One-China Policy - History

History

Before the early 17th century Taiwan was inhabited by aborigines and Han Chinese migrants resulting from successive waves of migration in antiquity. Taiwan was first brought under the control of Zheng Chenggong, a Ming-loyalist, in 1662, before being incorporated by the Qing Dynasty in 1683.

It was also briefly ruled by Dutch (1624–1662) and the Spanish (1626–1642, Northern Taiwan only). The Japanese ruled Taiwan for half a century (1895–1945), while France briefly held sway over Northern Taiwan in 1884-85.

It was an outlying prefecture of Fujian Province under the Manchu Qing government of China from 1683 until 1887, when it was officially made a separate province. Taiwan remained a province for eight years until it was ceded to Japan under the Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895.

Following the Oct. 1945 Japanese surrender ceremonies in Taipei, the Republic of China, under the Kuomintang (KMT) became the governing polity on Taiwan during the period of military occupation. In 1949, after losing control of mainland China following the Chinese civil war, and before the post-war peace treaties had come into effect, the ROC government under the KMT withdrew to occupied Taiwan (which was still Japanese territory), thus becoming a government in exile, and Chiang Kai-shek declared martial law. Japan formally renounced all territorial rights to Taiwan in 1952 in the San Francisco Peace Treaty, but neither in that treaty nor in the peace treaty signed between Japan and China was the territorial sovereignty of Taiwan awarded to the Republic of China. This government still governs Taiwan, but it transformed itself into a democracy in the 1990s following decades of martial law. During this period, the legal and political status of Taiwan has become more controversial, with more public expressions of Taiwan independence sentiments, which were formerly outlawed.