Prime Minister Winston Churchill had explicitly declared in 1943 that вЂњall the territories Japan has stolen from the Chinese, such as Manchuria, Formosa, and the Pescadores shall be restored.вЂќ When Imperial Japan announced the hilariously named Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere in 1940, Taiwan was a key part of it.ДЄfter the end of World War II and JapanвЂ™s total defeat, it was understandable for Chinese leaders and the Chinese population in general to believe that Taiwan was part of China and should be returned to it.

Japan happily engaged in settler colonialism similar to the European genre, encouraging industrialization while carrying out staggering massacres of the islandвЂ™s Indigenous population. In 1683, ChinaвЂ™s Qing dynastyВ formally annexed it.Д«ut in 1895, the Qing dynasty was forced to cede Taiwan to Japan after China was defeated in the First Sino-Japanese War. During the 1600s, both the Dutch and the Spanish attempted to colonize the island,В with little success. About 6,000 years ago, it was settled by someone, probably farmers from the mainland. Ten thousandВ years ago, the island thatвЂ™s now Taiwan was connected toВ the larger Asian landmass, until sea levels rose and cut it off. So itвЂ™s just a small speck in ChinaвЂ™s enormous shadow. Its population of 23.5 million is onlyВ one-sixtieth of ChinaвЂ™s 1.4 billion.

ItвЂ™s small, barely larger than Maryland, and justВ 0.4 percent of ChinaвЂ™s size. Taiwan is an island about 100 miles off the coast of China.

Empire total war countries