Timeline of Taiwan

Prehistoric Era and Indigenous Peoples: From Changbin 20,000–30,000 Years Ago to the Austronesian Dispersal Origin

Earliest human activity in Taiwan: Changbin Culture approximately 20,000–30,000 years ago (Paleolithic era, Baxian Cave site). 16 officially recognized indigenous peoples. One possible origin of the Austronesian language family (9 of 10 major Austronesian branches found in Taiwan). 2024 latest research: dispersal from Taiwan accounts for approximately 20%, with an additional dispersal route from Indonesia, pending academic consensus. 17th-century Kingdom of Middag as a cross-tribal alliance; Shihsanhang Culture in the Iron Age.

5 7 min

Articles from this era

Indigenous Peoples' History and Naming Rights Movement

From 'barbarians' to 'Indigenous peoples' - a centuries-long struggle for identity recognition and dignity

Taiwan Island Historiography: How a Repeatedly Ruled Island Reclaimed Its Own Subjectivity

Taiwan island historiography takes Taiwan out of the timeline of outside regimes and asks how people on this island lived, migrated, were ruled, survived, and rebuilt memory. It does not turn Taiwan into a naturally exceptional island; it reminds us that identity can also grow from shared life, shared wounds, and shared responsibility.

Formosa: How Westerners 'Discovered' an Island That Was Already Inhabited

In 1704, a Frenchman who had never been to Asia stood before the Royal Society in London and, using a script and religion he had invented himself, convinced an entire room of scholars that he was a 'Formosan.' The deception lasted ten years. But the larger question is this: when Europeans spoke of 'discovering Formosa,' Austronesian peoples had already lived on the island for six thousand years. Whose narrative is 'discovery'?

🎭 Culture

Archipelago Thinking: Placing Taiwan Back on the Map of the Malay World

Taiwan is not only an isolated island on the margins of China; it is also the northeastern edge of the Malay world, the homeland of Austronesian languages, and the starting point of Pacific dispersal. Rotate the map 30 degrees southward, and you will see another coordinate system that is entirely valid yet long overlooked.

🌿 Nature

Taiwan Island Natural History: A Living Dialogue Between Island and World

From Ice Age land-bridge migrations to the DNA of paper mulberry carried by Austronesian peoples, Taiwan is not merely a biological refuge but a crossroads of evolution. Through the eyes of naturalists, rediscover how this island conducts a living dialogue with the world.

1624–1662

Formosa on the World's Sea Lanes

Dutch & Spanish rivalry

In the 17th century, Taiwan was written onto the world's trade map for the first time. The Dutch East India Company built Fort Zeelandia at Tayouan while the Spanish fortified Keelung and Tamsui in the north; deerskin, sugar and silk flowed from here to Japan and Europe. For the island's Indigenous communities, it was the first head-on encounter with colonial rule.

Key moments

1624
The Dutch East India Company arrives at Tayouan — A trading post and Fort Zeelandia are built in present-day Tainan; southern Taiwan comes under Dutch rule.
1626
The Spanish enter northern Taiwan — Forts rise at Keelung and Tamsui, facing off against the Dutch in the south.
1642
The Dutch expel the Spanish — The VOC defeats the Spanish, becoming the island's sole European colonial power.

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The Dutch, Spanish, and Ming-Zheng Period

From the Dutch establishment of Fort Zeelandia in Tainan in 1624 to Shi Lang's landing in Penghu in 1683: sixty years in which Taiwan was written into the map of world trade, and the story of four successive regimes

7 10 min

Articles from this era

Taiwan Maritime Trade History

Taiwan in the Age of Exploration - from international trade center to pirate kingdom, a legendary rise and fall

Tainan City: 261 Years as Capital, 400 Years of Monuments, and 21st-Century Chips Layered on the Same Land

In 1624, the Dutch began building Fort Zeelandia on the dunes of Tayouan; on February 1, 1662, Frederik Coyett signed the surrender papers in that fort, and on February 9 left the beach with 2,000 Dutch people. In 1665, Chen Yonghua built the Confucius Temple, later known as Taiwan's First Academy. In 1684, the Qing court established Taiwan Prefecture in present-day Tainan; in 1885 Taiwan became a province, the provincial capital moved north to Taipei, and Tainan's 261-year status as capital ended. At noon on March 13, 1947, Tang Te-chang was bound, forced onto a truck at Minsheng Green Park, paraded through the streets, and then three gunshots rang out. On December 25, 2010, city-county merger created 37 districts and a population of 1.86 million. In 2023, Southern Taiwan Science Park's annual revenue reached NT$1.5 trillion, surpassing Hsinchu Science Park. Three layers of history press down on the same middle stretch of the Chianan Plain.

Penghu County: Twice Rejecting Casinos, the Chrysanthemum Islands Chose More Than Frugality

On September 26, 2009, votes were counted in Magong: 17,359 opposed, and the casino side lost by 3,962 votes. Seven years later, in 2016, Penghu voted again: 81.07% opposed. An outlying island county with only 1,000 millimeters of annual rainfall, 108,000 registered residents but only 80,000 usual residents, held Taiwan's first local gambling referendum and then held another one. In the same stretch of sea, Shen Yourong forced the Dutch to withdraw in 1604; in 1622 the Dutch moved from Fengguiwei to Tainan; in 1885 the French commander Courbet died of illness in Makung Harbor. The 17.4-million-year-old basalt columns are still there: 89 islands are black volcanic rock, and one is older andesite. In winter, inside the stone walls of vegetable gardens, crops grow in the lee.

Keelung City: The Port Closest to Taipei, the One Taipei Sees Least

At 4 a.m., the Kanzaiteng fish market is still alive with the sound of auctions. Auctioneers chant prices in Hokkien, and within seconds a crate of fish moves from fishing boats in Hualien, Yilang, and Badouzi to a Japanese restaurant in Taipei's Eastern District. In 1626, the Spaniards planted a flag on Heping Island. In 1875, Shen Baozhen changed the name from 'Keelung' (Chicken Coop) to 'Keelung' (Base of Prosperity). In 1984, this was the world's seventh-largest container port. Then three things happened at once: Kaohsiung Port overtook it, Taoyuan Airport opened, and the mining economy collapsed. Today 360,000 people live here, and 39% commute to work in Taipei. What Taipei sees is decline. What the ocean sees is a port that has never left its position.

1662–1683

The Kingdom on the Sea

The Zheng (Tungning) era

In 1662, after a nine-month siege, Koxinga (Zheng Chenggong) forced the Dutch to surrender and founded the Kingdom of Tungning — the first Han regime based on this island. For twenty-one years, institutions and migrants came ashore, until Shi Lang's fleet took Penghu in 1683.

Key moments

1662
Fort Zeelandia surrenders — Koxinga defeats Dutch governor Frederick Coyett and founds the Kingdom of Tungning.
1683
The Battle of Penghu — Shi Lang takes Penghu and the Zheng regime surrenders, ending twenty-one years and three generations of Tungning rule.

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👥 People

Koxinga

A half-Japanese pirate's son who spent sixteen years fighting the Qing, nine months conquering Taiwan, five months founding a kingdom—then died suddenly at thirty-seven. His name has been claimed by four regimes to this day.

12 min

Articles from this era

Chu Yi-kuei Yu Yonghe Liu Ming-chuan George Mackay Robert Swinhoe

The Dutch, Spanish, and Ming-Zheng Period

🍜 Food

Not Brought by Zheng Chenggong: The Four-Century History of Milkfish Farming

Tainan locals call the milkfish a 'household fish,' but its origins lie in Dutch East India Company aquaculture techniques introduced from Indonesia, arriving thirty-seven years before Zheng Chenggong reached Taiwan. The 4,500-hectare fish ponds of Qigu and the seven-plus culinary preparations for a single fish are living fossils of this four-century farming history.

🍜 Food

Oyster Omelet: The Flavor Evolution from Poverty to National Dish

A Taiwanese snack born from food scarcity — how the 'pan-fried lump' of Koxinga's era evolved into the nationally beloved dish enjoyed at home and abroad, and the sensory secrets hidden inside its starch slurry and sauce.

1683–1895

Crossing the Black Water Ditch

The Qing era

In 1684 Taiwan was annexed into the Qing empire, yet under the crossing ban it long remained the empire's frontier. For two centuries migrants braved the Black Water Ditch wave after wave, and the port towns of 'first Tainan, second Lukang, third Bangka' rose in turn; uprisings and feuds never ceased, until the treaty ports and provincehood of the late 19th century made Taiwan matter again — to world trade and to the empire's defenses.

Faces of this era

Key moments

1684
Annexed by the Qing empire — Taiwan Prefecture is established under Fujian Province; a crossing ban restricts migrants from bringing families.
1721
The Zhu Yigui uprising — The age of uprisings under Qing rule begins; the Lin Shuangwen (1786) and Dai Chaochun (1862) revolts follow.
1858
Treaty ports open — After the Treaty of Tianjin, Tamsui, Anping, Keelung and Takau open in turn; tea, sugar and camphor ship worldwide.
1874
The Mudan Incident — Japan sends troops to the Hengchun peninsula; the Qing court shifts from neglect to active governance of Taiwan.
1885
Taiwan becomes a province — Liu Mingchuan becomes the first governor; railways, telegraphs and modern works begin.
1895
The Treaty of Shimonoseki — The Qing empire cedes Taiwan to Japan.

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Qing Dynasty Rule

From 1683 to 1895, the Qing dynasty ruled Taiwan for approximately 212 years, transitioning from passive governance to active development, laying the foundation for modern Taiwan's administrative divisions and Han Chinese society.

Articles from this era

The Sino-French War in Taiwan: Eight Months at Keelung and Tamsui

In the autumn of 1884, the French fleet shelled Keelung harbor and 2,000 marines landed, seizing the port. But they spent the next seven months unable to fight their way out of the hills surrounding Keelung. That same week, 600 French sailors landed at Tamsui — and were driven back to sea within two hours. When the war ended, France took Vietnam and relinquished Taiwan. The Qing dynasty nearly lost everything, yet as a result Taiwan went from a dependency to a province.

The Rover Incident: A Battle 181 Soldiers Couldn't Win, Settled by Tauketok in 45 Minutes

In 1867, 181 US soldiers were repelled in the jungles of the Hengchun Peninsula and their commanding officer was killed. Three months later, Tauketok — paramount chief of the Eighteen Paiwan Tribes of Liangqiao — sat down and negotiated the Treaty of South Cape in 45 minutes. The agreement temporarily protected his people from annihilation — but the other party, Charles Le Gendre (李仙得), took the same intelligence to the Japanese Empire seven years later, helping plan the 1874 expedition.

The 19th-Century Camphor Wars: The World's Desired Fragrance, Hidden in Indigenous Mountains

In 1864, Robert Swinhoe wrote three numbers at Tamsui: 6, 16, 28. A picul of camphor traveled from its source to Hong Kong and its price almost quintupled. The difference ended up in the magistrate's pockets — and in the mountains belonging to indigenous peoples.

Bangka: Qing-Era Taipei’s Busiest Place, Now the District with Taipei’s Oldest Average Age

Bangka Longshan Temple was jointly built in 1738 by migrants from the three Quanzhou counties; by 2026 it is 288 years old, 137 years older than the Qing court’s Taipei Prefecture. The 1853 Ding-Xia Jiao Conflict pushed the Tong’an people into Dadaocheng, planting the divergence that would shape northern Taiwan for two centuries. Renamed Wanhua under Japanese rule, made a district in 1990, and turned into the setting of Doze Niu’s 2010 film Monga, it now has an aging index of 320.78%, the highest in the city. On Taipei’s earliest street, the first incense stick in the temple forecourt is still burning at six in the morning.

Chiang Wei-shui Yoichi Hatta Mona Rudao Du Congming Lai Ho Deng Yuxian Chen Cheng-po

Dadaocheng: 800 Meters, Three Centuries, from Formosa Tea to the First Shot of February 28

Dihua Street is quiet at 5:30 in the morning. The Western-style building of Chen Tian-lai's Jinji Tea Company, opened on Guide Street in 1891, still stands in its original place, and the incense burner at Xia-Hai City God Temple has burned for 167 years. In 1851, several households opened shops here; in 1853, Tong'an people fled here for refuge; in 1869, the first 120,000 catties of Formosa Tea were shipped from Tamsui to New York; in 1885, Liu Mingchuan established Taiwan's first Western-style school here; in 1921, Chiang Wei-shui opened Da'an Hospital in Taipingcho, making it the political starting point of the Taiwan Cultural Association; and at dusk on February 27, 1947, a packet of contraband cigarettes outside Tianma Tea House ignited the February 28 Incident. A place that traded in tea, hosted a Western-style school, and became the site of postwar Taiwan's deepest wound: 800 meters hold three centuries.

1895–1945

Colonial Rule and Modernization

The Japanese era

Fifty years of colonial rule brought an unequal modernization: trunk railways, running water, public schools and the Chianan Canal reshaped the island, while a police state and systematic discrimination arrived with them. After 1915, armed resistance turned political and cultural — through the Taiwan Cultural Association and petitions for a parliament, a generation of Taiwanese began claiming their place in a modern voice.

Faces of this era

Key moments

1895
The War of 1895 — After the cession, the short-lived Republic of Formosa rises and falls; armed resistance continues for months across the island.
1908
The trunk railway is completed — Keelung to Kaohsiung in a single day — the island is stitched together by rail for the first time.
1915
The Tapani (Xilai Temple) Incident — The last large-scale armed uprising; resistance turns to politics and culture thereafter.
1921
The Taiwan Cultural Association is founded — Founded by Chiang Wei-shui and Lin Hsien-tang; lectures, reading circles and parliament petitions awaken a generation.
1930
The Musha (Wushe) Incident — Mona Rudao leads the Seediq uprising, the largest Indigenous armed resistance of the era; the Chianan Canal is completed the same year.
1945
World War II ends — Japan surrenders; fifty years of colonial rule come to an end.

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Japanese Colonial Era

Japan ruled Taiwan for 50 years from 1895 to 1945, bringing comprehensive modernization and institutional management while implementing assimilation policies that profoundly shaped Taiwan's social development

Articles from this era

The 1895 Taiwan Resistance War: 148 Days of the Republic of Formosa

In 1895, the Qing court ceded Taiwan to Japan. Officials on the island declared the establishment of Asia's first republic, but the president fled within ten days and the poet within four. Those who truly stayed to fight were a 19-year-old Hakka youth who scattered his family fortune to raise militia fighters. 148 days later, the republic vanished and Japanese rule began.

Social Movements During Japanese Rule in Taiwan

Hidden within the Imperial Police's surveillance documents lies a map of how Taiwanese people resisted. In the 1920s, three currents ignited simultaneously — parliamentary petitions, peasant unions, and an underground party — yet burned toward each other.

Ponlai Rice: How a Single Grain Rewrote a Century of Taiwan's Agriculture and Dining Table

From the breeding work of Eikichi Iso and Hitoshi Suenaga during the Japanese colonial period to the spread of Taichung No. 65, Ponlai rice not only resolved a food crisis but also profoundly shaped Taiwan's socioeconomic life and cultural identity.

Taiwan Railway History: The Consumptive Railway, Black-Headed Trains, and a Lineage That Lost Its Foreign Names

How a wretched line that Japanese observers mocked as the “consumptive railway” became, over more than a century, a high-speed artery carrying 200,000 passengers a day. The German and British engineers hired by Liu Ming-chuan were later discarded and rebuilt over by the Japanese; Hasegawa Kinsuke's trunk line was renamed and renumbered by the postwar Taiwan Railways; each generation pushed the records of the previous one into the footnotes. Foreign names peeled away along the way, leaving only the Taiwanese terms “black-headed trains” and “little fire trains,” then the political slogans of Chu-kuang, Tzu-chiang, and Fu-hsing, until the Puyuma and Taroko generation finally laid Indigenous place names back onto the rails.

🎨 Art

Taiwanese Literature during Japanese Rule

The development of Taiwanese literature during Japanese rule from 1895 to 1945, from classical Chinese prose to the New Literature movement, examining cultural identity and national awakening in a colonial context.

Chiang Kai-shek Sun Yun-suan Chen Yingzhen San Mao Kuo Chin-fa

Ximending: The Entertainment Street the Japanese Built in 1896 Is Still Taipei’s Youngest Street 130 Years Later

In December 1908, the Ximen Red House designed by Juro Kondo opened for business: two brick market buildings, an octagonal hall and a cruciform building, that the Japanese Empire gave Taipei as its own 'Asakusa.' Thirty years later the Japanese left. In 1961, the eight buildings of Chunghwa Market grew along the longitudinal railway, and in 1992 they were demolished together with the railway. In 1999, the pedestrian zone was designated and the Bannan Line opened, turning Ximending into Taipei youths’ open-air living room. From outside the Qing-era city walls, to a Japanese-era entertainment district, a postwar movie street, martial-law-era MTV lounges, post-martial-law hip-hop and skateboarding, and on to cosplay and gay bars in 2026 — beneath the same octagonal hall, five generations of young people have already passed through.

1945–1987

The Martial Law Years

Postwar Taiwan

Postwar Taiwan welcomed its new government with hope, only to be shattered by gunfire in 1947. After the 228 Incident came thirty-eight years of martial law and White Terror; in those same decades, land reform, export processing zones and the Ten Major Construction Projects propelled Taiwan into an 'economic miracle'. Repression and takeoff, side by side — the two faces of this era.

Faces of this era

Key moments

1945
The Republic of China takes over Taiwan — As WWII ends, the provincial administration takes over; Taiwanese widely hope for an end to colonial rule.
1947
The 228 Incident — A crackdown on contraband cigarettes ignites island-wide unrest; the government's suppression kills many and becomes a taboo for decades.
1949
Martial law and the retreat to Taiwan — The ROC government retreats to Taiwan; martial law lasts 38 years and 56 days, and the White Terror begins.
1950s
Land reform — From rent reduction to 'land to the tiller', rural society is restructured, paving the way for industrialization.
1971
Leaving the United Nations — On October 25 the ROC loses its UN seat; Taiwan's international standing changes drastically.
1973
The Ten Major Construction Projects — Counter-cyclical infrastructure investment amid the oil crisis: the freeway, steel mill and Taoyuan airport follow.
1979
The Formosa (Meilidao) Incident — A human-rights march in Kaohsiung on December 10 is suppressed; the trials that follow awaken society instead.
1980
The Hsinchu Science Park opens — The semiconductor industry takes root here, later growing into the 'sacred mountains protecting the nation'.

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'The 228 Incident'

How a widow's illicit cigarette stall ignited thirty-eight years of silence across Taiwan: the ten days in 1947 that changed Taiwan's fate, and the wound still healing seventy-eight years later

Martial Law Era

On May 19, 1949, Chen Cheng issued the Taiwan Province martial law decree. 38 years later, on July 15, 1987, Chiang Ching-kuo announced its lifting. The Kinmen-Matsu region was not lifted until 1992. What did they live through in those five years?

Articles from this era

The KMT Government's Relocation to Taiwan and Postwar Reconstruction

Yen Chia-kan came from Fujian and witnessed the history of the KMT government's 1949 relocation to Taiwan. 1.2 million soldiers and civilians, 38 years of martial law, land reform: how did this history reshape Taiwan?

Taiwan's White Terror

The 38-year martial law was not maintained by a few thousand secret police officers — it was maintained by a 'joint guarantee' system under which two million families across Taiwan had to vouch for one another in order to hold a job, enroll in school, or get married. Chen Chih-hsiung, Shih Shui-huan, Uyongu Yatauyungana (Kao I-sheng), and Bo Yang — four names, four reasons for arrest, one shared machine.

Green Island Prison: Layered Memories from Political Black Jail to the Homeland of Big Brothers

Green Island, a solitary island in the Pacific, was once a purgatory for political prisoners during the White Terror era and the final resting place for underworld 'big brothers.' From the New Life Training Center to Chongde New Village, how does the history of Green Island Prison reflect the contradictions and memories of Taiwanese society?

Taiwan's Military Dependents Villages

From Burma's Lost Army to bamboo fence kingdoms: how 1.2 million refugees redefined 'home'

Taiwan's Economic Miracle: From an Agricultural Society to an Asian Tiger

From the 1960s to the 1990s, Taiwan created an economic miracle that drew worldwide attention, transforming from an agricultural society into an industrialized country and joining South Korea, Hong Kong, and Singapore as one of the Four Asian Tigers.

The Ten Major Construction Projects: A NT$200 Billion Gamble on US$1 Billion in Foreign Reserves

In 1973, Taiwan's foreign exchange reserves stood at only US$1 billion, yet Chiang Ching-kuo announced an investment of roughly NT$300 billion to advance the Ten Major Construction Projects. This was not only an economic pivot in response to the oil crisis and diplomatic isolation, but also a political narrative that repackaged blueprints inherited from Japanese rule and transformed them into national identity.

Withdrawal from the United Nations: The 17 Minutes in 1971 When Taiwan Went from “China” to International Orphan

On October 25, 1971, the moment Chou Shu-kai stepped down from the podium in the UN General Assembly hall, the Republic of China went from a founding member of the United Nations to an observer still kept outside its doors. Half a century later, that decision, framed as “the Han and the bandits cannot coexist,” continues to reverberate: in 2025, the United States passed legislation reaffirming that Resolution 2758 never addressed Taiwan’s representation.

The Formosa Incident

A military trial that was supposed to completely collapse the opposition movement unexpectedly became the most powerful propaganda film for Taiwan's democracy due to its broadcast.

Psychological Warfare: From Kinmen's Broadcasting Walls to the Paradigm Shift of AI Cognitive Operations

From the 1960s' Deng Lijun appeals and 'surrender food' dropped by balloons on Kinmen to the 2026 digital era's information penetration and AI cognitive manipulation, cross-strait psychological warfare has evolved from physical material incentives to digital semantic offense and defense. This article thoroughly梳理s the historical context of Taiwan's psychological warfare against China, specific material lists, and contrasts the challenges of the current AI industrialization stage.

Lee Teng-hui Zheng Nanrong Shih Ming-te Annette Lu Hsiu-lien Chen Chu

Mainlanders in Taiwan: From Kidnapped Youths to Taiwanese Identified with the Land Beneath Their Feet

In 1949, more than one million people carrying trauma and homesickness crossed the sea to Taiwan. They were both a high-risk group for being treated as “political prisoners” by an authoritarian government that distrusted them, and “war refugees” who had been forcibly seized and cut off from their homelands. This article reveals how the mainlander community, through four psychological traumas, completed a spiritual migration from “exiles” to “settlers.”

🎵 Music

Taiwan Campus Folk Song Movement

From “singing our own songs” to transforming the entire Mandarin-language music scene: the youth-led cultural revolution of the 1970s

1987–2000

The Quiet Revolution

Democratization

From the end of martial law to the first transfer of power took just thirteen years. Streets, courtrooms, parliament and polling booths took turns as the main stage while a constitutional order was rebuilt without bloodshed — Taiwan made itself a democracy through a 'quiet revolution'.

Faces of this era

Key moments

1986
The DPP is founded — On September 28, with martial law still in force, the first real opposition party is born.
1987
Martial law is lifted — On July 15, thirty-eight years of martial law come to an end.
1990
The Wild Lily student movement — From March 16, students fill Chiang Kai-shek Memorial plaza, demanding full parliamentary re-election and an end to the Temporary Provisions.
1991
Constitutional reform begins — The Temporary Provisions are abolished and the 'eternal parliament' retires; the Legislative Yuan is fully re-elected the next year.
1996
The first direct presidential election — On March 23, the Taiwanese people directly elect their president for the first time.
2000
The first transfer of power — Chen Shui-bian wins the presidency; power changes hands peacefully — a key step in consolidating democracy.

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Taiwan's Democratic Transformation — The Authoritarian Regime's Self‑Digged Grave

Every crackdown creates more resisters. From the 228 Incident to the Sunflower Movement, how does an island enable a dictatorial system to cultivate the very forces that will bury it?

Articles from this era

Democratization

On March 18, 1980, in a Kaohsiung military courtroom, Shih Ming-teh discarded his sixty-thousand-word defense statement and instead demanded the judge sentence him to death. In the same trial, the young lawyers defending the accused — Chen Shui-bian, Frank Hsieh, Su Tseng-chang — all became presidents or premiers within twenty years. A show trial intended to make an example ended up accidentally producing Taiwan's next generation of political leaders.

Wild Lily Student Movement

A group of university students sat in at Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall for seven days and ultimately forced a political system that had dragged on for more than forty years to begin loosening. What the Wild Lily movement truly changed was not just the National Affairs Conference — it was the first time Taiwanese people clearly saw that students could directly rewrite the timeline of constitutional reform.

Taiwan Elections and Party Politics

From the flames of the Zhongli Incident to 8.17 million votes, how Taiwan spent half a century turning voting from a martial law tool into a civic faith

Resolution on Taiwan's Future: The Two Words “Currently” Sustained for Twenty‑Seven Years

In 1999, Lin Zhuoshui added the two characters “currently” before the “Republic of China” state name, displeasing the Chen Shui‑bian faction. Those two words simultaneously appeased pro‑independence supporters and centrist voters, opening the door to the first party‑rotation in 2000. Twenty‑seven years later, Taiwan’s youth consider “Taiwan has always been independent” common sense, yet they do not know that this common sense stems from a deliberately ambiguous document.

Chen Shui-bian Ma Ying-jeou Tsai Ing-wen Lai Ching-te

The Democratic System: From the 1987 Lifting of Martial Law to Lai Ching-te in 2024 — Coordinates of Taiwan's 37 Years of Democracy

Taiwan endured 38 years of authoritarian rule under martial law beginning in 1949. Martial law was lifted on July 15, 1987, and the first direct presidential election was held in 1996 (Lee Teng-hui). The first party rotation occurred in 2000 (Chen Shui-bian). On May 17, 2019, Taiwan became the first region in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage. On January 13, 2024, Lai Ching-te was elected the 16th president with 40.05% of the vote (5.58 million votes), marking the first time the Democratic Progressive Party won three consecutive presidential elections; the Kuomintang reclaimed its position as the largest party in the Legislative Yuan (52 seats), with the DPP at 51 seats and the Taiwan People's Party at 8 seats — no party held a majority.

2000–present

The Crossroads Continues

Contemporary Taiwan

Transfers of power became routine; civil society learned to take the streets and to legislate. Semiconductors put this island in everyone's pocket, and marriage equality made it Asia's first; geopolitical tension has not gone away, but the Taiwanese have learned to face it while living life on their own terms. History is not finished — its newest chapter is being written by you and me.

Faces of this era

Key moments

2014
The Sunflower Movement — Students occupy the Legislative Yuan for 24 days, redefining civic participation.
2017
Interpretation No. 748 — The grand justices rule that excluding same-sex marriage is unconstitutional — a first for any top court in Asia.
2018
The National Human Rights Museum opens — Sites of White Terror injustice become public institutions of memory.
2019
Marriage equality becomes law — The special act takes effect on May 24; Taiwan becomes the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage.
2025
The Great Recall — Under a divided government, the largest recall campaign in history erupts; civic energy keeps rewriting the rules.

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Sunflower Movement—Twelve Years After Those Thirty Seconds

A legislator lay on the floor and read a thirty‑second statement with a lapel microphone, triggering a twenty‑four‑day occupation of the Legislative Yuan, a generation’s political awakening, and the turning point of Taiwan’s economy away from China. Twelve years later, the law the students demanded has not been passed, but they won a war they didn’t even know they were fighting.

Taiwan's Marriage Revolution: How One Man's 33-Year Fight Rewrote Love's Definition

From martial law prison to Asia's first same-sex marriage law—the extraordinary story of Taiwan becoming Asia's rainbow capital

12 min

Articles from this era

Taiwan Transitional Justice

Taiwan vacated nearly six thousand authoritarian-era convictions, yet almost no perpetrators were ever held accountable — that gap is harder to explain than the White Terror itself.

National Human Rights Museum: The Names Not Written on the Tearful Monument

On International Human Rights Day in 1999, Lee Teng-hui personally unveiled the Tearful Monument on Green Island. Bo Yang wrote 28 characters that captured all mothers' long nights of weeping, yet did not write a single perpetrator's name. Six years of preparation, an unveiling in 2018, and a frozen budget in 2025. A museum built by the state itself to commemorate what the state itself had done. In the 39 years since martial law was lifted, not one perpetrator has faced judicial trial.

Taiwan Strait Crises and Cross-Strait Relations

From a Kinmen grandmother's memories of shelling to the 'Buddha-like' daily life of young people in Taipei, how seven decades of Taiwan Strait crises have shaped the collective psychology of the Taiwanese people

The Great Recall Movement

In 2025, Taiwan's civil society launched the largest recall action in history, targeting KMT legislators who had pushed controversial bills, attempting to correct the power imbalance in the Legislative Yuan. All three rounds of voting ultimately rejected all recall efforts, making this Taiwan's most significant large-scale exercise and test of direct democracy.

💻 Technology

Semiconductor Industry: Fifty Years of Materials Revolution from RCA Technology Transfer to Gallium Nitride and Quantum Packaging

Taiwan's sacred mountain protecting the nation dominates global advanced process manufacturing through foundry services, but the gallium nitride inside fast chargers, the CoWoS beneath AI chips, and the dilution refrigerators above qubits show that the next fifty-year battleground in materials science has only just opened.

💻 Technology

Red Candle Games: A Taiwan Story That No Charm Could Stop

In 2017, six Taiwanese people made a White Terror horror game that hit Steam's global bestseller list in its first week. In 2019, the follow-up Devotion was completely banned from China over a paper charm, vanishing from Steam to this day. In 2024, they released the Taoist-punk action game Nine Sols, sold 800,000 copies, and won Sony's indie game award. Red Candle's story: the banned come back through their work.

🎵 Music

Fire EX — The Name They Found by the Pool, Twenty-Five Years of Singing

In the summer of 2000, three high school students from Kaohsiung's Sanmin MXHC spotted a red fire extinguisher and turned it into a band name. Twenty-five years later, their Taiwanese-language punk became the generational sound of the Sunflower Movement, they moved their label back south, and on the Takao Festival stage, they spent seven minutes telling ten thousand people: you can be disappointed, but don't become the kind of person you despise.

🎵 Music

Chthonic: The Band That Sang Taiwanese History Into Black Metal

Chthonic is a Taiwanese heavy metal band founded in Taipei in 1995. Centered on black metal, erhu, Taiwanese Hokkien, mythology, ghost narratives, and historical trauma, it brought the Lady of Linshui, the Wushe Incident, the 228 Incident, the Takasago Volunteers, White Terror memory, and Taiwan’s sovereignty issues onto the international metal stage.