Like many other islands in the Pacific, Taiwan was mostly inhabited by Austronesian speakers until the arrival of European colonizers. In 1624, the Dutch East I

Like many other islands in the Pacific, Taiwan was mostly inhabited by Austronesian speakers until the arrival of European colonizers. In 1624, the Dutch East India company set up a colony on Taiwan (then called Formosa) as an outpost for trade with the Ming dynasty, encouraging Chinese workers to immigrate. At the time, the Ming were under pressure from the Jurchens (later Manchus), who ended up conquering China and establishing the Qing dynasty. In 1662, Ming remnants fleeing the mainland defeated the Dutch and conquered the island, subsequently being defeated and conquered in turn by the Qing in 1684. And in 1895 Taiwan was seized by Japan. That's barely more than 200 years of being tied to the mainland, nowhere close to 5000. If you go by duration of historical possession, Taiwan would have to be ruled by a minority aristocracy of indigenous peoples, about 3% of the population.