Idol worship: why pirate Koxinga is Taiwan's undisputed hero

This year marks the 350th anniversary of an event Time magazine has included in its top 10 most audacious acts of piracy of all time. When pirate Zheng Chenggong (better known as Koxinga) defeated the mightiest Western naval power of the time, he could not have foreseen being so honoured more than three centuries later.

Not many 17th-century pirates can claim to have their own Facebook page, an opera named after them, more than 100 temples in their honour and more statues and commemorative plaques than the average dictator. In Taiwan, Koxinga is as celebrated today as he was in 1662. Basketball superstar Jeremy Lin notwithstanding, Koxinga remains the undisputed hero of the island and his exploits mark the very start of its official history.

So who was this character and how did he become the only Chinese commander to win a decisive battle against a major Western power, when he forcibly ejected the Dutch from Taiwan 350 years ago?

In the former capital of Tainan, on Taiwan's southwest coast, the scene of his greatest act of piracy, festivals are held in his honour. When I visit the Koxinga shrine, in the city centre, bare-chested old men flail themselves with swords and dance in a trance accompanied by drums, cymbals, ornate dragons and attendants with exotically painted faces.

While it is accurate to describe Koxinga as a pirate, it is important to banish any Hollywood-inspired images of a Captain Jack Sparrow character swinging through the rigging with his eyepatch and cutlass. Koxinga and the rest of the Zheng clan headed a powerful and sophisticated maritime trading organisation that controlled shipping, duties, tariffs and security across the South China Sea.

Chu Cheng-yi, director of the Tree Valley Foundation's Archaeology Centre in Tainan, has been studying Koxinga for more than 15 years.