The SweetEnvolent Revolution: Why Did Ancient Taiwan Avoid Becoming Sugar Cane Plantations?

Original: The SweetEnvolent Revolution: Why Did Ancient Taiwan Avoid Becoming SugarCane Plantations?

From about the 15th century onwards, the Sweetener Revolution began to sweep the world, and in the process cost humanity dearly

Jamaica, Haiti, Cuba, northeastern Brazil, Java, and the Philippines are all sugar cane plantations in modern European colonies

However, the emergence of a large number of sugar plantations will not only have a destructive impact on the natural environment but also create a social crisis

First, the harm of a single sugarcane plantation

The emergence of a large number of sugar plantations has caused serious disasters to local society, which is reflected in labor oppression and natural social difficulties

1.

The emergence of a large number of single plantations means the deforestation of large areas of forest, the reclamation of a large number of arable land and the change of large areas of human settlements, which poses serious challenges to the local ecological environment, resulting in increased

On the other hand, changes in human settlements will not only change the way residents live, work, play and interact on a daily basis, undermine the sense of community and their cultural, common heritage, customs and values, but also increase social conflicts and political upheavals caused by the reduction of resources and the intensification of competition for living space

2.

The huge cost of the sugar mill and the momentum of its market demand forced a large number of slaves to work long hours, either from the African slave trade or from Chinese workers, and with the end of the slave trade, the colonial rulers were more likely to obtain squeezed cheap labor

The rise and fall of sugarcane plantations in Taiwan

The European colonists' dedication to sugar and the huge market demand made the colonists turn one colony after another into sugar factories against all odds

Historian Peng Mulan believes that Taiwan was most likely reduced to a single crop area in the 17th century, but successfully avoided such a catastrophe

1.

In the early 17th century, Taiwan was sparsely populated and its economy was almost self-sufficient

At this time, sugar became a high-priced commodity that swept Asia and Europe, and became the first choice for

After 1630, dutch colonists focused on the development of the sugar industry in Taiwan's agriculture, which was exported

During this period, because the sugarcane industry had just begun to rise, Taiwan still retained a large area of forest and a certain area of rice and arable land, and the development of sugarcane plantations did not break the ecological balance and social harmony, but showed a trend

In 1661, Zheng Chenggong led an army to conquer Taiwan, fighting the Qing Dynasty and breaking the Dutch colonists' plan to turn Taiwan into sugar cane plantations
.
Due to the military needs of counter-attacking the mainland, Zheng Chenggong preferred to turn Taiwan into a grain producing area rather than a sugar cane plantation, thus breaking the process
of the sugarcane industry that continued during the Dutch colonial period.

In the twenty-second year of the Kangxi Dynasty (1683), the Qing army captured Taiwan
.
In order to further consolidate the Qing Dynasty's rule in the inland and weaken the development of the frontier areas, the Qing Dynasty further inhibited the development of
Taiwan's sugar industry.
As a result, even if Taiwan's sugar industry received a lot of investment in the Japanese occupation era, sugarcane did not become a single crop
in Taiwan.

2.
Analysis of the reasons why Taiwan has not become a sugarcane plantation

(1) Turbulent internal environment

When the sugar industry first started in Taiwan in the 17th century, a large-scale civil war broke out on the Asian continent, which immediately spread to Taiwan, undermining the ambitions of dutch colonists to continue to develop sugar plantations in Taiwan
.
After the Qing army entered the customs, the Ming Dynasty ended
in 1644.

However, some officials swore that they would never serve the Qing Dynasty established by the "barbarians", and proclaimed the last emperor of the Ming Dynasty, the Chongzhen Emperor, and his people as emperors, occupying southern and southeastern China, and later moving to Burma and Taiwan
.
At this time, the Qing Dynasty failed to immediately eliminate the remaining forces of the Ming Dynasty, on the one hand, because the Manchus of the Qing Dynasty were good at riding horses and were not good at navigation technology; On the other hand, the remaining forces of the Ming Dynasty were strongly supported
by overseas Chinese merchants and patriotic generals of the Ming Dynasty.

One of the most important and influential funders was the late Ming official merchant Zheng Zhilong (Zheng Chenggong's father), whose trading career was large and had a personal fleet, covering a vast area
from the southeast coast of China to present-day Singapore.
In 1646, Zheng Zhilong suddenly surrendered, but several of his sons (including Zheng Chenggong) still regarded it as their duty to oppose the Qing Dynasty and restore the Ming Dynasty, and took over all his assets
.

In 1650, Zheng Chenggong took advantage of the internal chaos and successfully eliminated relatives and hostile forces through various means, not only controlling all of his father's assets, but also almost monopolizing China's foreign trade, continuing to confront the Qing Dynasty, resulting in continuous
wars.

(2) Zheng Chenggong's political considerations

After Zheng successfully recovered Taiwan, due to special political considerations, the development of Taiwan's sugarcane industry slowed down, and eventually prevented Taiwan from becoming a sugarcane plantation
.

First of all, although Zheng Chenggong's father surrendered to the Qing Dynasty, his ambition did not change, and he still regarded the anti-Qing and restoration of the Ming Dynasty as the top priority, and did not devote enough
effort to the development of Taiwan.
During the 1650s, he repeatedly attacked Chinese mainland coastal cities, and also took advantage of the situation to go up the river and approach the inland areas
.
He occupied several port cities, but because the number of villages he occupied was too small to supply them, he ended up in failure
.

Throughout his life, Zheng Chenggong focused his energy on counter-attacking the mainland, using Taiwan as a base and springboard for the grand ambition of opposing the Qing Dynasty and restoring the Ming Dynasty, never seriously examining the significance of Taiwan itself, nor inheriting the sugar industry
developed by the Dutch colonists during the Taiwan period.
As his dream of reviving the Qing Dynasty grew dimmer, Zheng Chenggong became more and more authoritarian and faint, and died of depression shortly after conquering Taiwan at the age
of 38.

Second, Zheng Chenggong fought against the Qing Dynasty, and a large number of military operations required a huge supply of grain, not sugar production
.
Zheng Chenggong realized that if you plan for the long term, you must have food security, and in order to be safe, you must develop the rice industry instead of the sugar industry in large quantities
.
Although there is still a huge market demand for sugar, due to Zheng Chenggong's special political considerations, rice cultivation gradually takes advantage
.

Land is limited, the expansion of one plant will inevitably lead to the reduction of another plant, because Zheng successfully implemented the policy of practicing the policy of educating soldiers in agriculture, a large number of sugarcane plantations in Taiwan have either been abandoned or changed to growing grain, so Taiwan's rice crop yield is greater than the sugarcane production
.
Taiwan's once-thriving sugarcane plantation industry has lost its momentum
.

(3) The Qing Dynasty suppressed the sugar industry

The Qing Dynasty did not attach particular importance to Taiwan at first, but once Taiwan became an anti-Qing base, the Qing Dynasty was determined to conquer Taiwan
.
In the 22nd year of the Kangxi Dynasty (1683), the Fujian sailor Shi Lang led 20,000 sailors and more than 230 warships to annihilate the main force of the Zheng army in the penghu waters, recover penghu and Taiwan, and unify the national territory
.

The market demand for sugar was still huge, but the Qing court had no intention of creating a single sugarcane crop
in Taiwan.
Europeans have a penchant for sugar, and are even addicted to sugar, but sugar cane cane
cannot be grown in Europe.
Sugar is one of the most lucrative commodities for European governments, and monopolizing the sugar trade or imposing heavy taxes on the sugar trade can raise significant amounts of money
.

This was important for the European powers, which were busy dividing up colonies and naval competitions at the time, and the sugar trade was important
.
Chinese mainland also exists in the vast sucrose market
.
In fact, before the beginning of the 19th century, the average sugar consumption of Chinese was higher than in Europe, and the chinese sugar market was equally large
.

For Taiwan, the policy of emphasizing rice and light sugarcane during the Zheng Chenggong period has balanced the excessive development of the sugarcane plantation industry during the Dutch colonial period to a certain extent, and if the sugar industry can be regained at this time, it will be very beneficial
to the development of Taiwan's economy.

However, after the Qing court took over Taiwan, it did not want to see rich and powerful places on the edge of the empire, so as not to lose the tail, especially Taiwan, as the base of Zheng Chenggong, once posed a great threat
to the mainland and the Qing Dynasty.

The Qing army only entered the customs in 1644, as the early stage of a century-old foundation, the Qing Dynasty at this time was still in the stage of consolidating the political situation and consolidating the foundation of its rule, and most of the anti-Qing forces occupied the surrounding areas, making the Qing court particularly cautious
about the rule of the marginal areas.
The Qing court was concerned with internal political stability rather than overall development, so it did not allow sugar production in Taiwan to be higher than rice production
.

In addition, the Qing court believed that preserving forests would allow the indigenous people of Taiwan to continue to maintain their original way of life, thus preventing them from rebelling
.
Factors such as the reduction of natural resources and the squeeze and competition of human living space will create a sense of relative deprivation, thereby strengthening group identity, increasing the likelihood of groups being mobilized, and increasing the risk
of political unrest.

Jack Goldstone and Thomas Homer-Dixon argue that strong states can prevent feelings of relative deprivation from converging toward organized violence, while weak states cannot
.
At this time, the Qing Dynasty was not a weak country, but its ruling wisdom would not allow Taiwan to rely on the sugar industry to develop and grow, and the risk of separating the Qing Dynasty was born, so the Qing Dynasty suppressed Taiwan's sugar industry
.

III.
Conclusion

From the Dutch colonial period to the Japanese occupation era, Taiwan's sugarcane cultivation was not interrupted, but sugarcane never became the only crop on the island, thus allowing Taiwan to avoid the natural disasters and social dilemmas
caused by a single plantation.
The Qing court weakened, and eventually lost the Opium War, reducing it to a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society
.

After the Japanese occupation of Taiwan in 1895, the production of sucrose was also greatly promoted, and the sugar industry in Taiwan showed an unprecedented development trend
during the Japanese occupation period.
But even so, Taiwan still produces rice mainly
.
The sugar trade was booming in Taiwan, but sugarcane has never been a single crop
in Taiwan.

Due to the turbulent social conditions in Taiwan in the 17th century, Zheng Chenggong's blockade of dutch colonists from developing sugarcane plantations in Taiwan, and the Qing Dynasty's suppression of Taiwan's sugarcane cultivation industry allowed Taiwan to avoid becoming a sugarcane plantation
.

References:

George Wells, Carlton Hayes: A General History of the World, edited by Li Yunzhe, Beijing: China Friendship Publishing Company, 2017
.

Peng Mulan Steve Topick: The World Created by Trade, translated by Huang Zhongxian, Xi'an: Shaanxi Normal University Press, 2008
.

Kahl Colin, States,scarcity,and civil strife in the developing world, New Jersey:Princeton University Press, 2006.

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