Republic of China
(Taiwan)
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Taiwan is an island outside the south-east coast of
mainland China.
Taiwan has inherited the name
of Republic of China due to the fact that the government of ROC lost control of
the mainland to the Chinese Communists as a result of the Chinese Civil War
between 1945-1949, and since then, its administration has been restricted to
the island groups of Taiwan
(Formosa).
Over subsequent decades, the Republic of China has been commonly referred to as
"Taiwan",
and since the late 1970s the name "China" has
been increasingly used to refer to the People's Republic of China. The later insists her claim
of Taiwan being a run away
province, however, the Taiwan
government in between 2000 to 2008 intends to separate Taiwan from mainland China and forms a independent
state.
Records from ancient China indicate that Han Chinese might have known
of the existence of the main island
of Taiwan since 230 A.D.
In 1624, the Dutch established a commercial base on Taiwan and made it a colony.
Chinese naval and troop defeated the Dutch in 1662, subsequently expelling the
Dutch government and military from the island. In 1895, Qing China was defeated in the First Sino-Japanese
War, and ceded Taiwan and
the Pescadores to Japan.
Taiwan was returned to China after Japan lost World War II.
Taiwan remained under martial law and one-party
rule, from 1948 to 1987, when the government gradually liberalized and
democratized the system. During the 1960s and 1970s, the ROC began to develop
into a prosperous, industrialized developed country with a strong and dynamic
economy, becoming one of the Four Asian. In the 1990s, Taiwan
transformed into a democratic state.