9 - The Zheng State and the Fall of Dutch Formosa, 1662

Summary

This chapter examines the fall of Dutch Taiwan to a Chinese state (the Zheng family maritime state) in 1662, suggesting that that event can be understood by focusing on two things. First, the VOC, although the most powerful maritime structure of Europe, was successful in East Asia largely because East Asian states were less interested in controlling maritime space and ports than were European states. The Zheng state, born in the 1650s, was an anomaly in East Asia: a Chinese state oriented toward seaborne commerce. Second, Zheng military power was high, although Dutch military techniques and technologies proved instrumental in holding off his numerically superior army for nearly a year. The chapter ends with counterfactual speculations about what would have happened had the Dutch held Taiwan: the Qing dynasty, which eventually defeated the Zheng family and took Taiwan, would not have incorporated Taiwan into its empire.