The political status of Taiwan is a controversy over whether Taiwan, including the Pescadores (Penghu), should remain the effective territory of the Republic of China (ROC), become unified with the territories now governed by the People's Republic of China (PRC), or become the Republic of Taiwan. Taiwan's political status is complicated by the controversy over the Republic of China's existence as a state.
Currently, Taiwan, Kinmen (Quemoy), Wuchiu (Wuciou) and Matsu off the coast of mainland Fukien, and Taiping (Itu Aba) and Pratas in the South China Sea effectively make up the entire state known as the Republic of China. The ROC government has in the past considered itself to be the sole legitimate government over Taiwan, as well as its former territories on the continent that include mainland China, Outer Mongolia and Tannu Uriankhai (part of which is present day Tuva). This position started to be largely ignored in the early 1990s, changing to one that does not challenge the legitimacy of PRC rule over mainland China, although the ROC's claims have never been renounced through a constitutional amendment. Different groups have different concepts of what the current formal political situation of Taiwan is. (See also: Taiwan independence, Chinese reunification, and Cross-Strait relations)
In addition, the situation can be confusing because of the different parties and the effort by many groups to deal with the controversy through a policy of deliberate ambiguity. The political solution that is accepted by many of the current groups is the following perspective of the status quo: that is, to unofficially treat Taiwan as a state and at a minimum, to officially declare no support for the government of this state making a formal declaration of independence. What a formal declaration of independence would consist of is not clear and can be confusing given the fact that the People's Republic of China has never controlled Taiwan since its founding and the fact that the Republic of China, whose government controls Taiwan, considers itself a de jure sovereign state. The status quo is accepted in large part because it does not define the legal status or future status of Taiwan, leaving each group to interpret the situation in a way that is politically acceptable to its members. At the same time, a policy of status quo has been criticized as being dangerous precisely because different sides have different interpretations of what the status quo is, leading to the possibility of war through brinkmanship or miscalculation

Prehistoric Settlement

The Puyuma's Moon-shape Monolith ca. 1896
Taiwan is estimated by anthropologists to have been populated for approximately 30,000 years. Little is known about the original inhabitants, but distinctive jadeware, and corded pottery of the Changpin, Beinan and Tapenkeng cultures show a marked diversity in the island's early inhabitants. Today's Taiwan's aboriginal peoples are classified as belonging to the Austronesian ethno-linguistic group of people, a linguistic group that stretches as far west as Madagascar, to Easter Island in the east and to New Zealand in the south with Taiwan as the northern most point. Austronesian culture on Taiwan begins about 4,000 B.C.

Early History

Several entries that may refer to Taiwan appeared in Chinese historical records, but otherwise no records exist of Taiwan in the early period.
1 During 607 and 610 some generals of Sui Dynasty had embarked on several military operations on Liuqiu(), described in (Book of Sui). Many scholars think Liuqiu in Sui Dynasty is the present Taiwan.
2 1292 the Kublai Khan() of Yuan Dynasty tried to force minorities in Yizhou() to pay tribute.
3 13351340 Wang Dayuan(Ԩ) wrote a book ־ԡ which describes Liuqiu() after he had visited it.
4 1375 The Ming Dynasty had dispatched a delegation to the now Ryukyu Islands. Thereafter the Chinese call the Ryukyu Islands as Liuqiu(), and an island under the Ryukyu Islands "small Liuqiu" (С), which may be the present-day Taiwan.
5 Between 1403 and 1424 the great fleet of Ming Dynasty's admiral-- Zheng He possibly visited Taiwan.
Permanent Chinese settlement on Penghu began in the 1100s but the same on the main island of Taiwan did not take place until several centuries later.
Despite Taiwan being rumored as the fabled "Island of Dogs", "Island of Women" or any of the other fabled island thought, by Han literati, to lay beyond the seas, Taiwan was officially regarded, by Qing Emperor Kangxi, as "a ball of mud beyond the pale of civilization" and did not appear on any map of the imperial domain until 1683. The act of presenting a map to the emperor was equal to presenting the lands of the empire. It took several more years before the Qing court would recognize Taiwan as part of the Qing realm. - - - - Prior to the Qing Dynasty, the Middle Kingdom was conceived as a land bound by mountains, rivers and seas. The idea of an island as a part of the Middle Kingdom was unfathomable to Han Chinese prior to the Qing forntier expansion effort of the 17th Century. The presence of the Great Walls demonstrate some earlier concepts of "China's" borders in relation to the PRC's current holdings and claims. The "suspicious history" of Taiwan is often cited by Chinese nationalists to support their claim that "Taiwan has belonged to China since antiquity". Taiwanese nationalists do not regard these claims as valid.

European Settlement

Portuguese sailors passing Taiwan in 1544, first jotted in a ship's log the name of the island "Ilha Formosa", meaning Beautiful Island. In 1582 the survivors of a Portuguese shipwreck spent ten weeks battling malaria and aborigines before returning to Macau on a raft. Dutch traders, in search of an Asian base first arrived on the island at the request of the Ming court in 1624 to use the island as a base for Dutch commerce with Japan and the Chinese coast away from China. Two years later, the Spanish established a settlement at Santissima Trinidad, building Fort Santo Domingo on the northwest coast of Taiwan near Keelung, which they occupied until 1642 when they were driven out by a joint Dutch-Aborigine invasion force. The Dutch East India Company (VOC) administered the island and its predominantly aboriginal population until 1662, setting up a tax system, schools to teach romanized script of aboriginal languages and evangelizing. Although its control was mainly limited to the western plain of the island, the Dutch systems were adopted by succeeding occupiers. The first influx of migrants from coastal Fujian came during the Dutch period, in which merchants and traders from the Chinese coast sought to purchase hunting licenses from the Dutch or hide out in aboriginal villages to escape the Qing authorities. Most of the immigrants were young single males who were discouraged from staying on the island often referred to by Han as "The Gate of Hell" for its reputation in taking the lives of sailors and explorers.
The Island Formosa and the Pescadores/ Johannes Vingboons/ ca.1640/ Nationaal Archief, Den Haag
The Dutch originally sought to use their castle Zeelandia at Tayowan as a trading base between Japan and China, but soon realized the potential of the huge deer populations that roamed in herds of thousands along the alluvial plains of Taiwan's western regions. Deer were in high demand by the Japanese who were willing to pay top dollar for use of the hides in samurai armor. Other parts of the deer were sold to Han traders for meat and medical use. The Dutch paid aborigines for the deer brought to them and tried to manage the deer stocks to keep up with demand. The Dutch also employed Han to farm sugarcane and rice for export, some of these rice and sugarcane reached as far as the markets of Persia. Unfortunately the deer the aborigines had relied on for their livelihoods began to disappear forcing the aborigines to adopt new means of survival. The Dutch built a second administrative castle on the main island of Taiwan in 1633 and set out to earnestly turn Taiwan into a Dutch colony. The first order of business was to punish villages that had violently opposed the Dutch and unite the aborigines in allegiance with the VOC. The first punitive expedition was against the villages of Baccloan and Mattauw, north of Saccam near Tayowan. The Mattauw campaign had been easier than expected and the tribe submitted after having their village razed by fire. The campaign also served as a threat to other villages from Tirossen (Chia Yi) to Lonkjiaow (Heng Chun). The 1636 punitive attack on Lamay Island (Hsiao Liu Chiu) in response to the killing of the shipwrecked crew of the Beverwijck and the Golden Lion ended ten years later with the entire aboriginal population of 1100 removed from the island including 327 Lamayans killed in a cave, having been trapped there by the Dutch and suffocated in the fumes and smoke pumped into the cave by the Dutch and their allied aborigines from Saccam, Soulang and Pangsoya. The men were forced into slavery in Batavia (Java) and the women and children became servants and wives for the Dutch officers. The events on Lamay changed the course of Dutch rule to work closer with allied aborigines, though there remained plans to depopulate the outlying islands.
See also: Taiwan under Dutch rule

Koxinga and Imperial Chinese Rule

In 1661, a naval fleet led by the Ming loyalist Zheng Chenggong (known in the West as Koxinga), arrived in Taiwan to oust the Dutch from Zeelandia. Zheng, born in 1624 in Japan to Japanese mother and a Han father, Iquan, in a family made wealthy from shipping and piracy, Zheng inherited his father's trade networks, which stretched from Nagasaki to Macao. Following the Manchu advance on Fujian, Zheng retreated from his stronghold in Amoy (Xiamen) and besieged Taiwan in the hope of establishing a strategic base to marshal his troops to retake his base at Amoy. In 1662, following a nine month siege, Zheng captured the Dutch fortress Zeelandia and Taiwan became his base (see Kingdom of Tungning). Concurrently the last Ming pretender had been captured and killed by General Wu San Gui, extinguishing any hope Zheng may have had of re-establishing the Ming Empire. He died shortly thereafter in a fit of madness after learning of the cruel killings of his father and brother at the hands of the Manchus. In 1683, following a naval engagement with Admiral Shi Lang, one of Zheng's father's trusted friends, Zheng's grandson submitted to Manchu (Qing Dynasty) control. Zheng's followers were forced to depart from Taiwan to the more unpleasant parts of Qing controlled land. By 1682 there were only 7000 Han left on Taiwan as they had intermarried with aboriginal women and had property in Taiwan. The Zheng reign had continued the tax systems of the Dutch, established schools and religious temples.
1896 map of Formosa
From 1683 the Qing Dynasty ruled Taiwan as a prefecture and in 1875 divided the island into two prefectures, north and south. In 1887 the island was made into a separate Chinese province.
The Manchu authorities tried to limit immigration to Taiwan and barred families from travelling to Taiwan to ensure the immigrants would return to their families and ancestral graves. Illegal immigration continued, but many of the men had few prospects in war weary Fujian and thus married locally, resulting in the idiom "mainland grandfather no mainland grandmother" (ɽoɽ). The Qing tried to protect aboriginal land claims, but also sought to turn them into tax paying subjects. Han and tax paying aborigines were barred from entering the wilderness which covered most of the island for the fear of raising the ire of the non taxpaying, highland aborigines and inciting rebellion. A border was constructed along the western plain, built using pits and mounds of earth, called "earth cows", to discourage illegal land reclamation. Following a shipwreck of an Okinawan vessel on the southern tip of Taiwan in 1871, in which the heads of 54 crew members were taken by the Mu Dan (Paiwan) people, the Japanese sought to test the Manchu commitment to Taiwan. After being refused compensation on account of part of Taiwan being outside of Qing jurisdiction, the Japanese launched a pacification campaign with an expedition force of 3,600-soldiers in 1874. The number of casualties for the Paiwan was about 30, and that for the Japanese was 543 (12 Japanese soldiers were killed in battle and 531 by disease). The Okinawan affair was more of a trial balloon sent up by the Japanese to test the situation on Taiwan for a possible colonization campaign of their own. This caused the Qing to re-think the importance of Taiwan in their maritime defense strategy and greater importance was placed on gaining control over the wilderness regions. The second test of Qing commitment came during the French blockade of Keelung harbor during the Sino-French War of 1884-1885. The result was a brief bombardment of Qing positions and a French amphibious operation, before both parties arrived at an agreement. The Qing finally made Taiwan a province and assigned Liu Ming-chuan as the first governor of Taiwan to initiate Taiwan development in 1887. In the waning years of Qing control over Taiwan, Governor Liu Ming-chuan initiated a series of modernizing reforms and infrastructure projects, including 60 km of railroad track laid between Keelung and Hsin Chu (Xin Zhu). This segment of railroad became too old in the Japanese eye, and was demolished for modernization later under Japanese rule.
On the eve of the Sino-Japanese War about 45 percent of the island was administered under standard Chinese administration while the remaining lightly populated regions of the interior were under Aboriginal control. As part of the settlement for losing the Sino-Japanese War, China ceded the island of Taiwan and Penghu to Japan in 1895. Though the terms dictated by Japan were harsh, Qing's leading statesman, Li Hung-Chang sought infamously to assuage Empress Dowager Cixi with: "birds do not sing and flowers are not fragrant on the Taiwan island. The men and women are inofficious and are not passionate either." The loss of Taiwan would become a rallying point for the Chinese nationalist movement in the years that followed.

Japanese Rule

A 1912 map of Japan with Taiwan, which was part of the Empire of Japan from 1895 to 1945.
After receiving sovereignty of Taiwan, the Japanese feared military resistance from both Taiwanese and Aborigines who followed the establishment by the local elite of the short-lived Republic of Formosa. Taiwan's elite hoped that by declaring themselves a republic the world would not stand by and allow a sovereign state to be invaded by the Japanese, thereby allying with the Qing. The plan quickly turned to chaos as standard Green troops and ethnic Yue soldiers took to looting and pillage. Given the choice between chaos at the hands of Chinese or submission to the Japanese, the Taipei elite sent Ku Hsien-rong to Keelung to invite the advancing Japanese forces to proceed to Taipei and restore order.
The Taiwanese resistance was sporadic, yet at times fierce, but was largely crushed by 1902, although relatively minor rebellions occurred in subsequent years, including the Ta-pa-ni incident 0f 1915 in Tainan county. The rebellions were often caused by a combination of the effects of colonial policies on local elites and extant millenarian beliefs of the local Taiwanese, rather than nationalism or patriotism. Aboriginal resistance to the heavy-handed Japanese policies of acculturation and pacification lasted up until the early 1930s. The last major Aboriginal rebellion, the Wushe Uprising in late 1930 by the Sediq people angry over their treatment while laboring in the burdensome job of camphor extraction, launched the last headhunting party in which over 150 Japanese officials were killed and beheaded during the opening ceremonies of a school. The uprising, led by Mona Rudao, was crushed by 2,000-3,000 Japanese troops and Aboriginal auxiliaries with the help of poison gas.
Japanese colonization of the island fell under three stages. It began with an oppressive period of crackdown and paternalistic rule, then a dka (ͬ) period of segregation, and finally, during World War II, a period of 'kminka (), a policy which aimed to turn Taiwanese into loyal subjects of the Japanese emperor.
Bank of Taiwan established in 1897 headquatered in Taipei.
Initial infrastructural development took place quickly. The Bank of Taiwan was established in 1899 to encourage Japanese private sectors, including Mitsubishi and the Mitsui Group, to invest in Taiwan. In 1900, the third Taiwan Governor-General passed a budget which initiated the building of Taiwan's railroad system from Keelung to Kaohsiung. By 1905 the island had electric power supplied by water power in Sun-Moon Lake, and in subsequent years Taiwan was considered the second-most developed region of East Asia (after Japan). By 1905, Taiwan was financially self-sufficient and had been weaned off of subsidies from Japan's central government.
Under the governor Shinpei Goto's rule, many major public works projects were completed. The Taiwan rail system connecting the south and the north and the modernizations of Keelung and Kaohsiung ports were completed to facilitate transport and shipping of raw material and agricultural products. Exports increased by four-fold. 55% of agricultural land was covered by dam-supported irrigation systems. Food production had increased four-fold and sugar cane production had increased 15-fold between 1895 to 1925 and Taiwan became a major foodbasket serving Japan's industrial economy. The health care system was widely established and infectious diseases were almost completely eradicated. The average lifespan for a Taiwanese resident would become 60 years by 1945
In October 1935, the Governor-General of Taiwan held an "Exposition to Commemorate the 40th Anniversary of the Beginning of Administration in Taiwan," which served as a showcase for the achievements of Taiwan's modernization process under Japanese rule. This attracted worldwide attention, including the Republic of China's KMT regime which sent the Japanese-educated Chen Yi to attend the affair. He expressed his admiration about the efficiency of Japanese government in developing Taiwan, and commented on how lucky the Taiwanese were to live under such effective administration. Somewhat ironically, Chen Yi would later become the ROC's first Chief Executive of Taiwan, who would be infamous for the corruption that occurred under his watch.
The later period of Japanese rule saw a local elite educated and organized. During the 1930s several home rule groups were created at a time when others around the world sought to end colonialism. In 1935, the Taiwanese elected their first group of local legislators. By March 1945, the Japanese legislative branch hastily modified election laws to allow Taiwanese representation in the Japanese Diet.