Dutch Formosa survives

[MrHola]

Alright, here's the POD: Koxinga dies before attacking the island. There still will be a sizeable Han population because the Dutch needed to stimulate agriculture. In the end, the Dutch turn Formosa into one big sugar plantation - they did so with Java, why not with Formosa. Let's just assume that everything follows OTL and that the British fail to capture it during the Napoleonic Wars.

1) How would China respond with a European-controlled colony right near their borders?
2) Any effects on the VoC trade with Japan, etc.?

What would happen next?

 

[wietze]

maybe it doubles as a Deshima type location?

Instead of having a trade area on the chinese mainland (like hong kong, macao, tsingtsao etc), formosa becomes the dutch trading area in that area.
it could double as a back up for Deshima, with a lot more space.

dutch education was sought after in japan for a while.
I could imagine that having more facilities educational on formosa allows japan for a tighter isolation, since they can travel to formosa now, and can keep deshima to a minimum.

 

[galileo-034]

Not only sugar, but other crops, such as tea...

Still, I don't think that it would prevent early Qing from putting trade restrictions on foreign trade. Dutch and Chinese merchants traded across the Taiwan straits, and by the way, they imported labor force for the island plantations, but that's something the Qing would have seen as prenicious foreign influence like IOTL. While Canton became the only authorized port to do commerce with Europeans after the 1680s, I imagine that Dutch influence could have another port in Fujian opened to them, Amoy maybe.

At least Taiwan would provide the Dutch for some hard currency and material for barter trade instead of forcing them into some opium trade.

 

[galanx]

One reason the Qing closed down the coast and did the forced evacuation was attacks from Japanese pirates. If they attacked Dutch trade with the mainland, it would give the Dutch an incentive to drive them off.