Nationalists retreat to Taiwan

In December 1949, as Communist armies took the last mainland provinces, Chiang Kai-shek moved the government of the Republic of China to Taipei. More than a million soldiers, officials and civilians crossed to Taiwan in the months around that date, bringing the national treasury, military and a government that still claimed to rule all of China. Across the 130-kilometer Taiwan Strait the new People's Republic of China claimed the island as its own.¹²

Taiwan had a separate recent past. Qing China ceded it to Japan after the war of 1894 to 1895, and Japan ran it as a colony for 50 years, building railways, schools and sugar and rice industries. When Japan surrendered in 1945 it was handed to the Republic of China. Nationalist rule began badly: in February 1947 the army put down an uprising sparked by a street incident in Taipei, in what is called the 228 Incident, killing thousands of islanders. Martial law was imposed in 1949 and lasted until 1987.¹

What saved the Nationalists was the Korean War: in June 1950 the United States sent the Seventh Fleet into the strait and soon became Taiwan's patron. With US aid and land reform, Taiwan industrialized into an export economy. Chiang's son Chiang Ching-kuo lifted martial law, and the island held its first direct presidential election in 1996 and its first transfer of power to an opposition party in 2000. Taiwan today makes most of the world's most advanced computer chips, led by TSMC, which has made its status a question of global importance. Beijing still claims the island, while its government continues to operate independently.²¹