how Britain would affect the Taiwanese economy and culture, and of course the status of both Min Nan and Cantonese, the latter being the language of Hong Kong, as well as Hakka and the aboriginal languages. Note that, in the beginning at least, it won't be a bed of roses.

So, how do you think Taiwan would fare under British rule? Would it be at the level of Japanese rule in OTL, or more so or less so? Am I going crazy?

Discuss.

 

[Dan1988]

I would've thought there would have been more interest in something like this, since it would seem to appeal to the British Empire nostalgia we have going here, but I was wrong. Still, it would be worth a shot.

Now, ignoring specifics of how Britain managed to get Taiwan in the first place, there are a few questions that first and foremost need to be answered by the British. Being someone interested in linguistics, one of those questions involves language. Now, as most of us know, Hong Kong and Taiwan have as their majority language two different regionalects of Chinese - the former has Cantonese, and the other a form of Southern Min (Min Nan) influenced by the local aboriginal languages. Since Cantonese is the language of Canton (Guangzhou) - hence the name of the language in English - then it would seem natural for Britain, as in OTL, to promote use of Cantonese in traditional Chinese characters. However, at the same time, the 19th century was also the time when the first Romanization schemes of the different Chinese regionalects were being developed, and in the case of Taiwanese, the first efforts at developing Pe̍h-ōe-jī were beginning in the 1830s starting with Medhurst's dictionary, though limited at first to Westerners and the early forms were completely different to what is nowadays familiar. Could POJ, already expanded in OTL to cover Hakka in the form of Pha̍k-fa-sṳ, be expanded to cover Cantonese so that would one more-or-less consistent Romanization scheme throughout Hong Kong and Taiwan? Sure, with some minor modifications because the vowel inventory in Cantonese is larger than in Min Nan; plus, this is before the sound change completed in the 1950s where the sounds marked in Mandarin Pinyin with <j, q, x> merged with the sounds marked in Pinyin with <z, c, s>, so these sounds are unique in Cantonese and would necessitate a minor expansion of POJ. This POJ could coëxist alongside the characters, so whilst the characters would be the primary form of writing, POJ would be an alternative for those who choose to use it. For the aboriginal languages in Taiwan, POJ would be the sole form used. If both Hong Kong and Taiwan were separate colonies, then I'd see Cantonese for Hong Kong and Min Nan in Taiwan as the respective standard forms of Chinese. However, if both were part of one colony, that's when things get tricky. Would Cantonese be the standard form of Chinese in both areas or would Chinese be pluricentric and be accepting of both regionalects as standard forms? The linguist in me would favour the latter, but considering that Guangzhou was the city most familiar to the British due to the pre-Opium War China trade, it would seem more likely that Cantonese would be the form of standard Chinese in a united colony, eventually moving towards a more pluricentric stance later on (though Min Nan would definitely influence the *Standard Cantonese that would emerge, like how in OTL Min Nan definitely influenced the shape of Mandarin as spoken on Taiwan today). English would definitely influence all the Chinese regionalects and the Taiwanese aboriginal languages in both Hong Kong and Taiwan (it has with Hong Kong in OTL).

The language question aside, there are other questions that would have to be addressed by the British. With the addition of Taiwan, the Qing-era immigration restrictions and the restrictions on Han Chinese settling on Taiwanese aboriginal land would be lifted, so the questions of land and population would be one area the British would have to address. An even bigger question would have to do with the economy. Taiwan in the 19th century had a largely agricultural economy, but there were problems pertaining to land, in large part because of how the land was distributed. Hong Kong's luck, by contrast, was in part because of its proximity to Guangzhou, which Taiwan lacks. It also depends on how the British administer Taiwan. If Taiwan is governed separately, then there would be some attention paid to Taiwan. Maybe some land reform so that those who came to Taiwan have at least title to some land, coupled with a land value tax in a type of proto-Georgism? If, however, Taiwan is governed from Hong Kong as part of a united colony, it raises additional questions. How distinct should the Taiwanese economy be? How integrated with the then-fledgling Hong Kong economy should Taiwan be? How should development of the economy of the united colony progress? There's so many questions that are worth asking about this scenario. Either way, both Hong Kong and Taiwan will be affected, united or not.

My 2¢ to help stimulate some discussion.

 

[Color-Copycat]

I think Formosa would make a pretty good coaling station for the RN, as there were a number of natural harbors that were easily defensible (Keelung springs to mind). Apart from that, I would think that the initial costs of economic development would take a long time to yield any returns on account of how underdeveloped Formosa was at the time.

 

[Simon]

It's actually pretty do-able. At the conclusion of the First Opium War a number of people in the British government, and especially some of the local merchants such as William Jardine, pushed for the government to demand Formosa rather than Hong Kong during the peace settlement. The British negotiator Charles Elliot decided on Hong Kong as it was an excellent port and being an island handily removed from Chinese troubles on the mainland, plus as John Barrow who was then Secretary of the Admiralty acidly pointed out that 'Formosa was rather larger than Ireland' and might therefore be somewhat problematic to take and hold. Elliot actually got into a bit of bother as the Chusan islands or an island nearby has originally been the government's favoured option as an insular station. Palmerston in a letter announcing Elliot's recall and replacement with Henry Pottinger wrote 'You have obtained the cession of Hong Kong, a barren island with barely a house on it . . . Now it seems obvious that Hong Kong will not be a Mart of Trade . . . our Commercial Transactions, will be carried as heretofore at Canton; but they [the British Residents] will be able to go and build Houses to retire to, in the desert island of Hong Kong.' Now it seems obvious that Hong Kong will not be a Mart of Trade indeed.

So simply have Elliot change his mind, have him perhaps receive some specific instrutions from London on what as a minimum he should demand, or have someone else be appointed plenipotentiary and you could easily end up with British Formosa - plus possibly some extra bits as well.

 

[Badshah]

And how would such a result influence Britain's relationship with Japan?

 

[Plumber]

Taiwan was one of the few colonies to benefit from the Second Imperialism. Japan treated it as a model colony. The British wouldn't treat it nearly as well, eventually perhaps Hong Kong becomes a part of this state, Singapore too. But that's pretty much it, and even then the island itself is still going to be treated like a backwater.

The Anglo-Japanese Alliance is most likely butterflied away, and Japan is going to have to be creative if it wants to expand. This is a good way for Japan and China to work together, in a possible Schleswig War scenario.

 

[Dan1988]

Some interesting ideas, guys. And an interesting POD to work with, too. I do like the idea of Taiwan being an RN coaling station. A few could be dotted around, too - even in Tainan itself, which IIRC around the time of the Opium War was the de facto capital of Taiwan, as it had been since the days of the Dutch, before it got moved in OTL to first Taichung and then later Taipei. Could probably come in handy by tying it in with the existing agricultural economy at the time - maybe even enhance it. (However, for that to fully work the land issue would have to be fixed.)

As for Britain's relations with Japan in TTL - yeah, that's one of the big unknowns. Idealistically, and if one wanted to be optimistic - like me - something like this would not deter Britain's relations with Japan and, thanks to the butterfly effect, maybe Japan in the long run would become a useful ally of the British, and hence in Taiwan the cultural influence of the Japanese would be similar to, yet different from, OTL. So, instead of OTL where Japan modelled the Meiji constitution on Prussia, maybe in TTL the Japanese Constitution would be based more on the British, though I'd see the relationship between the Emperor and the Prime Minister in Japan to be analogous to semi-presidential republics like France in large part due to the nature of how the Meiji Emperor unified Japan. So there would be clear limits on the Emperor's power, but he'd still be a powerful figure. Realistically, though, I don't know if that would be the case, but a British Taiwan's effect on Anglo-Japanese relations would be an interesting avenue to explore.

 

[EMT]

Hmm, interesting ideas OP. But if the British manage to take both Taiwan AND Hong Kong, wouldn't it make more sense for them to base their administration in Taiwan? Hong Kong, at the time, was basically a fishing village no?

 

[Dan1988]

Hmm, interesting ideas OP. But if the British manage to take both Taiwan AND Hong Kong, wouldn't it make more sense for them to base their administration in Taiwan? Hong Kong, at the time, was basically a fishing village no?

A cluster of villages on one island, yes, but eventually there was a "town" of sorts on Hong Kong Island in the guise of the City of Victoria, complete with European quarter. (nowadays largely coterminous with Central).

So, if the British base their administration in Taiwan - say, at Tainan, the de facto Taiwanese capital - would Cantonese still be as prominent a form of Chinese, thanks to Guangzhou, or would Cantonese share it with Min Nan? That would be the £1,000,000 question.

 

[iori]

One of the big interesting things to consider long term is immigration.

First; the majority of British colonies saw a good amount of people from the Sub-continent either immigrating themselves or brought over as a labor source, and I don't think Taiwan would be an exception, so you very well end-up with a large Indian minority on the island.

Second; Taiwan is located in an area that would actually be comfortable, if a bit warm, for Europeans, so you might actually see a sizable minority European community established on the island starting in the 1890's onward.

Third; Japan once opened is probably going to see British Taiwan as a good place to do business, so you might see a small Japanese merchant community spring-up.

Fourth; eventually somethings gonna give in China and when it does the Qing immigration restrictions are gonna fail and their will be the big wave of Chinese immigrating around the world, and Taiwan being so close would probably get some of them, though I could see the British instituting quotas and restrictions to keep them from swamping the island.


Overall a British Taiwan has the potential to become a very diverse and unique place, and could perhaps end-up as a Singapore writ-large, but with a few additional minority communities in terms of demography.

 

[tallthinkev]

I think Formosa would make a pretty good coaling station for the RN, as there were a number of natural harbors that were easily defensible (Keelung springs to mind). Apart from that, I would think that the initial costs of economic development would take a long time to yield any returns on account of how underdeveloped Formosa was at the time.

Underdevelped? More so than parts of africa?
This would make a very nice TL. I would read it.

 

[JacktheCat]

The biggest obstacle, and the main reason why the British passed in OTL, were the blood-thirsty tribes living on the island, who, when they weren't busy fighting each other united against outsiders.

For much of it's history, Formosa was seen as the Afghanistan of East Asia. Good for exiling troublesome people to, and fit for only pirates.

It was only with the invention of the maching gun, and the Japanese experimenting with 'soft power' that finally tamed the island.

 

[Dan1988]

The biggest obstacle, and the main reason why the British passed in OTL, were the blood-thirsty tribes living on the island, who, when they weren't busy fighting each other united against outsiders.

For much of it's history, Formosa was seen as the Afghanistan of East Asia. Good for exiling troublesome people to, and fit for only pirates.

So maybe Britain tames the island as the Japanese did in OTL?

 

[Dan1988]

Underdevelped? More so than parts of africa?
This would make a very nice TL. I would read it.

Underdeveloped is too strong of a word to describe Qing-era Taiwan - after all, the Dutch and Spanish colonizations of the island left a pretty solid base. It's better to say that the Qing basically neglected Taiwan because the only reason for its reason was to put down a rebellion seeking to restore the Ming dynasty. Essentially, the Qing attitude to Taiwan was similar to the British attitude, for a long time, towards Newfoundland. To some, this neglect would seem like underdevelopment, but it was neglect nonetheless.

 

[Dan1988]

Fourth; eventually somethings gonna give in China and when it does the Qing immigration restrictions are gonna fail and their will be the big wave of Chinese immigrating around the world, and Taiwan being so close would probably get some of them, though I could see the British instituting quotas and restrictions to keep them from swamping the island.

True - however, it's not like those restrictions could be easily defeated - which they were, for the most part. Despite the best intentions of the Qing, the restrictions had already failed so easily. That's the only reason why Taiwan's Han Chinese community managed to grow so much during the 19th century, in OTL to the point where the Qing had to relax the restrictions because they were openly flouted. However, as in OTL, most of the newcomers will largely be from Fujian province because it's so close to Taiwan. In TTL, though, it could be possible to have additional immigration from Guangdong province, and maybe even the introduction of Min Dong from Fujian province in addition to the existing Taiwanese variety of Min Nan.

 

[Dan1988]

Before I go to bed, there's also another thing which I forgot earlier but which was the "thing" in the 19th century. Trains. How would the British handle the development of railroads/railways in Formosa?

 

[St. Just]

Hell, if the British are there, we could see imported Indian laborers, Africans et al- like the Indians in the Caribbean or Kenya.

 

[Faeelin]

Before I go to bed, there's also another thing which I forgot earlier but which was the "thing" in the 19th century. Trains. How would the British handle the development of railroads/railways in Formosa?

I'd imagine as well (chuckle) as they did in India.

 

[Faeelin]

Underdevelped? More so than parts of africa?
This would make a very nice TL. I would read it.

Formosa had aborigines, but it was also one of the largest sugar producers in China during the period, and undergoing sustained economic and population growth.

 

[Dan1988]

I'd imagine as well (chuckle) as they did in India.

True.

Formosa had aborigines, but it was also one of the largest sugar producers in China during the period, and undergoing sustained economic and population growth.

Exactly. Along with camphor and tea as additional major exports, so based on that Formosa should technically have a comfortable existence, if it were not for the neglect of the place by the Qing.