臺灣的想像地理：中國殖民旅遊書寫與圖像（1683-1895）

Harvard East Asian Monographs #230

by Emma Jinhua Teng, 鄧津華, 楊雅婷 (Translator)

三百五十年前，中國認為臺灣不過是孤懸海外的一顆丸泥；兩百年後，臺灣已穩處於中華帝國中的一省。臺灣也從不入版圖的粗鄙番境，轉變為列強覬覦的經濟要地。
本書從中國作家的殖民旅遊書寫、地誌圖像為中心，藉由對臺灣風土民情、自然景象，及原住民描寫的再現，如性別倒錯、種族論述、文化優劣等，探討這些文本如何在中華帝國對版圖擴張及族群差異的意識形態中扮演關鍵角色，同時由此解析清初的「帝國主義」及「殖民思維」。
作者並透過檢視非西方的帝國勢力及其殖民他者的政策，挑戰過去對「殖民者」與「被殖民者」的既定觀念，勾勒出西方殖民論述與中國殖民論述之間的交會點。

Genres: History, China, Nonfiction

368 pages, Paperback

First published May 15, 2004

Reviews

[Andre · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very interesting and informative book and I was quite surprised how familiar these colonial writings about Taiwan sounded.
Familiar but also different in some areas. The most noticeable was that prior to the Qing conquest of the island no Chinese literati seemed to have had any interest in Taiwan, it is in fact debatable whether it was even known. Ironically, the "territorial integrity" that Chinese nationalists seek to defend is based on a territorial image of "China" created by an invading Manchu dynasty, and not the older Ming image.
And quickly the similarities with the American westward expansion surfaced here: A man named Ding addressed his comments to contemporaries skeptical about the possibility of civilizing the "savages" of Taiwan. Since the Europeans had succeeded in North America, he concluded, surely the Chinese, with their superior civilization, would prevail in Taiwan.
Furthermore, this talk about how back in those days travel literature had covered every spot in China and so there was nothing new for the Qing empire reminds me on how often even I already run into the same stories from China over and over again. That place is so big, you would think that there is more.
But back to the writings on Taiwan. Apparently, Taiwan's location "beyond the seas," placed it definitively outside the natural territorial boundaries of China proper. Late Ming and early Qing descriptions of the island reinforced the notion of Taiwan's separation from China. Taiwan was commonly described as "faraway overseas," "hanging alone beyond the seas," "an isolated island surrounded by ocean," or "far off on the edge of the oceans." And the indigenous people of Taiwan were known to the Chinese as fan (savages) which basically meant they belonged to the edge of the world and therefore lack any knowledge of culture. If the KMT had the same view of those people than they probably tried to stamp out their culture. And apparently, they were considered unworthy of being incorporated into the Chinese empire.
So prior to Qing times Taiwan was terra incognita. And gazetteers event went so far as to claim that Qing annexation had initiated a change of the island's geographic conditions. Several of the 18th century ones claimed that the climate had begun to change with annexation as a result of the beneficial cosmic influence of the emperor, which influenced heavenly conditions and thereby the weather.
Sure, in the Americas we had nothing like that, but something else that was also found in the writings on Taiwan. A man named Chen Di was the one who provided the basic model for the rhetoric of primitivism (saying the Taiwanese indigenes live in a sort of uncorrupted state) but also privation (saying that they are basically uncivilized savages). He stated that they lack the very basics of civilization. Which is similar to the writings on the natives of North America. And Chen not only used the Taiwanese as a critique of the Chinese, but he placed them in the category of "Easter Barbarians" (dangyi), a category that included the Koreans and Japanese.... very interesting.
And not only did early Kangxi texts often depict the natives in rhetoric that stated them as backwards, a popular metonym for them was "tattooed and black-toothed [people]" and several early Qing writers referred to them as ape-like "folk of high antiquity", aka they are barely more than beasts. The less common rhetoric of primitivism was a counterforce to this.
However, is she sure that "transformation" may not also mean a physical transformation? Not just did the Chinese writers refer to the natives as cave people and fur eaters but there was the claim that geography and climate changed due to the conquest, so why not physical changes due to Confucianism?
And if the Qing only conquered the western part of Taiwan, doesn't that mean that the CCP's claim to the entire island is even more false than it already is? After all, they say that everything that belonged to the Qing belongs to them, but half of Taiwan never belonged to the Qing according to this.
And just for the record, when Chinese literati spoke of pristine lands, that term was equated with chaos and not purity and beauty. In fact, in regard to Taiwan, it was stated to be of inferior natural capacity when compared to the Chinese center.
And if the similarities with the Americans weren't enough, they even referred to Taiwan as a land without people which paved the way for Han Chinese appropriation for those lands. As if it didn't sound similar enough to North America and Australia already. And this talk about the island being a haven for bandits and rebels sounds similar to me to what some Chinese discourse of today says about Taiwan.
In fact, someone like Lan Dingyuean did not quite regard Taiwan's natives as "people" (ren). Lan had little concern for the welfare of Taiwan's native people, for he “viewed them as lowly savages who were best driven off if the land were to live up to its full potential.”
Again: Very reminiscent of the rhetoric on North America and Australia, and partially South America and the Nazi conquest of Eastern Europe.
And the terms zhong, lei, zu and qun do bear comparison with "Western" constructs of race. And even in the Song dynasty the people of "Pisheye" (which some speculate to be Taiwan) were claimed to almost not be of the "human race" and having glaring eyes. Another island called Liuqiu (also maybe Taiwan) said they have deep eyes and long noses, resembling the Tartars. Interesting.
Having come so often in contact with pan-Asian discourse that seems to homogenize vastly different peoples and cultures and basically seems to treat them almost as subset of Chinese/Confucian and all somehow looking the same it is really ironic to read of Qing writers often noting the "round" and "deep" eyes of the Taiwan natives.
And the travel writers and gazetteers claimed the natives were able to run as fast as galloping horses, impervious to weapons, had tremendous endurance and their women were able to return to physical labor immediately after childbirth and there were also claims of them being stubborn and stupid, like to kill people and naturally resistant to Chinese settlement... that sounds incredibly like Indian stereotypes.
And speaking of barbarians: the Qing dynasty basically had to dismiss race discourse officially because they were basically barbarians in Han Chinese minds. Interestingly, the Great Wall is part of a long-established Chinese practice of articulating ethnic distinction through physical boundaries. And the Qing had numerous examples as well, among them the Willow Palisade and the Taiwan Savage Boundary. The "savage boundary" in Taiwan was established in 1722 and apparently it was to separate the Han and raw savages. And look at that, the Ming already had "Miao walls" built in 1615.
Reading this about Chinese officials worrying that Han farmers would escape beyond state control into "barbarian" territory in order to avoid taxes, calling them Hanjian (traitorous or false Chinese) and in effect "went native" and after generations cease to be Han sounds to me reminiscent of modern day discourse of overseas Chinas either being claimed by the CCP or claiming to be the same as mainland Chinese.
And look at that, China had depictions of foreigners as half-beasts and with weird proportions and body parts as well. And not only was the trope of gender inversion particularly popular in accounts of the region that is now South East Asia and (in the late Qing) of America and Europe (thereby marking them as barbaric or savage), but so were hypermasculinization and -feminization with "barbarians." And of course, Qing colonial discourse employed gendered or sexualized tropes as a means of othering and denigration. Ma Hunan characterized Thai Women as "promiscuous" and this was a common stereotype of Southeast Asian women in Chinese travel accounts from at least the Yuan dynasty onward.
But in the 19th century Qing literati suddenly wanted to incorporate the savages into the Chinese people. And what a coincidence, the Qing became truly interested in the eastern coast of Taiwan only when other imperial powers wanted it, before that they didn't give a shit but now it is suddenly important for China and the edge of the Chinese world.
In fact Taiwan did not become an official Chinese province until 1887 (Hey, that was the year when the Qing claimed in a political dispute with the German empire that Korea was a Chinese colony) and that was lost in 1895 when Taiwan became a Japanese colony until 1945... so technically, it was longer a Japanese colony than an official Chinese province.
And under the Qianlong emperor East Turkistanis and Mongols were no longer referenced as "dog-Muslims" and "barbarians" but it was totally ok to call Taiwan indigenes as "savages" and Qing officials were not censored when they referred to them as animals. The reason? They and other frontier peoples were considered superfluous, unlike the former two as well as Han, Tibetans and Manchus.
And the very idea of "national reunification" between China and Taiwan is predicated on the denial of Qing imperialism. Hence the PRC has a vested interest in maintaining the idea that imperialism was solely the doing of European men. In official PRC accounts of Qing history, Qing expansionism is never spoken of as "imperialism"; rather, it is recast as "national unification"(tongyi).
But, couldn't it be argued that the spread of Mandarin in Taiwan is colonial as well, as it was not common there until the KMT enforced it?
Also:
Theorists sometimes admit Japan as the single example of a non-Western imperial power. But as Leo Ching has shown, there is still some reluctance even then to accepting Japan as a "true" imperialist. I might have to check Ching's book.
Sadly, these excerpts from "Small Sea Travelogue" are really boring. Only the sometimes descriptions of the "Savages" make this in any way worthwhile and the author stated that earlier anyway.

[Ocean G · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book for those (like me) who can't read the original journals in Chinese but are curious as to how Chinese travelers saw Taiwan, from the first accounts to the end of the Qing dynasty. Delves into what people thought of the country and of the people who lived here.

[Remy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A truly informative look at the Qing Dynasty's view of Taiwan. As mentioned in the introduction, a fresh look is needed at Chinese colonialism in Mongolia, Tibet, and East Turkestan in addition to Taiwan. This book is readable and I particularly enjoyed the wide array of maps provided.

[Marcus · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book as a history of the cultural superstructure that surrounded the incorporation of Taiwan into the Qing empire. I thought that Teng’s analysis of the distinction between romanticized primitivism and demonized privationism in Qing narratives that shared a view of indigenous Taiwanese people as being in some sense “behind” the Han Chinese. Foundational Confucian and Daoist texts both have a long tradition of high regard for the ancient past and skepticism of the present, which may have played some role in the construction of Qing policies that sought to preserve indigenous land rights. At the same time, certain versions of Chinese cosmogony do present a barbaric early human culture that is elevated through instruction by mythical founders of Chinese civilization. Qing literati were able to draw on a rich variety of texts describing initial privations followed by a golden age and then gradual decline to either fetishize or denigrate the Austronesian societies on Taiwan. I also found Teng’s description of the role of feng shui on both sides of the debate around expansionism within the Qing fascinating. Taiwan’s distance both culturally and geographically from the Chinese core led to many regarding its spiritual geography as uninhabitable by civilized people, but others argued that cultivation of the land and political fealty to the emperor could transform the way qi flowed on the island. The reaction of conservative Confucians to the matrilineal and even matriarchal (to some extent) character of the Siraya and to a lesser degree some other indigenous groups was also quite interesting.

In the prologue and epilogue to the book, Teng lays out her reasoning beyond conceiving of Qing expansion as a form of colonialism that can be analogized to western colonialism. She clarifies that she is not making the claim that there are no differences, or that an equivalency should always be drawn across the board between Qing expansion and the more archetypical forms of European colonialism. The purpose behind employing the term colonialism to describe the Qing is to open up the potential for comparative analysis between minorities within greater China and the victims of western imperialism, and between the experience of the Han Taiwanese under Japan and the white terror and the indigenous people of Taiwan under Qing governance and Han settlement.

I appreciate this frame of analysis because it pushed me to think, and I’m still uncomfortable with it. I’m no expert on decolonial theory, but it seems to me that any framework that situates both Taiwan and say, the United States or Israel, as colonial, would effectively make every nation on earth a nesting doll of colonialisms. For a long time I have struggled to understand what separates early modern and modern settler colonial societies from, say, the Turks in Anatolia, the Yayoi in Japan, the Thais in Thailand, the Anglo-Saxons in England, the Magyars in Hungary, the Spanish and Portuguese in Iberia, the Aryans in India, the Bantus across Africa, and so on. One can argue about scale, and in some cases also the degree of continuing contradictions today (there are not marginalized Britons kept on reservations in England by an Anglo-Saxon majority.)

However, it seems that the distinction being made is not in scale or staying power but in category. I think that to group the United States, Israel, and the Qing into the category of “colonialism” is inappropriate without also including almost every other place on earth whose population are descended from people who overpowered and assimilated or displaced a preexisting population. Speaking categorically, it seems the main difference is that there are still culturally and phenotypically distinct indigenous people left in some places to advocate for themselves, whereas in others the displacement, assimilation, or extermination was complete.

This thought process, which emerged from reading Teng’s epilogue even if from my disagreement with it, has led me to conclude that “colonialism” may not be a very useful category for anything prescriptive. It seems that a worldview that holds decolonization as its North Star without committing to a specific opposition to western colonialism would lead to the infinite balkanization of every place on earth, due to the colonized having themselves often previously displaced or assimilated other peoples! It would become impossible to confront imperialist hegemony as every act of decolonization folded into itself on infinite layers of self flagellation for infinite layers of colonialism- indeed I think this is just what the U.S. led bloc hopes to achieve with China to the extent it lends support to Tibetan, Uyghur, and Taiwan nationalism however justified each of these may be.

I think it makes more sense to take each instance of injustice on its own, without making a fetish of which ethnic group arrived at a place first and who displaced who at which point in history. All people have a right to dignity and to the products of their labor, and every infringement of these rights must be opposed, but I fear that a framework which hinges on ethnic land claims and the delegitimization of societies formed through injustice (which is all of them) is counterproductive to that goal. In thinking these through, I’ve clarified to myself that my opposition to American and Israeli societies, for example, is based much less on the land that they are on and the circumstances of their foundation than the violence they commit today, including against their indigenous populations. Because I don’t believe either the PRC in the mainland or ROC on Taiwan are comparable in terms of culpability for ongoing violence, I chafe at the grouping together of European expansion (the antecedent to the U.S. and Israel) and Qing expansion (antecedent to the PRC and ROC) under one analytical umbrella. This may all be quite ignorant, and I now have a desire to try and better understand the theoretical framework Teng is drawing on here through further reading, but it feels weak from where I’m at now.

[Zulu Fox · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Taiwan is no bigger than a ball of mud. We gain nothing by possessing it, and it would be no loss if we did not acquire it.” - Kangxi Emperor, 27 November 1683

“Since an important aspect of Qing imperialism was the implanting of Han Chinese settlements on distant frontier territories, I consider Qing expansionism at once an imperial and colonial phenomenon.”

“Since the Qing had not intended to acquire Taiwan permanently when it sent Shi Lang into battle, in annexing the island it became, in effect, an accidental colonizer rather than a colonizer by design.”

4 stars.

Published in 2004, this is one of those extremely academic works, on a hopelessly academic subject (an imagined geography”), that somehow manages to be fairly engaging to a broader readership.

To be sure, unless you’re using this for a paper or are ultra interested in Qing dynasty representations of “the other” in contemporary discourse, some of this will be too deep in the weeds for you, as it was for me. Still though, there was definitely a baby swimming around in all that bath water and I feel like I walked away with an enriched understanding of the Qing Dynasty’s colonization of Taiwan.

For some, and for the author, clearly the notion of framing Chinese annexation of Taiwan as a “colonial” enterprise was controversial. The author really gets into the theoretical weeds of applying “imperial” and “colonial” frameworks to the Qing. I accept all of that more or less at face value, probably because I never viewed them as being uniquely European to begin with, so the theoretical discussions here, while competently executed, didn’t really do much for me.

What did do a lot for me, as someone relatively unfamiliar with this history, was the author’s presentation of the Qing debates over whether or not to annex Taiwan in the 1680s. It was interesting to see how utterly oblivious the Chinese were to Taiwan’s existence for most of their history, and how reluctantly the Qing came to annex the island - almost by accident - and how it’s place in the Qing cosmology gradually migrated to such a point that when it was annexed by Japan in 1895, it was portrayed by Chinese contemporaries as a limb being hacked off. This was for me the strongest part of the book. The author does a great job of using travelogues to illustrate how the discourse around Taiwan evolved:

“The Qing incorporation of this island involved not only a reconsideration of Taiwan’s place in imperial geography but also a reconceptualization of the Chinese domain itself.”

The author’s point that the “other” or the “native” or the “savage” or the “subaltern” (or whatever word you want to use, but we’re talking specifically about Taiwanese aboriginals in this instance) was an important part of fashioning the majority identity is well-taken, though it’s an argument I’ve heard many times before in many different contexts (going back to Lao Tzu in fact), to the point where I find it to be almost a 21st century academic cliché. Which, in fairness, doesn’t make it untrue, but I’m fairly confident the point can be easily overstated, and has been here.

Still though, I found this to be a lot more engaging and informative than I worried it might have been, and despite veering (hard) into the weeds at points, I can forgive that on the grounds that this probably was never intended for a general audience in the first place.

As such, I wouldn’t recommend this to a general readership, but for anyone with an interest in late imperial China - or anyone interest in disproving some current narratives about Taiwan’s place in Chinese history - this will supplement your understanding of the period nicely.

[Kden0.0 · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book transformed the field of Taiwan studies. A must read for anyone tied to the field.