Timeline of Taiwanese history Prehistory Main article: Prehistory of Taiwan Chiefs belonging to one of the aboriginal tribes of present-day Taiwan. Evidence of human settlement in Taiwan dates back 30,000 years, although the first inhabitants of Taiwan may have been genetically unrelated to any groups currently on the island. More than 4,000 years ago farmers from mainland China, believed to be the ancestors of current Taiwanese aborigines, settled on Taiwan. Their languages belong to the Austronesian language family, which also includes the Malayo-Polynesian languages spanning a huge area from Madagascar to Easter Island. The aboriginal languages on Taiwan show much greater diversity than the rest of Austronesian put together, leading linguists to propose Taiwan as the Urheimat of the family, from which sea-faring peoples dispersed across southeast Asia and the Pacific and Indian Oceans.[17][18] Disputed records from ancient China indicate that the Han Chinese might have known of the existence of the main island of Taiwan since the Three Kingdoms period (third century, 230 AD), having assigned offshore islands in the vicinity names like Greater Liuqiu and Lesser Liuqiu (etymologically, but perhaps not semantically, identical to Ryukyu in Japanese), though none of these names has been definitively matched to the main island of Taiwan. Han Chinese began settling in the Penghu islands in the 13th century, but Taiwan's hostile tribes and its lack of the trade resources valued in that era rendered it unattractive to all but "occasional adventurers or fishermen engaging in barter" until the 16th century.[19] European settlement Main articles: Dutch Formosa and Spanish Formosa Overview of Fort Zeelandia, painted around 1635 In 1544, a Portuguese ship sighted the main island of Taiwan and named it Ilha Formosa, which means "Beautiful Island". In 1624, the Dutch East India Company established a base on Taiwan and began to import laborers from Fujian and Penghu (Pescadores), many of whom settled. The Dutch made Taiwan a colony with its colonial capital at Tayoan (present day Anping, Tainan). The name Tayoan derives from a word in Sirayan, one of the Formosan languages, and was the source of the island name Taiwan.[20] David Wright, a Scotsman who lived on the island in the 1650s, described the lowland areas of the island as being divided among 11 chiefdoms ranging in size from two settlements to 72. Some of these fell under Dutch control while others remained independent.[20][21] The Dutch military presence was concentrated at a stronghold called Castle Zeelandia.[22] The Dutch colonists also started to hunt the native Formosan Sika deer (Cervus nippon taioanus) that inhabited Taiwan, contributing to the eventual extinction of the subspecies on the island.[23] However, the subspecies was kept alive in captivity and subsequent reintroduction of the subspecies into the wild has been successful.[24] Furthermore, this contributed to the subsequent identification of native tribes. In 1626, the Spanish landed on and occupied northern Taiwan, at the ports of Keelung and Tamsui, as a base to extend its commercial trading. This colonial period lasted sixteen years until 1642. Kingdom of Tungning Main article: Kingdom of Tungning Chinese naval and troop forces of Southern Fujian defeated the Dutch in 1662, subsequently expelling the Dutch government and military from the island. They were led by Koxinga (Zheng Chenggong). Following the fall of the Ming Dynasty, Koxinga retreated to Taiwan as a self-styled Ming loyalist and established the Kingdom of Tungning (1662–1683). Koxinga established his capital at Tainan and he and his heirs, Zheng Jing, who ruled from 1662 to 1682, and Zheng Keshuang, who served less than a year, continued to launch raids on the south-east coast of mainland China well into the Qing Dynasty, attempting to recapture mainland China. Qing rule Main article: Taiwan under Qing Dynasty rule Hunting deer. Painted in 1746. In 1683, following the defeat of Koxinga's grandson by an armada led by Admiral Shi Lang of Southern Fujian, the Qing formally annexed Taiwan, placing it under the jurisdiction of Fujian province. The Qing imperial government tried to reduce piracy and vagrancy in the area, issuing a series of edicts to manage immigration and respect aboriginal land rights. Immigrants mostly from Southern Fujian continued to enter Taiwan. The border between taxpaying lands and "savage" lands shifted eastward, with some aborigines 'Sinicizing' while others retreated into the mountains. During this time, there were a number of conflicts between Chinese from different regions of Southern Fujian, and between Southern Fujian Chinese and aborigines. During the reign of the Yongzheng Emperor of Qing, the population in the traditional Middag territories rose to oppose heavy labor imposed by the Qing authorities, and was brutally quelled by Qing troops and collaborative tribes in 1732, a year after the initial uprising. After this turmoil came to an end, a supra-tribal leadership apparently ceased to exist in the island's central-western plains. In the aftermath of this, the descendants of Middag either fused into the majority "Chinese" population through intermarriage or migrated to present-day Puli, a basin township surrounded by high mountains in central Taiwan. Northern Taiwan and the Penghu Islands were the scene of an important subsidiary campaign in the Sino-French War (August 1884 to April 1885). The French occupied Keelung from 1 October 1884 to 22 June 1885 and the Penghu Islands from 31 March to 22 July 1885. A French attempt to capture Tamsui was defeated at the Battle of Tamsui (8 October 1884). Several battles were fought around Keelung between October 1884 and March 1885 between Liu Ming-ch'uan's Army of Northern Taiwan and Colonel Jacques Duchesne's Formosa Expeditionary Corps. The Keelung Campaign, despite some notable French tactical victories, ended in a stalemate. The Pescadores Campaign was a French victory, but had no long-term consequences. The French evacuated both Keelung and the Penghu archipelago at the end of the war. In 1885, the Qing upgraded Taiwan's status from prefecture of Fujian to full province, the twentieth in the empire, with its capital at Taipei. This was accompanied by a modernization drive that included building Taiwan's first railroad and starting a postal service.[25] Japanese rule Main articles: Taiwan under Japanese rule and Republic of Formosa The building currently known as the ROC Presidential Office was originally built as the Office of the Governor-General by the Japanese government. Japan had sought to control Taiwan since 1592, when Toyotomi Hideyoshi began extending Japanese influence overseas. In 1609, the Tokugawa Shogunate sent Arima Harunobu on an exploratory mission. In 1616, Murayama Toan led an unsuccessful invasion of the island. In 1871, an Okinawan vessel shipwrecked on the southern tip of Taiwan and the crew of fifty-four was beheaded by the Paiwan aborigines. The Ryukyu Kingdom kept a tributary relationship with Great Qing Empire at the same time was subordinate to Satsuma Domain of Japan. When Japan sought compensation from Qing China, it was first rejected because Qing considered the incident an internal affair since Taiwan was a prefecture of Fujian Province of Qing and the Ryukyu Kingdom was a tributary of Qing. When Japanese foreign minister Soejima Taneomi asked the compensation again claiming four of the victims were Japanese citizens from Okayama prefecture of Japan, Qing officials rejected the demand on the grounds that the "wild" and "unsubjugated" aboriginals (traditional Chinese: ????; simplified Chinese: ????; pinyin: Tαiwan shengfan) were outside its jurisdiction. Such aboriginals were treated extremely harshly; American consul J.W. Davidson described how the Chinese in Taiwan ate and traded in their aboriginal victims' flesh.[26] The open renunciation of sovereignty led to a Japanese invasion of Taiwan. In 1874, an expeditionary force of three thousand troops was sent to the island. There were about thirty Taiwanese and 543 Japanese casualties (twelve in battle and 531 by endemic diseases for the Japanese side).[27][28][29][30] Pre-World War II photo of a Tsou man. The Qing Dynasty was defeated in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895) and Taiwan and Penghu were ceded in full sovereignty to the Empire of Japan. Inhabitants wishing to remain Qing subjects were given a two-year grace period to sell their property and move to mainland China. Very few Taiwanese saw this as feasible.[31] On 25 May 1895, a group of pro-Qing high officials proclaimed the Republic of Formosa to resist impending Japanese rule. Japanese forces entered the capital at Tainan and quelled this resistance on 21 October 1895.[citation needed] Japanese Soldiers Entering Taipei in 1895 after the Treaty of Shimonoseki. The Japanese rulers were instrumental in the industrialization of the island; they extended the railroads and other transportation networks, built an extensive sanitation system and revised the public school system. Japanese rule ended the practice of headhunting.[32] During this period, both rice and sugarcane production greatly increased. By 1939, Taiwan was the seventh greatest sugar producer in the world.[33] Still, the Taiwanese and Aborigines were classified as second- and third-class citizens. Large-scale violence continued in the first decade of rule. Japan launched over 160 battles to destroy Taiwan's aboriginal tribes during its 51-year rule of the island.[34] Around 1935, the Japanese began an island-wide assimilation project to bind the island more firmly to the Japanese Empire and people were taught to see themselves as Japanese. During World War II, tens of thousands of Taiwanese served in the Japanese military.[35] For example, former ROC President Lee Teng-hui's elder brother served in the Japanese navy and died while on duty in the Philippines in February 1945. The Imperial Japanese Navy operated heavily out of Taiwan. The "South Strike Group" was based out of the Taihoku Imperial University in Taiwan. Many of the Japanese forces participating in the Aerial Battle of Taiwan-Okinawa were based in Taiwan. Important Japanese military bases and industrial centers throughout Taiwan, like Kaohsiung, were targets of heavy American bombing.[36] Taiwan under Empire of Japan rule ended after it lost World War II and signed the Instrument of Surrender of Japan on 14 August 1945. But the Japanese rule had long lasting effects on Taiwan. Education became compulsory for school age children. Significant parts of Taiwanese infrastructure were started under the Japanese rule. The current Presidential Building was also built during that time. In 1938 there were 309,000 Japanese settlers in Taiwan.[37] After World War II, most of the Japanese were repatriated to Japan. Republic of China rule Main article: Taiwan after World War II Martial Law Era Main article: White Terror (Taiwan) The Cairo Conference from 22 to 26 November 1943 in Cairo, Egypt was held to address the Allied position against Japan during World War II, and to make decisions about postwar Asia. One of the three main clauses of the Cairo Declaration was that "all the territories Japan has stolen from China, including Manchuria, Taiwan and the Pescadores, shall be restored to the Republic of China'. However, many challenged that the document was merely a statement of intent for possible reference used for those who would draft the post-war peace treaty and that it was a press release without force of law to transfer sovereignty from Taiwan to the Republic of China. The general counter-argument for this claim is that while the Cairo Declaration itself was a non-binding declaration, it was given legal effect by the Japanese Instrument of Surrender.[38] On 25 October 1945, the US Navy ferried ROC troops to Taiwan in order to accept the formal surrender of Japanese military forces in Taipei (then called Taihoku). General Rikichi Ando, governor-general of Taiwan and commander-in-chief of all Japanese forces on the island, signed the instrument of surrender and handed it over to General Chen Yi of the ROC military to complete the official turnover. Chen Yi proclaimed that day to be "Retrocession Day of Taiwan," a proclamation which was not recognized by the Allies.[39][40] The ROC administration of Taiwan under Chen Yi was strained by social and political instabilities, which were compounded by economic woes, such as hyperinflation. Furthermore, cultural and linguistic conflicts between Taiwanese and the mainland Chinese quickly led to the loss of popular support for the new government.[41] This culminated in a series of severe clashes between the ROC occupiers and the Taiwanese, in turn leading to the 228 incident (an estimated 20,000-30,000 civilians were executed by the ROC Army) and the reign of White Terror.[42] During the White Terror, a period of the longest martial law in the world, over 38 years, was imposed and many, many thousands of Taiwanese were arrested, tortured, imprisoned and executed for their real or perceived opposition to the Kuomintang Party. Since these people were mainly from the intellectual and social elite an entire generation of political and social leaders was decimated. It was not until 2008 that a public apology was made for those actions. No form of restitution or compensation has ever been made (as of 2010).[43] Non-Kuomintang Taiwanese politician Wu San-lian (2L) celebrated his landslide victory (65.5%) in the first Taipei mayoral election in January 1951 with his supporters. Taipei has been the capital of the Republic of China, which governs Taiwan, since December 1949. In 1949, during the Chinese Civil War, the ROC government, led by President Chiang Kai-shek, retreated from Nanjing (then romanised as "Nanking") to Taipei, Taiwan's largest city. The ROC continued to claim sovereignty over all "China", which the ROC defines to include mainland China, Taiwan, Outer Mongolia and other areas. The only remaining portions of territory besides Taiwan under ROC control are the Kinmen, Matsu Islands, and two major islands of Dongsha Islands and Nansha Islands. In mainland China, the victorious Communists established the PRC, claiming to be the sole and only China (which they claimed included Taiwan) and the ROC no longer existed.[44] However, since PRC's establishment, it never controlled any of the territories the ROC government currently governs. With President Chiang Kai-shek, the U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower waved hands to Taiwanese people during his visit to Taipei, Taiwan in June 1960. Some 2 million people, consisting mainly of soldiers, Kuomintang party (KMT, Chinese Nationalist Party) members and most importantly the intellectual and business elites, were evacuated from mainland China and arrived in Taiwan around that time. In addition, as part of its escape from Communists in mainland China, the ROC government relocated to Taipei with many national treasures including gold reserves and foreign currency reserves.[45] From this period through the 1980s, Taiwan was governed in a state of Martial Law. Little to no distinction was made between the government and the Nationalist party, with public property, government property, and party property being largely interchangeable. Government workers and party members were mostly indistinguishable, with many government workers required to become KMT members, and party workers paid salaries and promised retirement benefits along the lines of government employees. In addition, the creation of other parties was outlawed, and many political opponents were persecuted and incarcerated.[citation needed] The ROC remained a de facto one-party state under martial law under the "Temporary Provisions Effective During the Period of Communist Rebellion", from 1948 to 1987, when the ROC Presidents Chiang Ching-kuo and Lee Teng-hui gradually liberalized and democratized the system. With the advent of democratization, the issue of the political status of Taiwan has resurfaced as a controversial issue (previously, discussion of anything other than unification under the ROC was taboo). As the Chinese Civil War continued without truce, the ROC built up military fortifications throughout Taiwan. Within this effort, former KMT soldiers built the now famous Central Cross-Island Highway through the Taroko Gorge in the 1950s. The two sides would continue to engage in sporadic military clashes with seldom publicized details well into the 1960s on the nearby islands with an unknown number of night raids. During the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis in September 1958, Taiwan's landscape saw Nike-Hercules missile batteries added, with the formation of the 1st Missile Battalion Chinese Army that would not be deactivated until 1997. Newer generations of missile batteries have since replaced the Nike Hercules systems throughout the island. During the 1960s and 1970s, Taiwan began to develop into a prosperous, industrialized developed country with a strong and dynamic economy, becoming one of the Four Asian Tigers while maintaining martial law and under the KMT monopoly. Because of the Cold War, most Western nations and the United Nations regarded the ROC as the sole legitimate government of China until the 1970s, when most nations began switching recognition to the PRC (see United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2758). Post-Martial Law Main article: History of Taiwan#Democratic reforms Chiang Kai-shek's eventual successor, his son Chiang Ching-kuo, began to liberalize the ROC's political system in mid-1980s. In 1984, the younger Chiang selected Lee Teng-hui, an ethnically Taiwanese and U.S.-educated technocrat, to be his vice president. In 1986, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was formed and inaugurated as the first opposition party in Taiwan to counter the KMT. A year later Chiang Ching-kuo lifted martial law. After the death of Chiang Ching-Kuo in January 1988, Dr. Lee Teng-hui succeed as President and became the first ethnically Taiwanese president of the ROC. Lee continued to democratize the government and decrease the concentration of government authority in the hands of mainland Chinese. Under Lee, Taiwan underwent a process of localization in which Taiwanese culture and history were promoted over a pan-China viewpoint in contrast to earlier KMT policies which had promoted a Chinese identity. Lee's reforms included printing banknotes from the Central Bank rather than the Provincial Bank of Taiwan, and streamlining the Taiwan Provincial Government with most of its functions transferred to the Executive Yuan. Under Lee, the original members of the Legislative Yuan and National Assembly, elected in 1947 to represent mainland Chinese constituencies and having taken the seats without re-election for more than four decades, were forced to resign in 1991. The previously nominal representation in the Legislative Yuan was brought to an end, to reflect the reality that the ROC government had no jurisdiction over mainland China, and vice versa. Restrictions on the use of Taiwanese Hokkien in the broadcast media and in schools were lifted as well. During later years of Lee's administration, he was involved in corruption controversies relating to government release of land and weapons purchase, although no legal proceedings commenced. In the 1990s, the ROC continued its democratic reforms, as President Lee Teng-hui was elected by the first popular vote held in the ROC during the 1996 Presidential election. In 2000, Chen Shui-bian of the DPP, was elected as the first non-KMT President and was re-elected to serve his second and last term since 2004. Polarized politics has emerged in Taiwan with the formation of the Pan-Blue Coalition of parties led by the KMT, favoring eventual Chinese reunification, a