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In comparison with some other major harbours around the China Seas which may have lasted for a millennium , Tayouan bay did not become a prominent harbour until the VOC (Dutch East India Company) arrived there in 1624. In this article, the author intends to clarify the drivers behind its sudden rise. The rise of Tayouan harbour is a result of multiple interactions of different forces displayed on a specific geopolitical terrain which was created by two large-scale military confrontations in Northeast and Southeast Asia. The Imjin war (1592-1598) between China, Korea and Japan caused a political split between China and Japan, while the expanding demands in commerce compelled traders of both countries to conduct transit trade in Southeast Asian harbours. When in 1617 the Japanese Shogunate eased its pursuit of direct trade with China via Taiwan, the Fukien authorities and Japanese Red Seal (Go-shuin) operators reached a tacit agreement to keep Tayouan bay in a ‘stateless’ status. In the same year, a strong typhoon suddenly struck the Philippines Islands, and destroyed most of the Iberian fleet that originally planned to sweep the Dutch fleet from Asia once and for all. This incidental vacuum of Iberian naval forces allowed the VOC to blockade Iberian transit harbours like Macau and Manila and to harass Chinese junks bound to these harbours. In response to this threat, overseas Chinese traders residing in Japan thus planned to exploit Tayouan bay as an exceptional transit harbour. In 1622, the VOC aimed to take over Macau but failed; instead of mounting further attacks on Macau, Company forces occupied the Pescadores in order to gain access to the Chinese market. After their request for free trade was denied by the Chinese Ming court, the Dutch adapted to the strategy of overseas Chinese in Japan, and retreated to Tayouan bay to engage in the transit trade. When the corridor of silk-for-silver trade was stabilized in Tayouan bay in the 1630s, the ‘stateless’ status of Taiwan was thus altered forever, and it has remained on the map of regional geo-politics ever since.
