If you discount small island countries like Singapore, Malta, Barbados, Bahrain, and similar, Taiwan ranks behind only Bangladesh and Palestine for density. Thirdly, I had not realised how densely populated is Taiwan. Again, this shows my lack of knowledge of the history of this region. Secondly, I had not known that the French bombarded Taiwan during the war between France and China from 1884 to 1885. That’s a long period of fifty years, but the fact that I knew nothing of this merely shows my previous ignorance of Taiwanese history. Firstly, I had not realised that Taiwan had been a dependency of Japan from 1895 until 1945. There are some remarkable facts and insights in the book, Formosan Odyssey: Taiwan, Past and Present, by John Grant Ross, and they made me change my ideas on various issues quite a bit.
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