Taiwan is a mountainous island about 180 kilometers off China’s mainland coast, with a population of roughly 23 million. A prosperous society, it is a leading center of advanced semiconductor production by companies such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. Its history begins with Austronesian-speaking Indigenous peoples who lived there for thousands of years and whose descendants, though relatively few, continue to preserve distinct languages and traditions. Han Chinese migration, primarily from Fujian, increased in the 1600s, alongside brief Dutch rule in the south and Spanish rule in the north.

In 1683, the Qing dynasty brought Taiwan under Chinese imperial rule. Migration from mainland China continued, and Han settlers eventually became the island’s majority population. Taiwan was ceded to Japan in 1895 after China lost the First Sino-Japanese War. Over the next five decades, Japan’s colonial government developed railways, schools, hospitals, and industries, modernizing the island while enforcing political repression, exploiting its economy, and promoting policies intended to assimilate Taiwanese people into Japanese culture.

Japanese rule ended after Japan’s defeat in World War II, and the Republic of China, led by the Kuomintang, assumed control of Taiwan. In 1949, after losing the Chinese Civil War to Mao Zedong’s Communist forces, the Kuomintang relocated its entire government to Taiwan and continued to claim legitimacy as the government of all China. It violently suppressed a local uprising, imposed martial law (which lasted for 38  years), and in what is remembered as the White Terror suppressed political dissent, purging perceived leftists, communists, and local Taiwanese activists. At least 140,000 citizens were imprisoned and some 3,000–4,000 were executed.

For decades, Taiwan lived under martial law and one-party Nationalist rule, even as it grew into an export-driven economic powerhouse—one of Asia’s “Four Tigers.” It became a democracy in 1987, when martial law was lifted. It held its first direct presidential election in 1996 and has since been a multiparty democracy with regular, peaceful transfers of power. 

Today, Taiwan has competitive elections, a lively press, and an independent civil society. By its constitution, it is a self-governing entity, with its own military, currency, and democratically elected government. China, however, considers Taiwan a breakaway province that must eventually be reunified with the mainland. Most countries—including the United States—do not maintain formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan, relying instead on unofficial ties. Taiwan’s government maintains that only its people can decide the island’s future and continues to seek closer ties with democracies worldwide, even as it navigates uncertainty about the durability of US and allied support.

Taiwanese culture is a layered blend of indigenous Austronesian heritage, Hokkien and Hakka Chinese traditions, Japanese colonial influence, and a distinctly Taiwanese identity. Traditional temples, Lunar New Year celebrations, and Confucian family values coexist with a liberal and cosmopolitan social outlook. Food culture is epitomized by night markets serving beef noodle soup, oyster omelets, stinky tofu, and bubble tea, which originated in Taiwan and has become a global phenomenon. Taiwan also has a thriving arts and pop culture, celebrated filmmakers, an independent publishing industry, and religious life mixing Buddhism, Taoism, folk religion, and ancestor veneration.      

In 1995, the government combined several existing insurance programs into National Health Insurance, a mandatory, single-payer system funded through payroll taxes, government subsidies, and modest copayments. Patients can choose physicians and hospitals, while an electronic insurance card facilitates treatment and administration. Easy access tends to encourage excessive consultations and place heavy demands on hospitals, leading to nursing shortages, physician dissatisfaction, and delays in covering some new medicines. Taiwan’s rapidly aging population will increase the burden of cancer, dementia, cardiovascular disease, and long-term care.

Taiwan’s history, therefore, is one of transforming authoritarian institutions into a resilient democracy with a remarkable capacity to adapt to uncertainty while building progressive institutions suited to an ever-changing world.