Exploring the Role of the Dutch East India Company in Making Taiwan a Center for the Sugar Trade From 1624 to 1662

This article intends to explore the actual role of the Dutch East India Company during the Dutch colonial period from 1624 to 1662, when Taiwan became a sugar supply center and its trade status was upgraded from a trading relay station to a trading center for sugar trade with Eurasian markets. This article tests the established model and hypothesis through five dimensions. Except for the fourth dimension, the others all obtain support for the hypothesis. The research results found that whether it is from the improvement of Taiwan’s sugar supply and sugar trade status, or the booming period of the Dutch East India Company’s sugar trade and the two-stage rise in European sugar prices, in addition to marking changes in Taiwan’s industrial transformation and trade status, all of this highlights that the Dutch East India Company indeed played a pivotal role in Taiwan during this process.