Taiwan Expedition of 1874

Taiwan Expedition Of 1874

The Japanese invasion of Taiwan in 1874, usually referred to in Japan as the Taiwan Expedition (Japanese: Taiwan Shuppei (台湾出兵?)) and in Taiwan and mainland China as the Mudan incident (Chinese: 牡丹社事件), was a punitive expedition launched by the Japanese in retaliation for the murder of 54 Ryukyuan sailors by Paiwan aborigines near the southwestern tip of Taiwan in December 1871. The success of the expedition, which marked the first overseas deployment of the Imperial Japanese Army and Imperial Japanese Navy, revealed the fragility of the Qing dynasty's hold on Taiwan and encouraged further Japanese adventurism. Diplomatically, Japan's embroilment with China in 1874 was eventually resolved by a British arbitration under which Qing China agreed to compensate Japan for property damage. Some ambiguous wording in the agreed terms were later argued by Japan to be confirmation of Chinese renunciation of suzerainty over the Ryukyu Islands, paving the way for de facto Japanese incorporation of Ryukyu in 1879.