China’s weak historical claim to Taiwan

That Taiwan moderately prospered over the following decades was less due to KMT rule than to the combination of the education and modernization instilled by Japan and by the capital and markets that the US offered. Refugee capital and expertise from the mainland also played a role. Growing prosperity and the death of Chiang Kai-shek gradually saw the emergence of a more liberal state. After Taiwanese Lee Teng-hui became vice-president in 1984 and president in 1988, the decline of mainlander influence and the rise of the overly pro-Taiwan autonomy Democratic Progressive Party.

That brings us to today with a DPP president Tsai Ing-wen and mainly challenged by a KMT which differs on approach to the mainland but not on the importance of the status quo and Taiwan's de facto existence as an open and well-ordered state which has no desire to come under the Chinese Communist Party.

Taiwan may be culturally Chinese, but its history is different, its years under mainland Han rule relatively brief. The fact that the majority of its population is of Han Chinese origin is of no relevance – Singapore is majority Han Chinese too.