Luke de Pulford@lukedepulford
Is it true that "Taiwan has been a part of China since ancient times", as Beijing often claims?
No, not at all.
Here are some inconvenient facts which most people don't know. I invite the swarm of CCP trolls to try to unpick them.
✅ FACT: Before 1624, Taiwan was inhabited by indigenous Malay-Austronesian populations with no official Chinese administrative presence.
✅ FACT: The Dutch established formal administrative control over Taiwan in 1624, which was recognised by Ming Dynasty representatives as being "beyond [Chinese] territory." The Dutch found no evidence of Chinese administrative control.
✅ FACT: In 1662, the Ming loyalist Koxinga expelled the Dutch after himself being expelled from the mainland. He founded an independent kingdom, seeking to reestablish Ming rule. But the Ming Dynasty itself had already collapsed. This was not rule by "China".
✅ FACT: From 1683 to 1887, Taiwan was managed as a province of Fujien; but Emperor Kangxi considered Taiwan beyond his domain. Indeed, he said as much: ‘Taiwan is outside our empire and of no great consequence.’ There were popular revolts throughout this period.
✅ FACT: Taiwan was formally administered as a province of China for eight years, from 1887 until it was ceded to Japan in 1895. This is the only such period. Shorter than the Dutch.
✅ FACT: Following the 1895 Treaty of Shimonoseki, the Qing Empire ceded Taiwan to Japan "in perpetuity".
✅ FACT: Local leaders briefly declared an independent Formosa Republic in 1895 to resist Japanese rule, but the Japanese shut this down within five months.
✅ FACT: Between 1926 and 1942, both the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Kuomintang (KMT) supported independence for Taiwan, viewing it similarly to Korea (as an essential part of an anti-Japanese military strategy).
✅ FACT: The CCP changed its mind. After WW2, the party coalesced around an effort to reclaim "lost territories". In 1943 Cairo and 1945 Potsdam declarations were issued which, while not formal treaties, maintained that "all the territories Japan has stolen from the Chinese, such as Manchuria, Formosa (Taiwan), and the Pescadores, shall be restored to the Republic of China". The 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty left Taiwan’s legal status "undetermined."
✅ FACT: The People's Republic of China (established 1949) has never, in any capacity, exercised control over Taiwan.
As to the territorial claim of what constitutes "China", worthy of note is the highly variable claims to territory (not to mention autonomy and governance structures) over even the past 150 years. See below.
