ce the Japanese rule. On October 21, 2008, Chinese ARATS Vice President Zhang Mingqing was injured when he encountered protestors in Tainan Confucius Temple.
Tainan was once the economic center of southern Taiwan, but was taken over by Kaohsiung due to the twelve years redevelopment plan of Kaohsiung port from 1958. While Tainan city struggled through the second half of twentieth century by carried out several redevelopment plans, the county, especially the river south region, was benefited from the national priority developments. First, the completion of the National Highway No. 1, then many industrial parks and other road infrastructures followed. As a result, the city sprawled inland into North, East and then Yongkang and Rende districts.
In the year 1992, a redevelopment plan in the West district to widen Haian Rd with an underground plaza underneath it turned into a tragedy. The lack of geological surveying and overall planning, the site ran into a layer of groundwater and also destroyed part of the historic Wutiaogang area. As a consequence, Zhongzheng Road district, the most popular shopping precinct in Tainan since Japanese rule, directly next to the site were also deserted due to fallen quality of environment. The awareness of protecting the city's historical and cultural treasures were raised in the mid-1990s. Since then, both the government and civil societies contributed to protect those heritages. It is an on-going issue for the city to protect its past while reviving its old business center.
Following the establishment of Southern Taiwan Science Park in 1995, the outskirt of the city saw a thriving growth in population through the 2000s. The city becomes more prosperous after the completion of several major transport infrastructure plans and the reform to become a special municipal. The city center shifted eastward in the mid-1990s, closer to the densely populated Yongkang, East and North districts. There are several redevelopment
