+History of cross-strait relationsWest Coast of the StraitPeriodMajor cross-strait eventsEast Coast of the StraitSong dynasty1171Han Chinese fishermen settle on Penghu and soldiers are stationedTaiwan prehistory1225Penghu is attached to QuanzhouYuan dynasty1281Establishment of Penghu Inspection Division1349 A Brief History of the Island of Yi by Wang DayuanMing dynasty1603 Dongfanji by Chen Di1624Battle of Penghu Under Dutch and Spanish rule1633Battle of Liaoluo BaySouthern Ming1661 Siege of Fort Zeelandia Kingdom of Tungning Qing dynasty1667Ding Wei floating man incident1683Penghu Sea Battle1684Establishment of Taiwan Prefecture Qing dynasty1731Ta-Chia-hsi revolt1840First Opium War1885Transformation into a province1895Treaty of Shimonoseki Japan1900Xiamen Events Republic of China19111911 Revolution19431943 Cairo Declaration1945Surrender of JapanTakeover of Taiwan and Penghu1947February 28 incident People's Republic of China1949Relocation of the National Government Republic of China (Taiwan)1978Reform and opening up1979Second Taiwan Strait Crisis1987Open cross-strait family visits1993Wang–Koo summit1996Third Taiwan Strait Crisis2001Cross-strait implementation of the Little Three Way2010Cross-strait signing of ECFA2014Disputes over the Trade and Services CensusThe Sunflower Movement2015First Ma–Xi meeting20222022 Chinese military exercises around TaiwanPresentPolitical status of Taiwan The term cross-strait relations has been used to describe the relationship between China and Taiwan. Suspected records of Taiwan in the history of China date back to the earliest times, when the legendary region of "Yizhou" was mentioned in the "Three Kingdoms", or Liuqiu in the "Book of Sui". During the Song dynasty and the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty, there was trade between the two sides of the Strait, and in 1281, Kublai Khan established the Penghu Inspection Division, which began to exercise administrative jurisdiction over Penghu. In 1349, Wang Dayuan documented in Island Yi Zhi Lu that Penghu belonged to Jinjiang County, Quanzhou, and that Liuqiu was one of the overseas countries. The "Dongfan Ji", written by Chen Di in the Ming Dynasty, depicts the customs of the aborigines in southwest Taiwan. Since the 1620s, cross-strait relations have been influenced by the Dutch, the Spanish, the Han Chinese, the Manchus, and the Japanese, and mainland China and Taiwan have either unified or separated, with ups and downs.

In 1945, World War II ended and the Republic of China took over Taiwan. Cross-strait relations developed in a tortuous manner in response to changes in the domestic and international situation. In the second Chinese Communist Revolution, the Nationalist Army led by the Kuomintang was defeated by the Liberation Army led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In 1949, the People's Republic of China was established and gradually took control of the entire Chinese mainland. The Republic of China, on the other hand, retreated to Taiwan, Penghu, Jinma, and other islands. The CCP tried to take Taiwan, and the Kuomintang prepared to counter-attack the mainland. A military confrontation between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait began and many armed clashes took place.

After the People's Republic of China replaced the Republic of China (ROC) as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council in 1971, the foreign relations of Taiwan were limited. On January 1, 1979, the People's Republic of China established diplomatic relations with the United States and, at the same time, announced the end of the shelling of Kinmen and proposed a policy of "peaceful reunification" under one country, two systems. In 1987, after the Republic of China lifted the curfew and opened up cross-strait family visits, cross-strait relations became smoother. But in 1995, when President Lee Teng-hui visited the United States, cross-strait relations became tense again. After entering the 21st century, the economic relations between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait became quite close, and, in 2018, when the KMT returned to power in Taiwan, cross-strait relations eased. The meeting of the top leaders across the Taiwan Strait in Singapore in 2015 was seen as a major breakthrough in the history of cross-strait relations. And since the return of the Democratic Progressive Party to power in 2016, cross-strait relations have become tense again.Report of the 277th Meeting of the Mainland Affairs Council of the Executive Yuan of Taiwan.2016-10-31

Historical Stages There is no universally accepted standard regarding the beginning of cross-strait relations or historical chronology. In his book "History of Cross-Strait Relations," Professor Zhang Chunying, deputy director of the Institute of Taiwan Studies at Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, divides the history of cross-strait relations into four periods: the first stage is from the prehistoric period to the Dutch occupation of Taiwan in the 1620s; the second stage is the period from the Dutch, Ming Zheng, Qing, and Japanese rule of Taiwan, to the takeover of Taiwan by the Republic of China in 1945; the third stage is the cross-strait military confrontation formed after the withdrawal of the central government of the Republic of China from mainland China in 1949; the fourth stage is the end of the military confrontation between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait since the 1980s and the de-escalation and development of relations. Professor Shao Zonghai of the Institute of Zhongshan and mainland China Studies at the Chinese Culture University divides the history of cross-strait relations after 1949 into five periods: military confrontation, legal disputes, exchange and détente, ideological confrontation, and reciprocal consultation.

Pre-modern Times

Period of the Three Kingdoms (suspected)

The Chinese history book, "Records of the Three Kingdoms - Wu Zhi" records that in the first month of spring in the second year of Huanglong (230), Eastern Wu sent generals Wei Wen and Zhuge Zhi with 10,000 soldiers to cross the sea from Zhang'an in Linhai County in search of Yizhou, and thousands of them landed on Yizhou and returned. In addition, the book "Linhai Water and Land" written by Shen Ying, the governor of Danyang in Eastern Wu, records that Yizhou is 2,000 miles southeast of Linhai County, where "the land is free of frost and snow,Whether the original text is "Yizhou" or "Yi Zhou" is uncertain. and the grass and trees do not die; on all sides are mountains, where many mountain barbarians live." Some scholars believe that Yizhou refers to Taiwan but there is controversy, while others believe that Yizhou refers to the Ryukyu Islands.

Sui and Tang dynasties (suspected) According to the Book of Sui, Liuqiu was located on a sea island, east of Jian'an County, and could be reached by boat in five days.<ref group="Notes">Jian'an County is located in present-day Fujian Province, and has four counties under its jurisdiction: Min (present-day Fuzhou City, Fujian Province), Jian'an, Nan'an, and Longxi. <ref></ref</ref> There is also a record of Emperor Yang of Sui sending troops to attack Liuqiu, three times in total. The first time was in 607, but because of the language barrier, only one person was "swept away and returned". The following year, Zhu Kuan made a second attack, but they only "took his armor and returned". The third time was in 610, when Chen Rong and Zhang Zhenzhou led an army and captured thousands of men and women, and returned. Some scholars believe that the Riuqui Kingdom recorded in the Sui Shu is today's Taiwan, but others believe that the Riuqui Kingdom refers to the Ryukyu Islands.

Song and Yuan dynasties In 1171, Wang Dayou was the governor of Quanzhou, an area under the jurisdiction of Emperor Xiaozong, who had an island called Penghu, where many Han Chinese lived. In order to prevent harassment, every year when the south wind rose, Wang Dayou sent troops to defend, costing the army money, but it was still too much to handle. So he built 200 houses and dispatched generals to reside in them. There are few records about the cross-strait trade during the Song and Yuan dynasties, but from the large number of ceramics excavated during the Song and Yuan dynasties, Penghu should have been an important stopover for the foreign trade of mainland China at that time. According to the records, during the Song and Yuan dynasties, iron was a high-priced commodity in Taiwan, and the aborigines in Taiwan often had to wait for merchant ships from mainland China to dock and exchange food for iron from the people on board. In his "Journal of the East of the Sea", Zhu Jingying of the Qing Dynasty said that he had received hundreds of Song money at the Chiayi port.

In 1225, the Book of Barbarian Nations anecdotally indicated that Penghu was attached to Jinjiang, Quanzhou Prefecture. A group of Quanzhou immigrants lived on Penghu.

In 1281, Kublai Khan sent an envoy to invade Japan, and most of his ships were sunk by a typhoon, and the remnants drifted to the west coast of Taiwan and Penghu. In 1292, Yuan Shizu sent an ambassador to appease Liuqiu, but after arriving, he could not speak the language with the locals and returned without success. In the third year of Temür Khan's reign (1297), Fujian Province's Pingshang Minister of State was pleased to send provincial governor Zhang Hao and Fuzhou's new army Zhang Jin to the Ryukyu Kingdom, capturing more than 130 people and returning. In the first month of the next year, the captured Ryukyu people were released and asked to submit to the Yuan Dynasty, but nothing happened after that. In 1330 and 1337, Wang Dayuan left from Quanzhou twice to trade with other countries. He recorded in the "Island Yi Zhi Lu" that Penghu belonged to Jinjiang County of Quanzhou, and Ryukyu was one of the overseas countries.

Modern times Ming dynasty It is recorded in the "Dongfanji" (An Account of the Eastern Barbarians) by Chen Di that Zheng He visited Taiwan during his expedition in the early years of Yongle, when the Dongfangyi (aborigines of Taiwan) hid and did not want to obey the restrictions, so Zheng He gave each family a brass bell to tie around their necks. The bronze bell was treated as a treasure by them. It is recorded in the "Taiwan Prefecture Gazetteer" by Gao Gongqian that during the Xuande period, Zheng He's fleet went to Taiwan to draw water at the head of Dajingfang, and he also threw medicine into the water to heal the sicknesses of the local indigenous people.

The territory of Taiwan is described in the "History of Ming Dynasty" by Zhang Tingyu of the Qing Dynasty as "its land, from the north to the highest peak in the south, can be more than 1,000 miles; in the east from Doroman, in the west to Wangcheng, can be more than 900 miles". It is worth noting that Jigong, together with Ryukyu, Luzon, and Brunei, was included in the chapter of "The Fourth of the Two Hundred and Eleven Foreign Countries", which was not included in the Ming Dynasty's territory.

Trade By the early 16th century, increasing numbers of Chinese fishermen, traders and pirates were visiting the southwestern part of the island. Some merchants from Fujian were familiar enough with the indigenous peoples of Taiwan to speak Formosan languages. The people of Fujian sailed closer to Taiwan and the Ryukyus in the mid-16th century to trade with Japan while evading Ming authorities. Chinese who traded in Southeast Asia also began taking an East Sea Compass Course (dongyang zhenlu) that passed southwestern and southern Taiwan. Some of them traded with the Taiwanese aborigines. During this period, Taiwan was referred to as Xiaodong dao ("little eastern island") and Dahui guo ("the country of Dahui"), a corruption of Tayouan, a tribe that lived on an islet near modern Tainan from which the name "Taiwan" is derived. By the late 16th century, Chinese from Fujian were settling in southwestern Taiwan.