More than 50 years after the Chinese revolution and the communist seizure of power in Beijing, relations between the mainland and the island of Taiwan remain shaky at best and at times threaten to boil over into all-out war.

On Taiwan itself half a century of separation has seen the island’s government move from a heavy-handed military dictatorship to what the US has hailed as a shining example of Asian democracy.

Click on the dates above to follow the story of Taiwan from the humiliation of the Kuomintang withdrawal to the birth of a new democracy.