In any transition from post-Cold War US hegemony to a multipolar order, the China-Taiwan conflict stands as a critical bellwether, simultaneously a holdover of the previous order and a pivot point for what comes next. This is a local dispute of global strategic consequence, and as such could realistically trigger a conventional war between great powers in the Indo-Pacific.

An equilibrium has prevailed across the Taiwan Strait for decades, where stakeholders accepted de facto if not de jure Taiwan sovereignty; the United States underwrote the island’s security by ensuring a qualitative military advantage via arms sales; and Taiwan was allowed to persist as the state that dared not speak its name. Diplomatic acrobatics like the 1992 Consensus – where each side accepted that there is one legitimate China without specifying whether that meant the Republic of China (Taiwan) or People’s Republic of China (China) – laid a groundwork for fruitful if basic cross-Strait economic and cultural exchanges. And the matter of political unification was punted down the line indefinitely.

This longstanding status quo is now collapsing. Decades of modernization efforts have closed the capability gap between the US and PLA Navy, blunting Washington’s former edge on arms sales to Taiwan. Creeping hybrid warfare tactics continue to shrink the sovereign space around the island, with PLA patrols and large-scale training exercises coming in ever greater scope, frequency, and proximity to Taiwanese territory. What remains of Taiwan’s official diplomatic relations are systematically being poached by Beijing, and the 1992 Consensus has been consigned to the dustbin of history as cross-Strait relations spiral into open hostility. The cross-Strait dynamic is now in an interregnum period, where past certainties are fracturing and new ones have yet to emerge.

This backgrounder traces an outline of Taiwanese history before examining how these historical themes still resonate in contemporary debates surrounding the China-Taiwan conflict.

A Brief History of Taiwan

• First Peoples (25,000+ Years Ago). For tens of thousands of years prior to the arrival of external powers, Taiwan was home to numerous distinct Austronesian-speaking indigenous tribes, each with its own language, culture, and political structure. The largest tribes lived primarily in the central mountain ranges and eastern coast, generally untouched by external influence and without a unified, overarching political structure. Some scholars believe that the earliest inhabitants of Taiwan were the linguistic and cultural forebearers of Austronesian peoples from Hawaii to Micronesia.
• European Colonization (1624-1662). The first significant external powers to establish a foothold were the Europeans in the 17th century. The Dutch East India Company established a trading post in the south in 1624, naming it Fort Zeelandia, and began developing a colonial economy based on trade and agriculture. They were followed by the Spanish, who established a smaller presence in the north just two years later. This brief period of European colonial rule, however, was limited to coastal areas and was primarily driven by commercial interests. Neither European power ever exercised island-wide control, and their presence ended with the Dutch expulsion of the Spanish in 1642 and, subsequently, the expulsion of the Dutch by the Ming loyalist Koxinga in 1662.
• Migration from China (1600-1895). Taiwan did not figure prominently in the records or imperial imagination of pre-Qing China, often being dismissed as an inhospitable and savage hinterland. Early Ming-era migrants from China numbered in the tens of thousands; many were bachelors, dissidents, pirates, or adventurers drawn by new economic opportunities after the Europeans arrived. These migrants often clashed with indigenous tribes who remained in control of large swathes of the island’s territory all the way to the start of the Japanese colonial period. Further waves of Chinese immigration arrived after Koxinga defeated the Dutch in 1662, and throughout the Qing Dynasty, which took de jure if not de facto control of Taiwan in 1682. Perceptions of Taiwan’s economic and strategic significance began to change in the late 19^th century, causing the Qing Dynasty to open up immigration to Taiwan in 1875 in the hope of Sinicizing the island’s remaining indigenous population and strengthening its administrative hold. Taiwan was officially made a province of China in 1885. When the Japanese eventually took over in 1895, the population of Taiwan was estimated at between 2.5-3 million, the vast majority of whom were Han Chinese.
• Japanese Colonization (1895-1945). Following the defeat of Qing China in the First Sino-Japanese War, Taiwan was ceded to the Empire of Japan in 1895. The early years of Japanese rule were met with fierce armed resistance from both Han Chinese militias and indigenous tribes, prompting a series of brutal military campaigns to pacify the island. For the first time ever, the entirety of Taiwan came to be ruled by a centralized government, which set about building the harbors, dams, mines, and railways needed to power Tokyo’s imperial war machine. Notably, there was considerable social engineering during this period, as the colonial government sought to assimilate the local Taiwanese population through standardized education, inoculating Japanese language, religious, and cultural practices. This period came to an end with Japan’s defeat in World War II. Tokyo relinquished its control of Taiwan in the 1951 Treaty of San Francisco, though the treaty did not specify a receiving party.