This is going to be very brief as Taiwan has a long and complicated history, much of it went over my head when reading it. I’ve picked out the stand out bits for me.
Taiwan is an island that is the result of tectonic upheaval between the Eurasian plate and the Philippine Sea plate. It is still growing higher and has fairly regular earthquakes. The highest mountain Yushan is nearly 4,000 meters above sea level.
The island had been in habited for 25000 years by humans. It is believed the indigenous tribes who still live here now arrived around 6000 years ago.
Obviously known to China for aeons but, became known to the western world when the Portuguese named it Formosa in the 16th Century. Nikki 
did you realise all those plants we learned about, that they came from and are unique to this little Island? I had no idea!
The Dutch East India company established a base in the early 1600’s along with the Spanish who didn’t stay long because they were ousted by the Dutch. Due to lack of labour they brought across Chinese immigrants to farm the Island, sugar cane was produced amongst other things. The Dutch also converted the local indigenous tribes to Christianity.
Zhen Cheng-gong a Chinese military leader ousted the Dutch in 1662 and so the country was ruled by him in the name of the Ming Dynasty (although at that time the Qing dynasty was in power). Zhen Cheng-gong stewardship lasted about 20 years and then large numbers of Han Chinese made their homes on the western side on the island, the east being cut off by a sharp mountain range the whole length of the country. So the Eastern side is where the indigenous tribes remained pretty much.
The Qin dynasty lost Taiwan in the first sino-japanese war (1895) the Japanese. Then the country it had huge industrial growth supplying rice and sugar for export. The Japanese set up there own administration and education systems. Then later it became a strategic military base of operations against China.
This seems to have been a very brutal time as Chinese (Taiwanese) and indigenous peoples were treated appallingly. However there was an over aching feeling that life improved for the general population as a whole over time because of economic investment, education and administration.
In 1937 as the world tensions began to build, over 207,000 Taiwanese were employed by the Japanese military. Roughly 50,000 went missing in action or died and 2,000 were disabled. Some Taiwanese ex-Japanese soldiers state they were coerced and did not choose to join the army. After Japan’s surrender these ex soldiers were abandoned, unpaid and often far from Taiwan, making it difficult to survive.
Also between 1,000 and 2,000 Taiwanese women were part of the ‘comfort women’ regime, a system of sexual slavery (used in many Japanese occupied territories) for the use of the Japanese soldiers. Indigenous and Han Chinese women were raped and abused. Some were sold by their families for financial reasons. Some wealthier women and some Japanese also ended up in military brothels. Many did not know what they were going to and were tricked into thinking they were going to be nurses etc. Most have not ever mentioned their experiences due to trauma, social stigma, and shame.
1945 the Japanese were expelled from Taiwan and from 1949 to 1987 it was under martial law.
Without going into the complexity of Chinese Taiwan politics and it’s messy, Taiwan’s economy grew over the next couple of decades. By the 1980’s was one of the four Asian Tiger economies. It has quite a strong connection with the US as investors (although not sure about that in the current climate because of Trump). There has been a transition from heavy industries since the 1970’s to the Digital Era.
Taiwan is not recognised as a country by most of the world, it’s part of the Republic of China (ROC) although it considers itself to be independent from the mainland. This is why there is ongoing military posturing from the ROC.
People who live here believe themselves to be Taiwanese and not Chinese. I think, should there be a takeover (not necessarily by out and out war) some of their freedoms could be lost!
And so it go on….
The Travelling Bee 