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| A historic building on one of the Kinmen Islands. Once the frontline bastion of defense against incursions by the mainland Chinese military, the islands have now become a bridge of peace for travelers between Taiwan and the mainland. (Photo by Huang Chung-hsin) |
The Republic of China was founded in 1912 on the Chinese mainland. At that time, Taiwan was under Japanese colonial rule as a result of the 1895 Treaty of Shimonoseki, by which the Ching court ceded Taiwan to Japan. At the end of World War II, the Nanjing-based ROC government declared Taiwan a province of the ROC. Four years later, when the Kuomintang (KMT) was defeated in the Chinese Civil War, the ROC government relocated to Taiwan. Since then, the ROC’s effective territory has been limited to the large island of Taiwan and a number of smaller ones, and Taiwan and mainland China have been ruled by two different governments.
As the ROC’s effective territory consists mainly of Taiwan, and because the history of mainland-based “China” stretches back many millennia, the following timeline focuses mainly on Taiwan’s history, which dates from about 400 years ago. The authorities in Beijing have never exercised sovereignty over Taiwan or other islands administered by the ROC government in Taipei.
Among ROC citizens, there are differences of opinion over whether it is best to maintain this status quo indefinitely or to eventually integrate with mainland China. Regardless, they share the conviction that their future must be based on freedom, democracy, human rights, and the rule of law, and that only they have the right to decide their own future.
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Timeline of Recorded History
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| 1624 |
The Dutch East India Company establishes a base in southwestern Taiwan and employs Chinese laborers to work on its rice and sugarcane plantations. Previously, for many millennia, the island had been home to Austronesian peoples, with brief visits in earlier centuries by small numbers of Chinese and Japanese merchants, fishermen, and pirates. |
| 1626 |
Spanish adventurers based in the Philippines establish bases in northern Taiwan, but are ousted by the Dutch in 1642. |
| 1662 |
Seeking refuge from the Manchu conquerors of Ming dynasty (1368-1644) China, an army under Jheng Cheng-gong (Koxinga) drives out the Dutch and establishes a new kingdom. |
| 1683 |
The Ching forces invade Taiwan’s western and northern coastal areas. |
| 1885 |
Taiwan is declared a province of the Ching Empire. |
| 1895 |
Following defeat in a war with Japan, the Ching government signs the Treaty of Shimonoseki, by which it cedes sovereignty over Taiwan to Japan, which rules the island for the next 50 years, until the end of World War II. |
1911~
1912 |
Chinese revolutionaries overthrow the Ching dynasty and establish the Republic of China. |
| 1943 |
During World War II, ROC leader Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek meets with US President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in Cairo. Several days after the conclusion of the conference, a joint communiqué known as the “Cairo Declaration” was released, stating that “… all the territories Japan has stolen from the Chinese, such as Manchuria, Formosa [Taiwan], and the Pescadores [Penghu Islands], shall be restored to the Republic of China.” |
| 1945 |
After World War II, the ROC government receives the surrender of the Japanese military in Taiwan and declares the island a province of the ROC. |
| 1947 |
The ROC Constitution is promulgated in Nanjing on the mainland on January 1 and is scheduled to take effect on December 25. In March and following months, ROC troops dispatched from the mainland suppress a large-scale uprising of Taiwanese sparked by the February 28 Incident. |
| 1948 |
As civil war rages in China between the KMT-led ROC government and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rebels, the
Temporary Provisions Effective During the Period of Communist Rebellion are enacted, overriding the Constitution and greatly expanding presidential powers. |
| 1949 |
The ROC government and some two million Chinese relocate to Taiwan, and the CCP establishes the People’s Republic on the mainland. Martial law is declared and continues to be in force until 1987. Thereafter, until the present day, Taiwan and the Chinese mainland are ruled by different governments. |
| 1971 |
The ROC withdraws from the United Nations in anticipation of a General Assembly vote to give the China seat to the authorities in Beijing. |
| 1979 |
Democracy activists demonstrating in the southern city of Kaohsiung are detained by the KMT government, convicted of sedition by a military court, and imprisoned for many years. Some of them and their defense attorneys later play key roles in the formation and development of today’s largest opposition party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). |
| 1987 |
Martial law is lifted, and democratization goes into high gear. In 1991, the
Temporary Provisions Effective During the Period of Communist Rebellion are abolished and, from that year until 2005, the ROC Constitution undergoes seven rounds of revision to make it more relevant to the contemporary situation. |
| 1996 |
The ROC holds its first-ever popular presidential election, with Lee Teng-hui and running mate Lien Chan of the KMT garnering 54 percent of the vote. |
| 2000 |
Chen Shui-bian and Lu Hsiu-lien of the DPP are elected president and vice president, respectively, with 39 percent of the vote in a five-way race, ending the KMT’s 55-year rule in Taiwan and marking the first transfer of political power between political parties. |
| 2004 |
The first national referendum is held in conjunction with the third direct presidential election, in which Chen and Lu are re-elected with a slight majority. |
| 2008 |
Ma Ying-jeou and Vincent C. Siew of the KMT are elected as the 12th-term president and vice president of the ROC, garnering 58 percent of the vote. |
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