Quote Originally Posted by Future Filmmaker View Post
China did not lay any serious claim on them until the nationalist era. This isn't the first time China has pulled anything stupid about it either, considering they killed 70 Vietnamese troops in '74. They then killed 60 Vietnamise seamen in the 80s as well.
China did not lay any serious claim on these areas because of this Chinese concept:
All your bases are belong to us. You pay tribute. We give gifts.

And then Western powers arrived to introduce modern concepts of sovereignty and jurisdiction.

About ethnic makeup of Taiwanese people, 98% are Han Chinese.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan
Han, again, is a super-ethnic group.