ABSTRACT
The history of Taiwan seems to present some remarkable discontinuities. The long development of a maritime frontier for settlers from South China was altered around the edges by the opening of ports to trade and the whole island to foreign residence after the Arrow War. The dramatic expansion and commercialization of the Japanese economy also gave Taiwan its first important market for exports, as Chinese traders bought deer hides from the aborigines for sale in Japan. The great island had immense agricultural potential, but almost all of it would have to be opened up by backbreaking pioneer labor amid severe shortages of cloth and other consumer goods and occasionally of food. The mainland venture had accomplished nothing except to divert manpower and resources from the building up of Taiwan. The regime was desperately short of funds, unable to pay its troops.
