re: #204 FFL (GOP Delenda Est)

What is the basis for China claiming Taiwan as “lost territory”?

About the same as in the 1950s when the PRC took Tibet. When the Nationalist Party formed Taiwan was firmly under the control of Japan. Many of the Chinese on the island weren’t particularly thrilled with the Nationalists when they retained power from Japan after WWII. There was a massive protest that led to a massacre by GMD/KMT of thousands of Taiwanese on and after 2/28/1947. The PRC has never had any governing role there.

Up to the late 1500s early 1600s it was no more than a rough frontier outpost for a handful of Chinese who weathered attacks by aborigines. The Portuguese came for awhile, then the Dutch built up forts in the south and tried to recruit Chinese farmers to come occupy. When the Dutch left it became a part of Qing-China’s territory. But, again, the Qing lost it to Japan in the Shimonoseki Treaty following the first Sino-Japanese war that concluded in 1895.