The History of China and Taiwan and Why They Have Different Perspectives on the Current Issue
- Maryna Pastukhova
- Dec 10, 2025
- 7 min read
Updated: Mar 23
The conflict between China and Taiwan is considered one of the most sensitive issues, as each side has a different perspective on its future politics and history. The latest news shows that tensions still exist with the United States providing support for Taiwan’s self-defense against China’s possible attacks and Japan, which announced the plan to locate its missiles on an island near Taiwan. As a result, China sees the United States as a threat and considers Japan's plan as an attempt to create regional tension and provoke military confrontation. Therefore, to better understand why the conflict between China and Taiwan is so sensitive that even other countries are drawn into the dispute, I will dive into their history to create a clearer picture of why China and Taiwan have different perspectives on the current issue.
Let's begin with China, which is known as the mainland. China is considered one of the world's oldest civilisations. At that time, China had a hereditary monarchy as a political system led by dynasties. There were 557 emperors, each with a different way of ruling and behaving. While some of them were giving their best efforts to help create the best land and solve regional problems, others were ruthless and practised their incompetence. The last imperial dynasty, the Qing Dynasty (established by the Manchus, who conquered and ruled China), ruled from 1644 to 1912. By that time, China had one-third of the world's population and was economically thriving.² However, in 1911, China had a revolution that shifted its form of government from a dynastic monarchy to a republic.¹ Chinese people wanted to adapt their country to the modern world by taking away the dynastic monarchy and making Sun Yat-sen the provisional president in 1912. There were two major reasons why Chinese people started this revolution. Firstly, it was an anti-imperialist movement, opposition to Western imperialist aggression.¹ The second reason was the influence of progressive Western political thinking (philosophy) that was followed by a lot of Chinese revolutionary leaders.¹ Therefore, after the last dynasty had fallen, there was a formation of the Republic of China (ROC) under the great but short leadership of Sun Yat-sen that can be best described in his manifesto “The True Solution of Chinese Question”: “A new government, enlightened and progressive, must substitute the old one. In this way, China will not only be saved but also relieve other nations of the task of maintaining her independence and integrity. There are among the masses many people with high culture, capable of forming a new government, and carefully worked out plans for the transformation of the old monarchy into a Chinese Republic have long ago been prepared”. The first real leader of the Republic of China was Yuan Shikai, who officially ruled from 1912 to 1916 and failed to fulfil his personal mission of restoring the monarchy. Starting from 1916 all the way to 1928 was called the Warlord Era because the Republic of China was divided into regions controlled by different armies (military forces). It was a chaotic and bloody time. It didn't have one government or a single ruler. After the Northern Expedition from 1926 to 1928, Chiang Kai-shek’s campaign of the Chinese Nationalist Army unified China into one body. It established the Nationalist Government (led by the Kuomintang/KMT), which lasted on mainland China from 1928 to 1949.
During the rise of the Communist movement in Europe and the Soviet Union, some Chinese intellectuals saw a great ideology they wanted to follow - this led to the creation of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which fought a civil war against the Nationalist Government. Here is the beginning of the key issue: two rival sides were the KMT, which opposed communism, and the CCP, which fought to establish a communist society. Finally, in 1949, the CCP won the civil war, and Mao Zedong changed the name of mainland China from the Republic of China to the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Simultaneously, the Nationalist Government, with the elite (scientists, doctors, academics), left mainland China and moved to Taiwan. To summarise, the Nationalist Government of the Republic of China retreated to Taiwan and joined the United Nations, taking on the role of representing China as the great powers supported the ROC. At the same time, mainland China (PRC) under the Chinese Communist Party was not recognised globally.
Now, let’s go to Taiwan and look at its history.
Taiwan (then called Formosa by Europeans) was an island inhabited by Austronesian aboriginal peoples. About 100000 Aboriginal people populated Taiwan. In 1623-1624, the Dutch arrived on the island (aboriginals had the closest relations with them), and then the Spanish came just a few years later, but to northern Taiwan. A few hundred to around a thousand Han Chinese were there to do fishing and trade, but they were seen only by the Dutch. Gradually, the Dutch imported more Han Chinese to Taiwan. In addition to agriculture, they were used for hunting deer, which was an important export for the Dutch. But this activity killed a large number of deer and caused economic instability for the aboriginals. Spanish colonisation was even more unsuccessful, and as a result, under the Dutch military, together with the aboriginal population pressure, they had to leave the land. Many Chinese historians argue that Zheng Chenggong established the Kingdom of Tungning on Taiwan. Additionally, Taiwan experienced sinicization from the Zheng dynasty. Zheng Chenggong was the one who fought the Dutch, opposed the Manchus (rulers of the Qing dynasty) and supported the Southern Ming (Ming’s dynasty's last pretender died in 1662, so this dynasty was finally considered fallen). Under his leadership, the Han Chinese population in Taiwan grew from 50000 to 100000. But as mentioned earlier, the Han Chinese were still a minority, as there were more of the aboriginal population.
In 1683, Taiwan came under Qing dynasty rule, the last imperial dynasty of China. Manchu rule in Taiwan differed from the one practised on the mainland. They were losers to Taiwan in terms of their leadership. As well, certain historical sources distinguish that it was the Manchu who ruled Taiwan, not the Han Chinese (Manchu were not Han Chinese; while ruling China, they still tried to save their culture and language, but eventually, by the 19th century, they started to adapt to Chinese customs), but they are considered the Chinese dynasty. Taiwan was under the Qing dynasty until 1895, when the First Sino-Japanese War broke out. As China lost the war, Japan ruled Taiwan from 1895 to 1945. Taiwan seems to have undergone a major modernisation over those 50 years. However, in 1945, Japan had to give up Taiwan as it lost World War II. After that, Taiwan was given to the Allied powers and later placed under the military occupation of the Republic of China (ROC), during which Taiwan faced authoritarian Kuomintang rule (first under President Chiang Kai-shek and later under President Chiang Ching-kuo). It was the time when the civil war resumed in China, and in 1949, the government of the ROC had to retreat to Taiwan due to the Chinese Communist Party's victory in mainland China. Until 1987, Taiwan was under the Chiang Ching-kuo rule (ROC government), and Taiwanese people suffered from his systematic discrimination, even though he tried to initiate some reforms.
Additionally, local Taiwanese and Austronesians experienced little political power. It was not until the death of President Chiang Ching-kuo that the possibility finally opened for the new President, Lee Teng-hui, to take advantage of opportunities for democratisation. Finally, changes in the political system and regime were seen. Taiwan held its first direct presidential elections and became a democracy, so its people can elect their government. Now, Taiwan operates as a self-governing state, and as we see, Taiwan has little to do with China's history.
Chinese rulers, so these territories have to be reunited. They consider Taiwan to be a province that was separated and now needs reunification. From another perspective, Taiwanese believe they never belonged to China (it was either under Manchus, Japanese, or under ROC rule as a separate government from mainland China). Yes, Taiwan was ruled by the ROC (Republic of China) at first, but after 1949, the ROC and the PRC (People's Republic of China) were separate governments and states. Even though the Nationalist Government of the ROC came to Taiwan and Taiwan was practically ruled by mainland Chinese, nowadays most Taiwanese do not identify themselves as Chinese and do not want to reunify with China.
Even though China still claims Taiwan, Taiwan gave up on wanting mainland China (after the 1990s), as the authoritarian ROC government (which claimed they were the real China and that those on mainland China were not) was replaced by democracy. New generations no longer see themselves as Chinese and do not consider China as a goal. The reason the new generations in Taiwan are not Chinese is simple: they grew up in a Taiwanese environment and developed a Taiwanese identity.
At the end of the day, if China were to reunify Taiwan with mainland China, the world would face supply chain issues, as Taiwan produces around 90 per cent of the world’s advanced semiconductors. This could lead to shortages or something close to a shutdown in production of necessary technologies and other products (semiconductors are the chips, tiny pieces of tech, that power almost everything, like computers, cars, household electronics, etc.).
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