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Little is know about Taiwan’s earliest history, however archaelogists believe Taiwan’s link with mainland China is at least 10,000 years old. The archaelogists have identified four stages of prehistoric tool development that match those of the mainland. Two distinct groups of aborigines were living on Taiwan before the arrival of the Chinese. One group lived sedentary agricultural lives on the rich alluvial plains of the centre and southwest. The others were violent people, roaming the mountains, fighting incessantly among themselves, and practicing ritual tattooing and head-hunting, right up to the present century. Although it is not known exactly when the Chinese first began to settle on Taiwan, the first mainland immigrants came from an ethnic group called the Hakka. They were driven from their native home in Hunan province about 1,500 years ago and forced to flee south of the Fujian and Guangdong coasts of the mainland. There, they successfully engaged in fishing and trading activities that eventually brought them to the Pescadores Islands , now known as Penghu, and then later to Taiwan. Today, the Hakka rank among Taiwan most enterprising people.

Koxinga was the first Taiwan Chinese ruler. He was forced to flee to Taiwan from the mainland after failing to recaptured Nanjing from the Manchu. In Taiwan, Koxinga encountered the Dutch, who have been there since the early 1600s. The Dutch, discounted him as a mere pirate, incapable of mounting a serious threat was defeated by Koxinga and force to leave Taiwan in 1662. Taiwan became the personal domain of Koxinga. He gave the island its first formal Chinese government, turning it into a Ming enclave until his sudden death in 1663 at the age of 38, a year after his conquest of Taiwan. Koxinga’s reign was brief but influential. He set up his court and government at Anping, near Tainan and developed transportation system and educational systems. Great strides were made in agriculture. Tainan became the political and commercial centre and Anping grew into a prosperous harbor. Koxinga’s son and grandson maintained rule over Taiwan until 1684, when the Manchu finally succeeded in imposing sovereignty over the island, snuffing out the last pocket of the Ming patriotism. Taiwan officially became an integral part of the Chinese empire when the Qing court conferred the status of fu or prefecture on the island. Taiwan was declared the 22nd province of China in 1886 and the population at that time was 2.5 million.

In 1895, The Treaty of Shimonoseki, written by Japan, ceded Chinese possession of both the Ryukyu Islands and Taiwan to Japan. It marked the start of half a century of Japanese rule over Taiwan. The Japanese undertook an intensive modernisation of Taiwan infrastructure. Between 1918 and 1937, Japan consolidated its regime in Taiwan, exploiting Taiwan’s rich natural resources exclusively for the benefit of Japan. Taiwan toiled under Japanese occupation until Japan defeat in World War II. After Japan surrendered, Taiwan was restored to Chinese sovereignty on 25 October 1945, an event still celebrated annually on the island as Restoration Day. However, civil war raged across the vast Chinese landscape for four year after the end of the Japanese occupation.
In 1948, Chiang Kaishek was elected the president of the Republic of China, however war was swinging in favor of the Communists as they took Tianjin and Beijing. On 21st January, 1949, Chiang Kaishek resigned from the presidency. After nearly a year of self-imposed solitude, in December 1949, he returned to lead an exodus of Nationalist soldiers and a rambling entourage of merchants, monks and masters of classical arts across the Taiwan Strait to Taiwan. Still calling his retreating government the Republic of China, Chiang’s army defeated pursuing Communists in a last-stand battle on Quemoy, holding that island ever since. Chiang was determined to reform Kuomintang policies on Taiwan and he governed the island according to Sun Yatsen’s Three Principles of the People, Sanminchui. With the outbreak of the Korean war in 1950, Taiwan was places under the American protective umbrella from possible Communist attacks, and received substantial economic aid too. In 1955, the United States and Taiwan ratified the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty. Chiang Kaishek continued to maintain strict political discipline and social order but he gave enterpreneurs free reign in the economic sphere. At the same time, the island’s population doubled to 16 million people. Chiang died on April 5, 1975. He was succeeded by vice president, Yen Chia-kan however in the next presidential elections the following year, Chiang Kaishek’s son, Chiang Ching-kuo was elected president. In 1971, Taiwan lost its membership in the United Nation organisation and was replaced by the People’s Replublic. In 1978, The United States, announced the recognition of the People’s Repulic of China and ceased official diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Chiang Ching-kuo died in 1988 and was succeeded by Lee Teng-hui who was the island’s first Taiwanese born president who is the current president of the Republic.