Modern Taiwan

Chen Shui-bian won in 2000 with 39 per cent, ending fifty-five years of KMT rule. In 2003 SARS locked staff inside a Taipei hospital. On the eve of the 2004 vote, Chen was shot. He won by under 30,000.

In 2009 Typhoon Morakot dropped three metres of rain and buried Xiaolin village. In 2013 a conscript's death in detention brought 250,000 people onto the streets. In 2014 students occupied the legislature for twenty-four days.

Same-sex marriage became law in May 2019. Mask rationing carried Taiwan through the pandemic's first year. Chinese military flights across the median line became routine. Those calling themselves only Taiwanese rose from under a fifth to three in five.