Republic of Formosa, which was dissolved when Japanese troops overran the capital Tainan on 21 October 1895. At the conclusion of World War II and the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1945, Taiwan was placed under the control of the Republic of China (ROC) on behalf of the WWII Allies. The ROC, then the generally recognized government of both China and Taiwan, declared Taiwan to have been "restored" to China; this is argued to have been an illegal act. In 1949–1950, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) drove the ROC government out of China and into Taiwan (plus some minor Chinese islands), during the events of the Chinese Civil War. At the time, no treaty had yet been signed to officially transfer Taiwan to China. The ROC selected Taipei as the provisional capital (of China) and declared "martial law" in 1949. The supposedly democratic institutions of the ROC were "temporarily" suspended. With democracy suspended in ROC-controlled Taiwan, the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party) of the ROC, in reality, developed Taiwan into a dictatorship. The period of martial law that existed in Taiwan from 1949 until 1987 resulted in the unlawful convictions and occasional executions of thousands of Taiwanese and Chinese democracy activists and other dissidents. This period has become colloquially known as the "White Terror". After 1987 Lieyu massacre, the Kuomintang released its hold on power and ended martial law in Taiwan. This was due not only to pressure from democracy/independence activists within Taiwan but also pressure from the United States due to its citizen Henry Liu having been assassinated by criminal triad members secretly trained and dispatched by the Republic of China Military Intelligence Bureau. From hereafter, independence-oriented parties were now able to gain control of Taiwan. Democratic activism within Taiwan gave birth to a range of independence-oriented political parties. Most notable out of these is the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which has been democratically elected into power three times. The governing body of Taiwan still continues to identify as the "Republic of China", but many institutions have been occupied and occasionally changed by the DPP, which has led to a theory that "the ROC is Taiwan". It is a point of contention as to whether Taiwan has already achieved de facto independence under the Constitution of the Republic of China amended in 2005. The PRC and the Kuomintang continue to argue that "the Chinese Civil War has not yet ended". These