Taiwan Incident of 1871

Grave of the victims of the incident, at Gokoku-ji, in Naha.

• Japanese: 台湾遭難事件 (Taiwan sounan jiken)

In late 1871, a ship returning to Miyako Island after paying tribute in Shuri was caught in a typhoon and shipwrecked on the southeastern coast of Taiwan, where many of the Miyako Islanders were killed by Taiwanese aborigines. An international incident ensued, in which China and Japan clashed over control over, and responsibility for, both Taiwan and the Ryûkyûs, eventually leading to the deployment of Japanese troops in Taiwan in 1874, very nearly leading to the outright break out of war between China and Japan, and ending with the Japanese annexation of the Ryûkyûs in 1879.

Incident

Of the 69 Miyako Islanders on board the ship, three drowned, and 54 were killed by Taiwanese aborigines. Yanagihara Sakimitsu, a Japanese official in Shanghai, reported the incident to Tokyo roughly six months later. That same year (1872), some months after being shipwrecked, the twelve survivors rescued by the Chinese returned home to Miyako via Fuzhou, and King Shô Tai sent his official thanks to the Chinese emperor and authorities for rescuing and returning his subjects.

Aftermath

Yanagihara Sakimitsu, Japanese Diplomatic Minister in China, traveled to Tokyo and related these events roughly six months afterwards. Then, in June 1873, he was present when Foreign Minister Soejima Taneomi visited Beijing. Yanagihara mentioned the incident to the Chinese; Chinese Foreign Minister Mao Changxi responded that the Taiwanese aborigines were beyond Chinese control, and that those killed were Ryukyuans, not Japanese.

Various voices, especially from Kagoshima prefecture, pushed for a military expedition to be sent to Taiwan to exact retribution against the aborigines for killing Japanese subjects. In February 1874, Tokyo decided to do just that, and in May that year, an expedition was launched.

References

• Uemura Hideaki. "The Colonial Annexation of Okinawa and the Logic of International Law: The Formation of an 'Indigenous People' in East Asia." Japanese Studies 23:2 (2003). pp107-124.