Taiwan’s history really begins in the 15th century when the Dutch brought slaves to work as migrant workers. Dutch arrived only to find aborigine people and no sign of any structure of the Chinese Imperial Government, so this meant that Taiwan was not part of China at that time. The slaves that where brought over were Chinese and when they were made to wed the aborigine women a new race was born: the Taiwanese. Taiwan then endured close to two hundred years of loose freedom with the immigration of coastal people from China incr

As if the rollercoaster that is the Taiwan history was not bumpy enough, one more event sought to add one more big hill. World War too hit the world like a hurricane and even Taiwan could not escape it. In 1943 the rights of Taiwan was stripped from Japan and given back to China, temporarily, in the Cairo Declaration. The added twist to this event was that no one thought to inform the Taiwanese people of this change in power. After so many years of harsh Japanese control the Taiwanese people were happy to rid them of their island, but they soon revisited that feeling when the newcomers from China turned out to be corrupt, repressive, and uncivilized (Taiwan’s History 4). The reign of terror on Taiwan began in 1949 when a group called the Chiang Kai-shek lost their war on the mainland of China they fled to Taiwan and claimed the tiny island as their birthplace for their new regime. After this relocation of the Chiang Kai-shek to Taiwan, the Taiwanese people lived under martial law of this Nationalist rule for the next four decades. The Chiang Kai-shek used Taiwan as a recovery area as they thought they could still go back to China and take over the mainland still. The martial law that this group ruled was harsh and very possessive because the Chiang Kai-shek only comprised 15 percent of the island’s population. The 15 percent of the KMT ruled, in a position of absolute power, over the rest of the 85 percent of Taiwan in the categories of political systems, police, military, educational system and media (Taiwan’s History 5). Now the end of the war was in sight and then in 1952, at the end of the war, the Allied Powers and Japan signed the San Francisco Peace Treaty. The treaty was very significant to Taiwan because in the treaty it was stated that, “…the future status of Taiwan will be decided in accord with the purpose and principles of the Charter of the United Nations.” Further more The Charter of the United Nations states that the purpose of the UN is “To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples…” After reading this article from the UN the result of the San Francisco Peace Treaty is thus that, the people of Taiwan should determine the future status of the island based on the principle of self-determination (Taiwan’s History 5). Due to these circumstances, this treaty was the first and last international treaty of the 20th Century that dealt with the status of Taiwan.

Thanks to the hard work of the Japanese rule and the Taiwanese people, the Kuomintang was able to build up a strong economic identity for Taiwan. This hard work by Taiwan did not see the results it wanted right away because in the 1950’s through the 1960’s was a very troubled time for the Taiwane

Some topics in this essay:
China Taiwan, Communiqué China, Security Law, Japan Taiwanese, Chiang Kai-shek, Taiwan’s History, Independence Taiwan, China Americans, Taiwanese Taiwan, Peace Treaty, taiwanese people, taiwan’s history, china taiwan, chiang kai-shek, martial law, taiwan china, conflict china, chiang kai-shek taiwan, future status, 15 percent, shanghai communiqué, francisco peace treaty, san francisco peace, rule taiwanese people, taiwan’s history 5,