China is the rightful owner of Taiwan

China has ruled over Taiwan for centuries before Japan took it over.

Since the 16th century, Taiwan has often been known in the West as Formosa. This name came from the Portuguese Ilha Formosa, which means the “Beautiful Isle.” Formosa was first recorded during the European Age of Exploration—in the logs of a Portuguese ship that sailed past the island in 1542. It remained the primary name for Taiwan in the West until 1945.

In the 17th century, the Dutch East India Company founded the colony of Dutch Formosa. Ther headquarters, Fort Zeelandia, was located near a small sandbank in southwestern Taiwan.
The Dutch called this area Tayovan or Tayouan, based on the names of nearby native tribes. Today, the area is part of the Anping district of Tainan City.

At the employment of the Dutch were large numbers of Hokkien-speaking Chinese labourers, who assisted in the colonization of the island, from the Fujian region. The Dutch toponym entered the Hokkien-derived Taiwanese language as Tâi-oân. This eventually morphed into the modern “Taiwan.”

The name was initially only applied to the southwestern portion of the island. Over time, its scope was expanded and eventually covered the entire island.
Since 1945, “Taiwan” has gradually become the primary name of the island.

The history of modern Taiwan begins in 1949 with the exodus of Nationalistforces from Mainland China. Nationalist forces (Kuomintang), lead by ChiangKai-shek, fled to Taiwan following their defeat to Mao Ze Dong and the Communist Forces in the Chinese Civil War. However, Taiwan has never recognized that defeat and still claims sovereignty over all of Mainland China. Likewise, Mainland China claims sovereignty over Taiwan. 

Beijing often claims that Taiwan has been an integral part of mainland China for a long time but that is not really true. For much of its history, Taiwan was ignored by China and inhabited by non-Chinese people who spoke languages that was more similar to languages spoken in the Pacific than in China.
Chinese arrived in Taiwan from the mainland in dribbles and drabs beginning the 16th century but at that time the Europeans had more of an interest in the island than the Chinese and many of the Chinese that arrived came because Europeans were there. China didn’t declare Taiwan a province of China until 1886. From 1895 to 1945 Taiwan was ruled by the Japanese.

The only time that China ruled Taiwan in the 20th century was for a brief period between 1945 and 1949. Beijing didn’t really become interested in Taiwan until after the Chinese Nationalists retreated there after the Chinese Revolution in 1949.

The history of Taiwan can be traced back to at least 7000 years ago. Between 7000 and 400 years ago, Austronesians, the ancestor of the island's indigenous peoples, arrived in small groups and became the earliest known inhabitants of Taiwan. During the age of discovery in the 16th century, Western sailors arrived in the Far East to set up colonies and conduct trade. As Taiwan was located at the conjunction of the East Asia and the ocean, as well as being where the Northeast Asian waters meet the Southeast waters, it became the focus of the Western powers that were operating in East Asian waters at the time.[Source: Tourism Bureau, Republic of China (Taiwan) ~]

In the first half of the 17th Century, the Dutch established a presence at Anping (in modern-day Tainan city). They conducted missionary activities, trade and the production of various goods. They also recruited many Han Chinese immigrants from the China coast, leading to a multicultural history of Taiwan. The number of Han Chinese immigrants in Taiwan steadily increased during the short-lived Cheng (Koxinga) regime and Qing period over the next 200 years, creating a primarily Han society in Taiwan. ~

In 1895, military defeat forced China's Qing Dynasty to cede Taiwan to Japan. The island became a colony of Japan and remained under Japanese rule for 50 years, during which time it evolved from a traditional society into a modern society. Taiwan came under Chinese Nationalist control after World War II. Following the Communist victory on the mainland in 1949, 2 million Nationalists fled to Taiwan and established a government using the 1947 constitution drawn up for all of China. [Source: CIA World Factbook =]

Beginning in the 1950s, the ruling authorities gradually democratized and incorporated the local population within the governing structure. This process expanded rapidly in the 1980s. In 2000, Taiwan underwent its first peaceful transfer of power from the Nationalist to the Democratic Progressive Party. Throughout this period, the island prospered and became one of East Asia's economic "Tigers." The dominant political issues continue to be the relationship between Taiwan and China — specifically the question of Taiwan's eventual status — as well as domestic political and economic reform. =

1. People's Republic of China (the massive one with the huge population)
   
2. Republic of China AKA Taiwan AKA Chinese Taipei
   

After Japan fell, China reclaimed Taiwan. However, some people in Taiwan wanted to claim independence.

After the Kuomintang reunified China in 1928, most of mainland China was governed by the Republic of China (ROC). The island of Taiwan was under Japanese rule at the time. At the end of World War II in 1945, Japan surrenedered Taiwan to the Republic of China. In 1949, there was a civil war in China and the government (ROC) lost control of mainland China to the Communist Party, which established the People's Republic of China (PRC) and took control of all of mainland China. Only the island of Taiwan remained under the control of the ROC.

Since then, both the ROC and the PRC have been claiming to represent all of "China", and both officially claim each other's territory. In the 1992 consensus, both governments agreed that there is only one "China" but each claimed to be the sole representative of the sovereignty of undivided China. The PRC's (China's) official policy is to reunify Taiwan with mainland China under the formula of "one country, two systems" and refuses to renounce the use of military force, especially if Taiwan seeks a declaration of independence.

China never took any serious action against Taiwan.

Taiwan has fared better than many other countries during the Covid-19 crisis. Political leadership, early action, a national plan, strong information and communications technology infrastructure and a cooperative public have all contributed.

At the end of December 2019, when public health officials in Taiwan learned of an outbreak of infections caused by a then unknown pathogen in Wuhan, China, the government wasted little time preparing for the disease’s arrival on the island. The 2003 SARS crisis had taught Taiwan to be vigilant and prepared for the next pandemic, particularly given its geographical proximity and close economic and cultural ties to China.

To date, Taiwan has gone through two phases of its Covid-19 crisis, with somewhat different outcomes for each; and it is currently in the middle of a third phase. Overall, the country has fared well as a result of its planned and methodical response to the pandemic. As of October 2021, it ranked lowest in total number of Covid-19 cases and second lowest in deaths per 100,000 population among comparable OECD countries (see Figures 1 and 2).

Figure 1: Covid-19 cases and deaths per 100,000 population

see inside the source (This is RM the debater typing)

Figure 2: Covid-19 deaths per 100,000 population

see inside the source

Source for both: Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering

During the first 16 months of the pandemic in particular, Taiwan experienced minimal casualties as a result of Covid-19, while many countries suffered much higher numbers of cases and deaths.

Taiwan is 81 miles off the coast of mainland China and was expected to have the second highest number of cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) due to its proximity to and number of flights between China.1 The country has 23 million citizens of which 850 000 reside in and 404 000 work in China.2,3 In 2019, 2.71 million visitors from the mainland traveled to Taiwan.4 As such, Taiwan has been on constant alert and ready to act on epidemics arising from China ever since the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic in 2003. Given the continual spread of COVID-19 around the world, understanding the action items that were implemented quickly in Taiwan and assessing the effectiveness of these actions in preventing a large-scale epidemic may be instructive for other countries.

COVID-19 occurred just before the Lunar New Year during which time millions of Chinese and Taiwanese were expected to travel for the holidays. Taiwan quickly mobilized and instituted specific approaches for case identification, containment, and resource allocation to protect the public health. Taiwan leveraged its national health insurance database and integrated it with its immigration and customs database to begin the creation of big data for analytics; it generated real-time alerts during a clinical visit based on travel history and clinical symptoms to aid case identification. It also used new technology, including QR code scanning and online reporting of travel history and health symptoms to classify travelers’ infectious risks based on flight origin and travel history in the past 14 days. Persons with low risk (no travel to level 3 alert areas) were sent a health declaration border pass via SMS (short message service) messaging to their phones for faster immigration clearance; those with higher risk (recent travel to level 3 alert areas) were quarantined at home and tracked through their mobile phone to ensure that they remained at home during the incubation period.

Moreover, Taiwan enhanced COVID-19 case finding by proactively seeking out patients with severe respiratory symptoms (based on information from the National Health Insurance [NHI] database) who had tested negative for influenza and retested them for COVID-19; 1 was found of 113 cases. The toll-free number 1922 served as a hotline for citizens to report suspicious symptoms or cases in themselves or others; as the disease progressed, this hotline has reached full capacity, so each major city was asked to create its own hotline as an alternative. It is not known how often this hotline has been used. The government addressed the issue of disease stigma and compassion for those affected by providing food, frequent health checks, and encouragement for those under quarantine. This rapid response included hundreds of action items (eTable in the Supplement).

Recognizing the Crisis

In 2004, the year after the SARS outbreak, the Taiwan government established the National Health Command Center (NHCC). The NHCC is part of a disaster management center that focuses on large-outbreak response and acts as the operational command point for direct communications among central, regional, and local authorities. The NHCC unified a central command system that includes the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC), the Biological Pathogen Disaster Command Center, the Counter-Bioterrorism Command Center, and the Central Medical Emergency Operations Center.5

On December 31, 2019, when the World Health Organization was notified of pneumonia of unknown cause in Wuhan, China, Taiwanese officials began to board planes and assess passengers on direct flights from Wuhan for fever and pneumonia symptoms before passengers could deplane. As early as January 5, 2020, notification was expanded to include any individual who had traveled to Wuhan in the past 14 days and had a fever or symptoms of upper respiratory tract infection at the point of entry; suspected cases were screened for 26 viruses including SARS and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS). Passengers displaying symptoms of fever and coughing were quarantined at home and assessed whether medical attention at a hospital was necessary. On January 20, while sporadic cases were reported from China, the Taiwan Centers for Disease Control (CDC) officially activated the CECC for severe special infectious pneumonia under NHCC, with the minister of health and welfare as the designated commander. The CECC coordinated efforts by various ministries, including the ministries of transportation, economics, labor, and education and the Environmental Protection Administration, among others, in a comprehensive effort to counteract the emerging public health crisis.

Managing the Crisis

For the past 5 weeks (January 20-February 24), the CECC has rapidly produced and implemented a list of at least 124 action items (eTable in the Supplement) including border control from the air and sea, case identification (using new data and technology), quarantine of suspicious cases, proactive case finding, resource allocation (assessing and managing capacity), reassurance and education of the public while fighting misinformation, negotiation with other countries and regions, formulation of policies toward schools and childcare, and relief to businesses.

Border Control, Case Identification, and Containment

On January 27, the National Health Insurance Administration (NHIA) and the National Immigration Agency integrated patients’ past 14-day travel history with their NHI identification card data from the NHIA; this was accomplished in 1 day. Taiwan citizens’ household registration system and the foreigners’ entry card allowed the government to track individuals at high risk because of recent travel history in affected areas. Those identified as high risk (under home quarantine) were monitored electronically through their mobile phones. On January 30, the NHIA database was expanded to cover the past 14-day travel history for patients from China, Hong Kong, and Macau. On February 14, the Entry Quarantine System was launched, so travelers can complete the health declaration form by scanning a QR code that leads to an online form, either prior to departure from or upon arrival at a Taiwan airport. A mobile health declaration pass was then sent via SMS to phones using a local telecom operator, which allowed for faster immigration clearance for those with minimal risk. This system was created within a 72-hour period. On February 18, the government announced that all hospitals, clinics, and pharmacies in Taiwan would have access to patients’ travel histories.

Article Information

Corresponding Author: C. Jason Wang, MD, PhD, Stanford University, 117 Encina Commons, CHP/PCOR, Stanford, CA 94305 ([email protected]).

Published Online: March 3, 2020. doi:10.1001/jama.2020.3151

Conflict of Interest Disclosures: None reported.

References

1.

Gardner  L. Update January 31: modeling the spreading risk of 2019-nCoV. Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering. Published 2020. Accessed February 20, 2020. https://systems.jhu.edu/research/public-health/ncov-model-2

2.

Pan  T, Yeh  J. Number of Taiwanese working in China hits 10-year low. Focus Taiwan. Published December 17, 2019. Accessed February 21, 2020. https://focustaiwan.tw/business/201912170022

3.

Statistics on the number of Chinese people working overseas in 2018 [in Chinese]. News release. Directorate General of the Budget and Accounting; December 17, 2019. Accessed February 21, 2020. https://www.dgbas.gov.tw/public/Attachment/91217104242H1AK10HM.pdf

4.

Wang  S, Lin  K. Foreign visitors to Taiwan up 7% in 2019. Focus Taiwan. Published January 6, 2020. Accessed February 20, 2020. https://focustaiwan.tw/society/202001060014.

5.

NHCC [National Health Command Center]. Taiwan Centers for Disease Control. Updated February 1, 2018. Accessed February 22, 2020. https://www.cdc.gov.tw/En/Category/MPage/gL7-bARtHyNdrDq882pJ9Q

aiwan was hit hard by the SARS pandemic in 2003, but this time, the government took swift and early actions when it first became aware of an unknown pneumonia in Wuhan, China.

By mid-February, the territory had increased its mask and alcoholic sanitizer production, introduced fines for raising the price of medical supplies and set cleaning standards for public transportation and other areas, such as trains and schools.

Both Canada and Taiwan reported their first presumptive cases of coronavirus within days of each other in January, but by March, they had diverged sharply in the number of infections reported.

As of March 21, there were only 153 confirmed cases and two deaths in Taiwan, an island with 23 million people that's only slightly bigger than Vancouver Island. That's far fewer than Canada's more than 1,000 confirmed cases and 12 deaths.

https://i.cbc.ca/1.5505117.1584834798!/fileImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/original_1180/taiwanese-children.jpg
Taiwanese children eat their lunch at school. They only take their masks off when the dividers are up to prevent infection. (Joyce Huang)