The Matsu Islands ( or ), officially Lienchiang County (), are an archipelago of 36 islands and islets in the East China Sea governed by the Republic of China (Taiwan), situated alongside the southeastern coast of mainland China. The archipelago forms the smallest county in the ROC-controlled territories by area and population, as well as one of two counties that is a part of the nominal Fuchien Province.
The current Lienchiang County of the ROC was once part of an intact Lienchiang County of Fujian before its effective partition in 1949 following the Chinese Civil War, which resulted in the mainland portion of the county being controlled by the People's Republic of China (PRC), while the offshore islands of Matsu remained under ROC control. The circumstance has made the county the only former geographical unit with the same name which is now divided between the administrations of the ROC and the PRC.
Name
Lienchiang County, Taiwan (R.O.C.) uses the traditional Chinese characters name () and the romanized name Lienchiang which is derived from the Wade-Giles romanization (Lien²-chiang¹) of the Mandarin pronunciation for those Chinese characters that also refer to Lianjiang County, Fuzhou, Fujian in mainland China. Lienchiang has also been written as Lien-chiang and Lienkiang and by a postal romanization of the local language pronunciation Lienkong. The term Lienchiang can also refer to the homophonous Lianjiang in Zhanjiang, Guangdong, China.
The Matsu Islands are named after the main island, Nangan (Nankan). Nangan is also named Matsu Island because of a temple on the island which is supposed to be the burial site of the similarly named goddess Mazu (). Matsu is the Wade-Giles-derived romanization of the Mandarin pronunciation (Ma³-tsu³) for the Chinese character name () of the islands. The Matsu Islands are also known by other Chinese-language names including and ; Foochow Romanized: Mā-cū dō̤).
In April 2003, the Lienchiang County government considered changing the name of the county to Matsu County in order to avoid confusion with the nearby Lianjiang County on the mainland. Then-Magistrate Chen Hsueh-sheng said some local people opposed the name change because they felt it reflected the pro-independence viewpoint of the Democratic Progressive Party.
History
Yuan dynasty
Chinese from Fujian and Zhejiang started migrating to the islands during the Yuan dynasty. Most of the people on Matsu came from Houguan () (today Changle, Fujian). The popular net fishing industry had established the base for development of Fuao settlement and industrial development of the region over several hundred years.
Ming dynasty
Some crewmen of Zheng He temporarily stayed on the islands.
Qing dynasty
During the early Qing dynasty, pirates gathered here and the residents left temporarily. In contrast with Taiwan and Penghu, the Matsu Islands were not ceded to the Japanese Empire via the Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895. Due to its strategic location along the only route for the spice traffic, the British established the Dongyong Lighthouse in Dongyin Island in 1912 to facilitate ships navigation.
Republic of China
In 1911, the Qing dynasty was toppled after the Xinhai Revolution on 10 October 1911 and the Republic of China (ROC) was established on 1 January 1912. Matsu Islands were subsequently governed under the administration of Fukien Province of the ROC. On 1 August 1927, the Nanchang Uprising broke out between the ruling Nationalist Party of China (KMT) and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) which marked the beginning of Chinese Civil War.
Sheng-Chang Lin, a graduate student writing for the University of Nottingham Taiwan Studies Programme, noted that in the pre-1949 period, the Matsu Islands did not have a significant relationship with Taiwan, which at the time was a colony of the Empire of Japan. Additionally, he stated that the islands at the time had separate identities and did not have a collective identity as the Matsu Islands. Previous groups of islanders perceived themselves as Fujianese.
On 10 September 1937, Japan occupied Beigan and Nangan via the Collaborationist Chinese Army, making the islands the first in Fujian to fall to Japan. The islands were not occupied by Japanese troops during World War II because they were not important militarily. The Lienchiang County seat was moved to Danyang Township on 19 April 1941 until the Japanese surrender took place on August 15, 1945.