SUMMARY
[Note to reader: this Country page primarily contains brief information about state-based violence during the period 1946–1974, and to some extent 1975–1988. For more detailed information on organized violence after 1989, please consult the specific Conflict and Dyad pages available on the left-hand side of this page. These pages contain more detailed information regarding all three categories of organized violence in this country from 1989 and onwards (when applicable), as well as detailed information about state-based violence 1975–1988. The left-hand side menu also contains links to Actor pages for all groups involved in organized violence since 1989 in this country, as well as actors involved in state-based violence 1975–1988.]
After having ruled the Taiwan for 50 years, Japan handed over administration of the island to China and the Kuomintang regime (KMT or Chinese Nationalist Party) at the end of the Second World War. During the immediate postwar period, the Chinese KMT administration on Taiwan was repressive and corrupt compared with the previous Japanese rule, leading to local discontent. Anti-mainlander violence flared up on 28 February 1947 and the island-wide rebellion was harshly suppressed by the Nationalist Chinese troops, killing large numbers of locals (Taiwan was a part of China at the time and the conflict is thus considered a Chinese intrastate conflict).
In 1949 Taiwan gained de facto independence – but a highly contentious one. The formation of Taiwan as an independent entity is intimately linked to the unfolding of the Chinese intra-state conflict (1927–1936, 1941–1951) that pitted the KMT regime, headed by Chiang Kai-shek against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) led by Mao Zedong. When the victorious CCP declared the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on mainland China in October 1949, the KMT government retreated to Taiwan, along with 2 million other mainland refugees, where it established a provisional capital in December 1949, marking the island’s de facto independence. The KMT renamed Taiwan (and its contiguous islands) to the Republic of China (ROC) as the KMT declared itself to be the sole legitimate ruler of all of China as did the rest of the international community – until Taiwan (ROC) lost its United Nations seat in 1971 (and was replaced by the PRC). Hence the legitimate political status of Taiwan (ROC) has been a long-standing dispute and armed conflicts involving Taiwan have been tied to the sovereignty question.
With two entities claiming to be the true sovereign of China, the tense relationship between the China and Taiwan erupted into interstate conflicts in 1949 and reappeared intermittently in 1950, 1954 and 1958. Both in the 1954 and 1958 conflicts, Chinese artillery shelled the ROC-controlled offshore islands of Quemoy and Matsu, primarily to test the Taiwan’s resolve to keep the islands, but also as a response to the Taiwanese defensive mobilization on these islands. The 1954 and 1958 cross-strait crises also had a dimension of foreign involvement as the USA had, in connection to the Korean War, changed its non-interference policy in the Taiwanese question to a strategic stance of sending in USA naval fleets in the Taiwan Strait to act as a buffer against a possible Chinese attack on Taiwan, but also safeguarding against a general communist expansion in Asia.
Starting from the 1970s, cross-strait relations have been signified by economic convergence and political deadlock.
Since 1946, Taiwan (Republic of China) has experienced the interstate category of UCDP organized violence.
