Taiwan

Sunday, 28 October 2012

Taiwan

Taiwan Special 1/3 - Tips on Travel Photography (Ep.1)

Taiwan's Opposition Thaws Relations with Mainland Trip (LinkAsia: 10/19/12)

Rupert Hammond-Chambers: Taiwan must be proactive

taiwan funny (with some vulgar language)

Open Collage in a new Window

Email the Collage

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Abkhazia
Abkhazia ( Apsny, Apkhazeti, Abkhazia) is a political entity on the eastern coast of the Black Sea and the south-western flank of the Caucasus whose status is disputed. It considers itself an independent state (the Republic of Abkhazia). This is recognised by Russia, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Nauru, South Ossetia and Transnistria.
http://wn.com/Abkhazia
Afghanistan
{{Infobox country
http://wn.com/Afghanistan
Anping, Tainan
http://wn.com/Anping_Tainan
Armenia
http://wn.com/Armenia
Australia
{{Infobox country
http://wn.com/Australia
Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan ( ; ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan (), is one of the six independent Turkic states in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Eastern Europe and Western Asia, it is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the west, and Iran to the south.
http://wn.com/Azerbaijan
Bahrain
Bahrain, officially Kingdom of Bahrain (, , literally: "Kingdom of the Two Seas"), is a small island country in the Persian Gulf ruled by the Al Khalifa royal family. While Bahrain is an archipelago of thirty-three islands, the largest (Bahrain Island) is long by wide. Saudi Arabia lies to the west and is connected to Bahrain via the King Fahd Causeway, which was officially opened on 25 November 1986. Qatar is to the southeast across the Gulf of Bahrain.
http://wn.com/Bahrain
Bangladesh
http://wn.com/Bangladesh
Bhutan
The Kingdom of Bhutan () (Dzongkha: ; Wylie: '' 'drug yul; Tibetan pinyin: ''), is a small landlocked country in South Asia, located at the eastern end of the Himalayas and bordered to the south, east and west by the Republic of India and to the north by the People's Republic of China . Bhutan is separated from the nearby state of Nepal to the west by the Indian state of Sikkim, and from Bangladesh to the south by West Bengal.
http://wn.com/Bhutan
Brunei
http://wn.com/Brunei
Burma
Burma, officially the Union of Myanmar, is the second largest country by geographical area in Southeast Asia. The country is bordered by People's Republic of China on the north-east, Laos on the east, Thailand on the south-east, Bangladesh on the west, India on the north-west and the Bay of Bengal to the south-west with the Andaman Sea defining its southern periphery. One-third of Burma's total perimeter, 1,930 kilometers (1,199 mi), forms an uninterrupted coastline.
http://wn.com/Burma
Cambodia
http://wn.com/Cambodia
Changhua County
Changhua County is the smallest county in Taiwan located on the westside of Taiwan. It is officially governed as a county of the Republic of China (Taiwan).
http://wn.com/Changhua_County
Chiayi
Chiayi City (sometimes romanized as Jiayi) () is a city located in the plains of southwestern Taiwan. It is surrounded by Chiayi County and is governed as a provincial city of Taiwan Province, Republic of China. Formerly called Kagee during the late Qing Dynasty and Kagi during the Japanese era, its historical name is Tirosen.
http://wn.com/Chiayi
Chiayi City
http://wn.com/Chiayi_City
China
China is seen variously as an ancient civilization extending over a large area in East Asia, a nation and/or a multinational entity.
http://wn.com/China
Christmas Island
The Territory of Christmas Island is a territory of Australia in the Indian Ocean. It is located northwest of the Western Australian city of Perth, south of the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, and ENE of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands.
http://wn.com/Christmas_Island
Control Yuan
http://wn.com/Control_Yuan
Cook Islands
http://wn.com/Cook_Islands
Court of Auditors
http://wn.com/Court_of_Auditors
Cyprus
http://wn.com/Cyprus
East Timor
http://wn.com/East_Timor
Easter Island
Easter Island (, ) is a Polynesian island in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeastern most point of the Polynesian triangle. A special territory of Chile annexed in 1888, Easter Island is widely famous for its 887 extant monumental statues, called moai (), created by the early Rapanui people. It is a World Heritage Site (as determined by UNESCO) with much of the island protected within the Rapa Nui National Park. In recent times the island has served as a cautionary tale about the cultural and environmental dangers of overexploitation. Ethnographers and archaeologists now argue that the introduction of diseases carried by European colonizers and the slave raiding that devastated the population in the 1860s had a much greater social than environmental impact.
http://wn.com/Easter_Island
Egypt
http://wn.com/Egypt
Executive Yuan
The Executive Yuan (; literally "House of Administration") is the executive branch of the government of the Republic of China (Taiwan) (ROC).
http://wn.com/Executive_Yuan
Fiji
Fiji (; ), officially the Republic of the Fiji Islands (; ), is an island nation in Melanesia in the South Pacific Ocean about 2000 km northeast of New Zealand's North Island. Its more immediate neighbours are Vanuatu to the west, France's New Caledonia to the southwest, New Zealand's Kermadec to the southeast, Tonga to the east, the Samoas and France's Wallis and Futuna to the northeast and Tuvalu to the north. Fiji has had inhabitants since the second millennium B.C. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Dutch and the British explored Fiji.Fiji was a British colony up until 1970; British occupation lasted almost a century. Because of the abundance of forest, mineral, and fish resources, Fiji is one of the most developed economies in the Pacific island realm. Today, the main sources of foreign exchange are its tourist industry and sugar exports. The country's currency is the Fijian dollar.
http://wn.com/Fiji
Finland
Finland (pronounced ), officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden on the west, Norway on the north and Russia on the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.
http://wn.com/Finland
Forbidden City
The Forbidden City was the Chinese imperial palace from the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty. It is located in the middle of Beijing, China, and now houses the Palace Museum. For almost five hundred years, it served as the home of emperors and their households, as well as the ceremonial and political centre of Chinese government.
http://wn.com/Forbidden_City
France
{{Infobox Country
http://wn.com/France
French Polynesia
French Polynesia (, ) is a French overseas collectivity in the southern Pacific Ocean. It is made up of several groups of Polynesian islands, the most famous island being Tahiti in the Society Islands group, which is also the most populous island and the seat of the capital of the territory (Papeete). Although not an integral part of its territory, Clipperton Island was administered from French Polynesia until 2007.
http://wn.com/French_Polynesia
Fujian
is a province on the southeast coast of China. Fujian borders Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, and Guangdong to the south. Taiwan lies to the east, across the Taiwan Strait. The name Fujian came from the combination of Fuzhou and Jian'ou, two cities in Fujian, during the Tang Dynasty. It is one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse provinces in China with Han Chinese majority.
http://wn.com/Fujian
Georgia (country)
http://wn.com/Georgia_(country)
Guam
http://wn.com/Guam
Guangdong
Guangdong () is a province on the southern coast of People's Republic of China. The province was previously often written with the alternative English name Kwangtung Province. It surpassed Henan and Sichuan to become the most populous province in China in January 2005, registering 79 million permanent residents and 31 million migrants who lived in the province for at least six months of the year. The provincial capital Guangzhou and economic hub Shenzhen are amongst the most populous and important cities in China.
http://wn.com/Guangdong
Hawaii
: For geographic details see Geography and environment or Hawaiian Islands.
http://wn.com/Hawaii
Hong Kong
Hong Kong () is one of two special administrative regions (SARs) of the People's Republic of China (PRC), the other being Macau. Situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour. With a land mass of and a population of seven million people, Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated areas in the world. Hong Kong's population is 95 percent ethnic Chinese and 5 percent from other groups. Hong Kong's Han Chinese majority originate mainly from the cities of Guangzhou and Taishan in the neighbouring Guangdong province.
http://wn.com/Hong_Kong
Hsinchu
Hsinchu City () is a city in northern Taiwan. Hsinchu is popularly nicknamed "The Windy City" () for its windy climate.
http://wn.com/Hsinchu
Hsinchu City
http://wn.com/Hsinchu_City
Hsinchu County
Hsinchu County is a county in northwestern Taiwan. It is officially administered as a county of Taiwan. The population is mainly Hakka; there is a Taiwanese aboriginal minority in the southeastern part of the county.
http://wn.com/Hsinchu_County
India
India (), officially the Republic of India ( ; see also official names of India), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.18 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world. Mainland India is bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal on the east; and it is bordered by Pakistan to the west; Bhutan, the People's Republic of China and Nepal to the north; and Bangladesh and Burma to the east. In the Indian Ocean, mainland India and the Lakshadweep Islands are in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives, while India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands share maritime border with Thailand and the Indonesian island of Sumatra in the Andaman Sea. India has a coastline of .
http://wn.com/India
Indonesia
Indonesia ( or ), officially the Republic of Indonesia (), is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia comprises 17,508 islands. With a population of around 238 million people, it is the world's fourth most populous country, and has the world's largest population of Muslims. Indonesia is a republic, with an elected legislature and president. The nation's capital city is Jakarta. The country shares land borders with Papua New Guinea, East Timor, and Malaysia. Other neighboring countries include Singapore, Philippines, Australia, and the Indian territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Indonesia is a founding member of ASEAN and a member of the G-20 major economies.
http://wn.com/Indonesia
Iran
Iran ( ), officially the Islamic Republic of Iran is a country in Central Eurasia and Western Asia. The name Iran has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was also known to the western world as Persia. Both Persia and Iran are used interchangeably in cultural contexts; however, Iran is the name used officially in political contexts.
http://wn.com/Iran
Iraq
Iraq ( or , Arabic: ), officially the Republic of Iraq (Arabic:
http://wn.com/Iraq
Israel
http://wn.com/Israel
Japan
http://wn.com/Japan
Jordan
{{Infobox Country
http://wn.com/Jordan
Kaohsiung
Kaohsiung (;old names: Takao, Takow, Takau) is a city located in southwestern Taiwan. It is enclosed by Kaohsiung County, and faces the Taiwan Strait on the west. Kaohsiung, officially named Kaohsiung City, is divided into eleven districts. The city is one of two special municipalities under administration of the Republic of China (also known as Taiwan), which grants it the same status as a province. By the end of 2010 the city will be merged with Kaohsiung County to form a larger municipality.
http://wn.com/Kaohsiung
Kaohsiung City
http://wn.com/Kaohsiung_City
Kazakhstan
http://wn.com/Kazakhstan
Keelung
http://wn.com/Keelung
Kingdom of Tungning
http://wn.com/Kingdom_of_Tungning
Kiribati
Kiribati ( ; ), officially the Republic of Kiribati, is an island nation located in the central tropical Pacific Ocean. It is composed of 32 atolls and one raised coral island, dispersed over 3.5 million square kilometres, (1,351,000 square miles) straddling the equator, and bordering the International Date Line at its easternmost point.
http://wn.com/Kiribati
Kuwait
The State of Kuwait (, Dawlat al-Kuwayt) is a sovereign Arab nation situated in the northeast of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the south, and Iraq to the north. It lies on the northwestern shore of the Persian Gulf. The name Kuwait is derived from the Arabic "akwat", the plural of "kout", meaning fortress built near water. The emirate covers an area of 17,820 square kilometres (6,880 sq mi) and has a population of about 2.7 million.
http://wn.com/Kuwait
Laos
Laos (, , or ), officially the '''Lao People's Democratic Republic''', is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia, bordered by Burma and People's Republic of China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the south and Thailand to the west.
http://wn.com/Laos
Lebanon
Lebanon ( or ; ; ), officially the Republic of Lebanon (Arabic: ; French: ), is a country on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It is bordered by Syria to the north and east, and Israel to the south. Lebanon's location at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian hinterland has dictated its rich history, and shaped a cultural identity of religious and ethnic diversity.
http://wn.com/Lebanon
Lotus Lake
http://wn.com/Lotus_Lake
Macau
Macau (), also spelled Macao () is, along with Hong Kong one of China's two special administrative regions. It lies on the western side of the Pearl River Delta, bordering Guangdong province to the north and facing the South China Sea to the east and south.
http://wn.com/Macau
Madagascar
Madagascar, or Republic of Madagascar (older name Malagasy Republic, French: ), is an island nation in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa. The main island, also called Madagascar, is the fourth-largest island in the world.
http://wn.com/Madagascar
Malaysia
Malaysia (pronounced or ) is a federal constitutional monarchy in Southeast Asia. It consists of thirteen states and three federal territories and has a total landmass of . The country is separated by the South China Sea into two regions, Peninsular Malaysia and Malaysian Borneo (also known as West and East Malaysia respectively). Malaysia shares land borders with Thailand, Indonesia, and Brunei and has maritime boundaries with Singapore, Vietnam, and the Philippines. The capital city is Kuala Lumpur, while Putrajaya is the seat of the federal government. The population as of 2009 stood at over 28 million.
http://wn.com/Malaysia
Maldives
http://wn.com/Maldives
Marshall Islands
The Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) , is a Micronesian nation of atolls and islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, just west of the International Date Line and just north of the Equator. The population is about 62,000. In 1986 independence was attained under a Compact of Free Association with the United States.
http://wn.com/Marshall_Islands
Matsu Islands
http://wn.com/Matsu_Islands
Ming Dynasty
The Ming Dynasty (; ), or Empire of the Great Ming (, also anachronistically ), was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty. The Ming, "one of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in human history", was the last dynasty in China ruled by ethnic Hans. Although the Ming capital Beijing fell in 1644 to a rebellion led by Li Zicheng who established the Shun Dynasty, which was soon replaced by the Manchu-led Qing Dynasty, regimes loyal to the Ming throne (collectively called the Southern Ming Dynasty) survived until 1662.
http://wn.com/Ming_Dynasty
Mongolia
Mongolia (; ) is a landlocked country in East and Central Asia. It is bordered by Russia to the north and the People's Republic of China to the south, east and west. Although Mongolia does not share a border with Kazakhstan, its western-most point is only from Kazakhstan's eastern tip. Ulaanbaatar, the capital and largest city, is home to about 38% of the population. Mongolia's political system is a parliamentary republic.
http://wn.com/Mongolia
Nauru
Nauru ( ), officially the Republic of Nauru and formerly known as Pleasant Island, is an island nation in Micronesia in the South Pacific. Its nearest neighbour is Banaba Island in Kiribati, 300 km to the east. Nauru is the world's smallest island nation, covering just .
http://wn.com/Nauru
Netherlands
{{Infobox country
http://wn.com/Netherlands
New Caledonia
http://wn.com/New_Caledonia
New Taipei
http://wn.com/New_Taipei
New Taipei City
http://wn.com/New_Taipei_City
New Zealand
{{Infobox Country
http://wn.com/New_Zealand
Niue
http://wn.com/Niue
North Korea
http://wn.com/North_Korea
Northern Cyprus
http://wn.com/Northern_Cyprus
Oman
Oman (pronounced ; '), officially the Sultanate of Oman''' ( ), is an Arab country in southwest Asia on the southeast coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It borders the United Arab Emirates on the northwest, Saudi Arabia on the west and Yemen on the southwest. The coast is formed by the Arabian Sea on the southeast and the Gulf of Oman on the northeast. The country also contains Madha and Musandam, two exclaves on the Gulf of Oman, south of the Strait of Hormuz and surrounded by the United Arab Emirates on the land side.
http://wn.com/Oman
Orchid Island
http://wn.com/Orchid_Island
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.
http://wn.com/Pacific_Ocean
Pakistan
{{Infobox country
http://wn.com/Pakistan
Palau
Palau , officially the Republic of Palau (), is an island nation in the Pacific Ocean, some 500 miles (800 km) east of the Philippines and 2,000 miles (3,200 km) south of Tokyo. Having emerged from United Nations trusteeship (administered by the United States) in 1994, it is one of the world's youngest and smallest sovereign states. In English, the name is sometimes spelled Belau in accordance with the native pronunciation. It was formerly also spelled Pelew.
http://wn.com/Palau
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea ( , also or ; Tok Pisin: Papua Niugini) (PNG), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands (the western portion of the island is a part of the Indonesian provinces of Papua and West Papua). It is located in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, in a region defined since the early 19th century as Melanesia. The capital is Port Moresby.
http://wn.com/Papua_New_Guinea
Penghu
The Penghu Islands (, also known as Pescadores from the Portuguese, meaning "fishermen", ) are an archipelago off the western coast of Taiwan in the Taiwan Strait consisting of 90 small islands and islets covering an area of 141 square kilometers.
http://wn.com/Penghu
Penghu Islands
#REDIRECTPenghu
http://wn.com/Penghu_Islands
Philippine Sea
http://wn.com/Philippine_Sea
Philippine Sea Plate
The Philippine Sea Plate is a tectonic plate comprising oceanic lithosphere that lies beneath the Philippine Sea, to the east of the Philippines. Most segments of the Philippines, including northern Luzon, are part of the Philippine Mobile Belt, which is geologically and tectonically separate from the Philippine Sea Plate.
http://wn.com/Philippine_Sea_Plate
Philippines
The Philippines ( ), officially known as the Republic of the Philippines (), is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam. The Sulu Sea to the southwest lies between the country and the island of Borneo, and to the south the Celebes Sea separates it from other islands of Indonesia. It is bounded on the east by the Philippine Sea. Its location on the Pacific Ring of Fire and its tropical climate make the Philippines prone to earthquakes and typhoons but have also endowed the country with natural resources and made it one of the richest areas of biodiversity in the world. An archipelago comprising 7,107 islands, the Philippines is categorized broadly into three main geographical divisions: Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. Its capital city is Manila.
http://wn.com/Philippines
Qatar
Qatar ( ; ; local pronunciation: ), also known as the State of Qatar or locally , is an Arab country, known officially as an emirate, in the Middle East, occupying the small Qatar Peninsula on the northeasterly coast of the much larger Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the south; otherwise, the Persian Gulf surrounds the state. A strait of the Persian Gulf separates Qatar from the nearby island nation of Bahrain.
http://wn.com/Qatar
Qing
http://wn.com/Qing
Qing Dynasty
http://wn.com/Qing_Dynasty
Russia
Russia (; ), also officially known as the Russian Federation (), is a state in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects. From northwest to southeast, Russia shares borders with Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland (both via Kaliningrad Oblast), Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, the People's Republic of China, Mongolia, and North Korea. It also has maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk and the United States by the Bering Strait. At , Russia is the largest country in the world, covering more than a ninth of the Earth's land area. Russia is also the ninth most populous nation with 142 million people. It extends across the whole of northern Asia and 40% of Europe, spanning 9 time zones and incorporating a wide range of environments and landforms. Russia has the world's largest reserves of mineral and energy resources. It has the world's largest forest reserves and its lakes contain approximately one-quarter of the world's fresh water.
http://wn.com/Russia
Samoa
Samoa , officially the Independent State of Samoa, formerly known as Western Samoa and German Samoa, is a country governing the western part of the Samoan Islands in the South Pacific Ocean. It became independent from New Zealand in 1962. The two main islands of Samoa are Upolu and one of the biggest islands in Polynesia, Savai'i. The capital city Apia and Faleolo International Airport are situated on the island of Upolu.
http://wn.com/Samoa
Saudi Arabia
http://wn.com/Saudi_Arabia
Singapore
{{Infobox Country
http://wn.com/Singapore
Siraya language
Siraya is a Formosan language spoken until the end of the 19th century by the indigenous Siraya people of Taiwan. Taivoa and Makatao were dialects.
http://wn.com/Siraya_language
Solomon Islands
Solomon Islands ) is a sovereign state in Oceania, east of Papua New Guinea, consisting of nearly one thousand islands. It covers a land mass of 28,400 square kilometres (10,965 sq mi). The capital, Honiara, is located on the island of Guadalcanal. The nation of the Solomon Islands is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations.
http://wn.com/Solomon_Islands
South China Sea
http://wn.com/South_China_Sea
South Korea
South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK, , ) and sometimes referred to simply as Korea, is a state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, and North Korea to the north. Its capital is Seoul. South Korea lies in a temperate climate region with a predominantly mountainous terrain. Its territory covers a total area of 99,392 square kilometers and has a population of .
http://wn.com/South_Korea
South Ossetia
South Ossetia ( or ; , Khussar Iryston; , Samxret Oseti; , Yuzhnaya Osetiya) or Tskhinvali Region (, Tsxinvalis regioni; , Tskhinvalskiy region) is a disputed region and partly recognized state in the South Caucasus, located in the territory of the South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast within the former Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic.
http://wn.com/South_Ossetia
Sri Lanka
The Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka (commonly known as Sri Lanka (, , or ); ; , ) is a country and a sovereign state off souther coast of the Indian subcontinent. A island nation in South Asia, it was till 1972 known as Ceylon (, , or ). Sri Lanka is surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait.
http://wn.com/Sri_Lanka
State of Palestine
The State of Palestine (, dawlat filastin), officially simply Palestine (, filastin), is a polity that was unilaterally declared in Algiers on 15 November 1988, when the Palestine Liberation Organization's (PLO) National Council (PNC) adopted the Palestinian Declaration of Independence.
http://wn.com/State_of_Palestine
Suriname
http://wn.com/Suriname
Syria
Syria ( ; ' or '), officially the Syrian Arab Republic (), is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest.
http://wn.com/Syria
Taichung
http://wn.com/Taichung
Taichung City
http://wn.com/Taichung_City
Tainan
{{Infobox settlement
http://wn.com/Tainan
Tainan City
http://wn.com/Tainan_City
Taipei
http://wn.com/Taipei
Taipei 101
Taipei 101 (), also known as the Taipei Financial Center, is a landmark skyscraper located in Xinyi District, Taipei, Taiwan. The building ranked officially as the world's tallest from 2004 until the opening of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai in 2010. Taipei 101, designed by C.Y. Lee & partners and constructed primarily by KTRT Joint Venture and numerous subcontractors including Samsung C&T; received the 2004 Emporis Skyscraper Award. The tower has served as an icon of modern Taiwan ever since its opening. Fireworks launched from Taipei 101 feature prominently in international New Year's Eve broadcasts and the structure appears frequently in travel literature and international media.
http://wn.com/Taipei_101
Taipei City
http://wn.com/Taipei_City
Taitung County
http://wn.com/Taitung_County
Taiwan
Taiwan, also known (especially in the past) as Formosa (from , "Beautiful Island"), is an island situated in East Asia in the Western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. It comprises most (99%) of the territory of the Republic of China (ROC) since the 1950s. The term "Taiwan" is also a common name to refer to the entire country of the Republic of China.
http://wn.com/Taiwan
Taiwan Province
{| border="1" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" align="right" width="300" class=wikitable
http://wn.com/Taiwan_Province
Taiwan Strait
The Taiwan Strait or Formosa Strait (formerly Black Ditch ()) is a 180-km-wide (111.85-mile-wide) strait between China and Taiwan. The strait is part of the South China Sea and connects to East China Sea to the northeast. The narrowest part is 131 km (81.4 mi.) wide.
http://wn.com/Taiwan_Strait
Tajikistan
Tajikistan ( or ; ), officially the Republic of Tajikistan (, Jumhurii Tojikiston; , Respublika Tadzhikistan; Jomhuri-ye Tajikestan), is a mountainous landlocked country in Central Asia. Afghanistan borders it to the south, Uzbekistan to the west, Kyrgyzstan to the north, and People's Republic of China to the east. Tajikistan also lies adjacent to Pakistan and the Gilgit-Baltistan region, separated by the narrow Wakhan Corridor.
http://wn.com/Tajikistan
Taoyuan City
Taoyuan City () is the county seat of Taoyuan County in Taiwan, located in the northwestern part of the island.
http://wn.com/Taoyuan_City
Thailand
Thailand ( or ; Ratcha Anachak Thai, ), formerly Siam (, ), is an independent country that lies in the heart of Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the west by the Andaman Sea and the southern extremity of Burma. Its maritime boundaries include Vietnam in the Gulf of Thailand to the southeast and Indonesia and India in the Andaman Sea to the southwest.
http://wn.com/Thailand
Tokelau
Tokelau () is a territory of New Zealand that consists of three tropical coral atolls with a combined land area of 10 km2 and a population of approximately 1,400 in the South Pacific Ocean. The atolls lie north of the Samoan Islands, east of Tuvalu, south of the Phoenix Islands, southwest of the more distant Line Islands (both islands groups belonging to Kiribati) and northwest of the Cook Islands.
http://wn.com/Tokelau
Tonga
http://wn.com/Tonga
Tropic of Cancer
The Tropic of Cancer, also referred to as the Northern tropic, is the circle of latitude on the Earth that marks the most northerly position at which the Sun may appear directly overhead at its zenith. This event occurs once per year, at the time of the June solstice, when the Northern Hemisphere is tilted toward the Sun to its maximum extent.
http://wn.com/Tropic_of_Cancer
Turkey
Turkey (), known officially as the Republic of Turkey (), is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in western Asia and Thrace in the Balkan region of southeastern Europe. Turkey is one of the six independent Turkic states. Turkey is bordered by eight countries: Bulgaria to the northwest; Greece to the west; Georgia to the northeast; Armenia, Azerbaijan (the exclave of Nakhchivan) and Iran to the east; and Iraq and Syria to the southeast. The Mediterranean Sea and Cyprus are to the south; the Aegean Sea to the west; and the Black Sea is to the north. The Sea of Marmara, the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles (which together form the Turkish Straits) demarcate the boundary between Eastern Thrace and Anatolia; they also separate Europe and Asia.
http://wn.com/Turkey
Turkmenistan
The Turkmenistan (), also known as Turkmenia () is one of the Turkic states in Central Asia. Until 1991, it was a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic (Turkmen SSR). Turkmenistan is one of the six independent Turkic states. It is bordered by Afghanistan to the southeast, Iran to the south and southwest, Uzbekistan to the east and northeast, Kazakhstan to the north and northwest and the Caspian Sea to the west.
http://wn.com/Turkmenistan
Tuvalu
Tuvalu ( or ), formerly known as the Ellice Islands, is a Polynesian island nation located in the Pacific Ocean, midway between Hawaii and Australia. Its nearest neighbours are Kiribati, Nauru, Samoa and Fiji. It comprises four reef islands and five true atolls. Its population of 12,373 makes it the second-least populous sovereign state in the world, with only Vatican City having fewer inhabitants. In terms of physical land size, at just Tuvalu is the fourth smallest country in the world, larger only than the Vatican City at , Monaco at and Nauru at .
http://wn.com/Tuvalu
United Arab Emirates
http://wn.com/United_Arab_Emirates
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK, or Britain) is a country and sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island nation, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of the island of Ireland, and many smaller islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK with a land border with another sovereign state, sharing it with the Republic of Ireland. Apart from this land border, the UK is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the English Channel and the Irish Sea. Great Britain is linked to continental Europe by the Channel Tunnel.
http://wn.com/United_Kingdom
United States
The United States of America (also referred to as the United States, the U.S., the USA, or America) is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. The state of Alaska is in the northwest of the continent, with Canada to the east and Russia to the west across the Bering Strait. The state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific. The country also possesses several territories in the Caribbean and Pacific.
http://wn.com/United_States
Uzbekistan
http://wn.com/Uzbekistan
Vanuatu
Vanuatu ( or ), officially the Republic of Vanuatu (, Bislama: Ripablik blong Vanuatu), is an island nation located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is some east of northern Australia, northeast of New Caledonia, west of Fiji, and southeast of the Solomon Islands, near New Guinea.
http://wn.com/Vanuatu
Vietnam
Vietnam ( ; , ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (, ), is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by People's Republic of China (PRC) to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea, referred to as East Sea (), to the east. With a population of over 86 million, Vietnam is the 13th most populous country in the world.
http://wn.com/Vietnam
Wallis and Futuna
http://wn.com/Wallis_and_Futuna
Wuchiu
http://wn.com/Wuchiu
Yemen
http://wn.com/Yemen
Yunlin
http://wn.com/Yunlin
Yunlin County
Yunlin County () is a county in Western Taiwan. Yunlin County is officially a county of Taiwan Province, Republic of China.
http://wn.com/Yunlin_County

Ang Lee
http://wn.com/Ang_Lee
Apo Hsu
http://wn.com/Apo_Hsu
Buddhism
http://wn.com/Buddhism
Bunun people
http://wn.com/Bunun_people
Chen Shui-bian
http://wn.com/Chen_Shui-bian
Chen Yi (Kuomintang)
http://wn.com/Chen_Yi_(Kuomintang)
Chiang Ching-kuo
http://wn.com/Chiang_Ching-kuo
Chiang Kai-shek
http://wn.com/Chiang_Kai-shek
Chiefdom
A chiefdom is a type of complex society of varying degrees of centralization that is led by an individual known as a chief.
http://wn.com/Chiefdom
Chin-hui Tsao
Chin-Hui Tsao (; born June 2, 1981 in Hualien County, Taiwan) is a former Major League Baseball and CPBL pitcher. He is the second major league player and the first major league pitcher of Republic of China(commonly known as Taiwan) nationality, and like the first, former Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Chin-Feng Chen, he is a Taiwanese aborigine (Amis). After the 2009 Taiwan Series he was found involved in game-fixing scandals and was expelled by CPBL on February 10, 2010.
http://wn.com/Chin-hui_Tsao
Chin-lung Hu
Hu Chin-lung (; born February 2, 1984) is a Major League Baseball shortstop for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Hu is the fifth MLB player, and the first MLB infielder, from Taiwan. He has the shortest surname for a player in Major League history.
http://wn.com/Chin-lung_Hu
China
China is seen variously as an ancient civilization extending over a large area in East Asia, a nation and/or a multinational entity.
http://wn.com/China
Chinese people
The term Chinese people may refer to any of the following:
http://wn.com/Chinese_people
Cultural Revolution
http://wn.com/Cultural_Revolution
Dwight D. Eisenhower
http://wn.com/Dwight_D_Eisenhower
Edward Yang
http://wn.com/Edward_Yang
Fu-Te Ni
Fu-Te Ni (; born November 14, 1982) is a Major League Baseball relief pitcher in the Detroit Tigers organization. Before joining the Tigers, Ni was a professional baseball player from Taiwan's Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL). After his franchise, the Chinatrust Whales, disbanded in November 11, 2008, Ni signed a minor league contract with the Toledo Mud Hens, the Triple-A affiliate of the Tigers, in 2009.
http://wn.com/Fu-Te_Ni
Fujian
is a province on the southeast coast of China. Fujian borders Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, and Guangdong to the south. Taiwan lies to the east, across the Taiwan Strait. The name Fujian came from the combination of Fuzhou and Jian'ou, two cities in Fujian, during the Tang Dynasty. It is one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse provinces in China with Han Chinese majority.
http://wn.com/Fujian
Guangdong
Guangdong () is a province on the southern coast of People's Republic of China. The province was previously often written with the alternative English name Kwangtung Province. It surpassed Henan and Sichuan to become the most populous province in China in January 2005, registering 79 million permanent residents and 31 million migrants who lived in the province for at least six months of the year. The provincial capital Guangzhou and economic hub Shenzhen are amongst the most populous and important cities in China.
http://wn.com/Guangdong
Hakka people
http://wn.com/Hakka_people
Harry S. Truman
http://wn.com/Harry_S_Truman
Hong Kong
Hong Kong () is one of two special administrative regions (SARs) of the People's Republic of China (PRC), the other being Macau. Situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour. With a land mass of and a population of seven million people, Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated areas in the world. Hong Kong's population is 95 percent ethnic Chinese and 5 percent from other groups. Hong Kong's Han Chinese majority originate mainly from the cities of Guangzhou and Taishan in the neighbouring Guangdong province.
http://wn.com/Hong_Kong
Hong-Chih Kuo
Hong-Chih Kuo (; born July 23, 1981 in Tainan, Taiwan) is a Major League Baseball pitcher with the Los Angeles Dodgers. When Kuo made his debut in , he became the fourth MLB player from Taiwan (after Chin-Feng Chen, Chin-hui Tsao, and Chien-Ming Wang).
http://wn.com/Hong-Chih_Kuo
Hou Hsiao-hsien
http://wn.com/Hou_Hsiao-hsien
Jared Diamond
Jared Mason Diamond (born September 10, 1937) is an American scientist and author whose work draws from a variety of fields. He is currently Professor of Geography and Physiology at UCLA. He is best known for the award-winning popular science books The Third Chimpanzee; Guns, Germs, and Steel; and .
http://wn.com/Jared_Diamond
Kavalan people
:Kavalan is also the ancient name for Yilan County, Taiwan.
http://wn.com/Kavalan_people
Kwang-chih Chang
http://wn.com/Kwang-chih_Chang
Lee Teng-hui
Lee Teng-hui (; born 15 January 1923) is a politician of the Republic of China (commonly known as Taiwan). He was the 7th, 8th, and 9th-term President of the Republic of China and Chairman of the Kuomintang (KMT) from 1988 to 2000. He presided over major advancements in democratic reforms including his own re-election which marked the first direct presidential election for the Republic of China. The first native Taiwanese to become ROC president and KMT chairman, Lee promoted the Taiwanese localization movement and led an aggressive foreign policy to gain diplomatic allies. Critics accused him of betraying the party he headed, secret support of Taiwanese independence, and involvement in corruption (black gold politics).
http://wn.com/Lee_Teng-hui
Ma Ying-jeou
Ma Ying-jeou (; born July 13, 1950) is the 12th term and current President of the Republic of China (ROC), commonly known as Taiwan, and the Chairman of the Kuomintang Party, also known as the Chinese Nationalist Party. He formerly served as Justice Minister from 1993 to 1996, Mayor of Taipei from 1998 to 2006, and Chairman of the Kuomintang (KMT) from 2005 to 2007. Ma was elected Mayor of Taipei in 1998 and re-elected in 2002. He was elected Chairman of the Kuomintang by party members on July 16, 2005. He announced his resignation on February 13, 2007, after being indicted by the Taiwan High Prosecutors Office on charges of misuse of mayoral funds during his tenure as the mayor of Taipei; he was later cleared of all charges. Ma subsequently won the presidency by 58.45% of the popular vote in the ROC presidential election of 2008. He was sworn into office as president on May 20, 2008, and sworn in as the Chairman of the Kuomintang on October 17, 2009.
http://wn.com/Ma_Ying-jeou
Macau
Macau (), also spelled Macao () is, along with Hong Kong one of China's two special administrative regions. It lies on the western side of the Pearl River Delta, bordering Guangdong province to the north and facing the South China Sea to the east and south.
http://wn.com/Macau
Mainland China
Mainland China, Continental China, the Chinese mainland or simply the mainland, is a geopolitical term that refers to the area under the jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China (PRC). This term excludes the PRC Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macau.
http://wn.com/Mainland_China
Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong (; December 26, 1893 September 9, 1976) was a Han Chinese revolutionary, political theorist and communist leader. He led the People's Republic of China (PRC) from its establishment in 1949 until his death in 1976. His theoretical contribution to Marxism-Leninism, military strategies, and his brand of Communist policies are now collectively known as Maoism.
http://wn.com/Mao_Zedong
Matsu Islands
http://wn.com/Matsu_Islands
Nansha Islands
http://wn.com/Nansha_Islands
One-China policy
http://wn.com/One-China_policy
Paiwan people
The Paiwan () are an aboriginal tribe of Taiwan. They speak the Paiwan language. In the year 2000 the Paiwan numbered 70,331. This was approximately 17.7% of Taiwan's total indigenous population, making them the third-largest tribal group.
http://wn.com/Paiwan_people
Paracel Islands
http://wn.com/Paracel_Islands
Portuguese people
The Portuguese () are an ethnic group or nation native to the country of Portugal, in the west of the Iberian peninsula of south-west Europe. Their language is Portuguese, and Roman Catholicism is the predominant religion.
http://wn.com/Portuguese_people
Pratas Islands
The Pratas Islands or Dongsha Islands ( ) consists of three islands located in northeastern South China Sea, southeast of Hong Kong. The islands are governed by the Republic of China (Taiwan). The People's Republic of China claims sovereignty over these islands along with all other territories currently controlled by the Republic of China.
http://wn.com/Pratas_Islands
Province (China)
A province, in the context of Chinese government, is a translation of sheng (), which is an administrative division. Together with municipalities, autonomous regions, and the special administrative regions, provinces make up the first level (known as the province level) of administrative division of People's Republic of China (PRC or commonly "China" for short). Provinces are also the first level division of the Republic of China, commonly known as "Taiwan", although this role has been diminished. Provinces were the first level division of the entire China (Republic of China) between 1912 to 1949 before it split into two Chinas in 1949.
http://wn.com/Province_(China)
Puyuma people
http://wn.com/Puyuma_people
Rikichi Andō
was a general in the Imperial Japanese Army and 19th and final Japanese Governor-General of Taiwan from 30 December 1944 to October 1945.
http://wn.com/Rikichi_Andō
Rufus Yerxa
Rufus H. Yerxa (born 1951) is currently Deputy Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO). He has served in this position since 2002. He was the former Chief International Counsel for Monsanto Company.
http://wn.com/Rufus_Yerxa
Rukai people
http://wn.com/Rukai_people
Saisiyat people
http://wn.com/Saisiyat_people
Shi Lang
Shi Lang (; 1621-1696) was a Ming-Qing admiral who had extensive experience in southeastern China. He was commander-in-chief of the Manchu fleets which destroyed the power of the Zheng family and conquered Kingdom of Tungning (now Taiwan) in 1681.
http://wn.com/Shi_Lang
Shih Ming-teh
Shih Ming-te or Shih Ming-teh (, a.k.a. Nori; born January 15, 1941 in Kaohsiung) was a political prisoner for 25-and-a-half years in the Republic of China (Taiwan).
http://wn.com/Shih_Ming-teh
South China Sea
http://wn.com/South_China_Sea
Spratly Islands
The Spratly Islands are a group of more than 750 reefs, islets, atolls, cays, and islands in the South China Sea between Brunei, China, Malaysia, Philippines and Vietnam. They comprise less than four square kilometers of land area, spread over more than 425,000 square kilometers of sea. The Spratlys are part of the three archipelagos of the South China Sea, comprising more than 30,000 islands and reefs which so complicates geography, governance and economics in that region of Southeast Asia. Such small and remote islands have little economic value in themselves, but are important in establishing international boundaries. There are no native islanders but there are rich fishing grounds and initial surveys indicate the islands may be near significant oil and gas deposits.
http://wn.com/Spratly_Islands
Sun Yat-sen
Sun Yat-sen (; 12 November 1866 – 12 March 1925) was a Chinese revolutionary and political leader. As the foremost pioneer of Nationalist China, Sun is frequently referred to as the Founding Father of Republican China, a view agreed upon by both Mainland China and Taiwan. Sun played an instrumental role in inspiring the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty, the last imperial dynasty of China, which began in October 1911. He was the first provisional president when the Republic of China (ROC) was founded in 1912 and later co-founded the ''Chinese National People's Party or Kuomintang'' (KMT) where he served as its first leader. Sun was a uniting figure in post-Imperial China, and remains unique among 20th-century Chinese politicians for being widely revered amongst the people from both sides of the Taiwan Strait.
http://wn.com/Sun_Yat-sen
Taiping Island
http://wn.com/Taiping_Island
Taiwan
Taiwan, also known (especially in the past) as Formosa (from , "Beautiful Island"), is an island situated in East Asia in the Western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. It comprises most (99%) of the territory of the Republic of China (ROC) since the 1950s. The term "Taiwan" is also a common name to refer to the entire country of the Republic of China.
http://wn.com/Taiwan
Taiwan, China
#REDIRECT Taiwan Province, People's Republic of China
http://wn.com/Taiwan_China
Taiwanese aborigines
http://wn.com/Taiwanese_aborigines
Taiwanese people
Taiwanese people () may refer to individuals who either claim or are imputed cultural identity focused on the island of Taiwan and/or Taiwan Area which have been governed by the Republic of China since 1945. At least three competing (occasionally overlapping) paradigms are used to identify someone as a Taiwanese person: a nationalist criteria, self-identification (including the concept of "New Taiwanese") criteria, and socio-cultural criteria. These standards are fluid, in keeping with an evolving social and political milieu. The complexity resulting from competing and evolving standards is compounded by a larger dispute regarding Taiwan's identity crisis, the political status of Taiwan, and its potential de jure Taiwan independence or political integration with the People's Republic of China.
http://wn.com/Taiwanese_people
Truku people
http://wn.com/Truku_people
Tsai Ming-Liang
http://wn.com/Tsai_Ming-Liang
Tsou people
http://wn.com/Tsou_people
Wang Chien-shien
http://wn.com/Wang_Chien-shien
Wang Tuoh
http://wn.com/Wang_Tuoh
Women in Taiwan
Women in Taiwan is a reference to Taiwanese women and their legal, social, workplace, and cultural status in Taiwan. Their status as women in Taiwan has been based on and affected by the "traditional patriarchal views and social structure" within Taiwanese society.
http://wn.com/Women_in_Taiwan
Wu Den-yih
http://wn.com/Wu_Den-yih
Yami people
http://wn.com/Yami_people
Yani Tseng
Yani Tseng () (born 23 January 1989) is a professional golfer from Taiwan currently playing on the LPGA Tour. She is the youngest player in LPGA history to win three career major championships.
http://wn.com/Yani_Tseng
Zheng Jing
Zheng Jing () (1642 - 1681) was a seventeenth century Chinese warlord and Ming Dynasty loyalist. He was the eldest son of Koxinga and grandson of pirate-merchant Zheng Zhilong. After the conquest of Taiwan in 1662 by his father, Zheng Jing controlled the military forces in Xiamen and Quemoy on his father's behalf. Upon the death of his father six months later, Zheng Jing contested throne as the King of Taiwan with his uncle, Zheng Shixi. The dispute was resolved in Zheng Jing's favor after he successfully landed an army in Taiwan despite strong opposition by the forces of his uncle. This was followed by Zheng Shixi withdrawing his claim.
http://wn.com/Zheng_Jing

Taiwan Destination Report

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published: 29 Feb 2012

China VS Taiwan

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published: 22 Sep 2011

Beautiful Taiwan

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published: 21 Mar 2012

Taiwan Special 1/3 - Tips on Travel Photography (Ep.1)

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published: 02 Jun 2012

Taiwan's Opposition Thaws Relations with Mainland Trip (LinkAsia: 10/19/12)

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published: 22 Oct 2012

Rupert Hammond-Chambers: Taiwan must be proactive

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published: 26 Oct 2012

Taiwan University Nightlife

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published: 04 Dec 2011

Taiwan Touch Your Heart

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published: 30 Sep 2006

Betelnut Girls 檳榔西施Taiwan

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published: 24 Jul 2006

Wandering Taiwan

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published: 09 Jun 2012

taiwan funny (with some vulgar language)

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published: 19 Apr 2007

Visiting a Mall in Taiwan - Hsinchu 7

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published: 21 Nov 2011

Taiwan, China and Japan's Maritime Dispute (Dispatch)

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published: 25 Sep 2012

Taiwanese - Friendly, Crazy, Cool

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published: 29 Mar 2012

Coffee Time

Every cup of coffee contains its own soul, extracted from your feeling today.every cup of ...

published: 08 May 2011

Author: wan-tzu

Meme Proposal | Tim * Audrey

published: 11 Dec 2011

Author: Crazy Monkey Studio

No Robots

A student film, from San Jose State University, which is directed by Kimberly Knoll (USA)...

published: 28 Apr 2011

Author: YungHan Chang

out of sight

This is a graduation Production made by three students graduated from the National Taiwan ...

published: 07 Sep 2010

Author: kynight

Taipei

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published: 03 May 2011

Taipei impressions

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published: 08 Jun 2006

Travelogue in Taiwan - Taipei City [CCTV-NEWS]

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published: 30 Jul 2011

Taipei Taiwan 2012

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published: 03 Mar 2012

Shark Fin Soup in Taipei - Gordon Ramsay

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published: 14 Oct 2011

Taipei

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published: 01 May 2010

S2 finals Taipei Assassins press conference after beating Moscow 5

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published: 11 Oct 2012

A Late Night Escape in Taipei - Jeremy Lin ft. David Lee

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published: 06 Sep 2012

(Ep3) FEELING ADVENTUROUS: Taipei Night Market (Graci In The Kitchen)

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published: 17 Aug 2012

TAIWAN: Streets of Taipei

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published: 13 Aug 2012

Taipei Assassins Manager Erika at the League of Legends World Championships

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published: 11 Oct 2012

Best Xiehuang Xiaolong Bao in Taipei

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published: 01 Nov 2011

Experience Taipei.wmv

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published: 22 Jan 2012

[GRAND FINAL #1] Azubu Frost vs Taipei Assassins - Season 2 World Championship

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published: 14 Oct 2012

Coffee Time

Every cup of coffee contains its own soul, extracted from your feeling today.every cup of ...

published: 08 May 2011

Author: wan-tzu

Meme Proposal | Tim * Audrey

published: 11 Dec 2011

Author: Crazy Monkey Studio

No Robots

A student film, from San Jose State University, which is directed by Kimberly Knoll (USA)...

published: 28 Apr 2011

Author: YungHan Chang

out of sight

This is a graduation Production made by three students graduated from the National Taiwan ...

published: 07 Sep 2010

Author: kynight

Drive from Taipei to New Taipei City - 36KM in 1 Minute

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published: 18 Oct 2011

Bitan Lake ( 碧潭) in Xindian (新店), New Taipei City (新北市)

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published: 28 Feb 2011

Driving in New Taipei City - part 1

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published: 07 Dec 2011

Jiufen (九份), New Taipei City, Taiwan

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published: 27 Apr 2012

Amazing Electrical Storm over Xindian, New Taipei City Taiwan on April 24, 2012!

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published: 28 Apr 2012

NEW TAIPEI CITY 5 vs 5 SOULSKOOL TOP8

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published: 15 Oct 2012

City of Taiwan ( New Taipei City ) 2012

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published: 21 Jan 2012

new taipei city international street dancecompetition boysinthehood選秀

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published: 14 Oct 2012

new taipei city international street dancecompetition boysinthehood 16選8

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published: 14 Oct 2012

new taipei city international street dancecompetition boysinthehood 8選4 1

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published: 14 Oct 2012

龍山寺生活圈剪影(Lungshan Temple New Taipei city)

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published: 05 Mar 2012

Paul Van Dyk Live At New Taipei City Exhibition Hall 2011 Evolution World Tour.MP4

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published: 18 Sep 2011

Taiwan, New Taipei City, Jioufen street food snacks

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published: 27 Jul 2011

Travelogue in Taiwan - Taipei City [CCTV-NEWS]

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published: 30 Jul 2011

Coffee Time

Every cup of coffee contains its own soul, extracted from your feeling today.every cup of ...

published: 08 May 2011

Author: wan-tzu

Meme Proposal | Tim * Audrey

published: 11 Dec 2011

Author: Crazy Monkey Studio

No Robots

A student film, from San Jose State University, which is directed by Kimberly Knoll (USA)...

published: 28 Apr 2011

Author: YungHan Chang

out of sight

This is a graduation Production made by three students graduated from the National Taiwan ...

published: 07 Sep 2010

Author: kynight

Arrival in Kaohsiung City, TAIWAN (ROC)

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published: 12 Dec 2011

Six Degrees: Kaohsiung Taiwan (高雄台灣) (1/5)

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published: 07 Jul 2008

Travelogue in Taiwan - Mazu Tribe, Kaohsiung, Chaotian Temple, Kenting and Meinong

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published: 31 Jul 2011

High Speed Train from Kaohsiung to Taipei (Taiwan)

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published: 21 Mar 2012

Taiwan Kaohsiung City

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published: 31 Jan 2011

National Geographic Channel--Mega Cities--KAOHSIUNG--TAIWAN

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published: 07 Feb 2012

Taxi Drive to Kaohsiung's Zuoying Train Station

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published: 18 Mar 2012

Ode to Kaohsiung [Time Lapse]

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published: 15 Sep 2011

Kaohsiung's Liuhe Night Market, Taiwan

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published: 16 Mar 2012

Kaohsiung Rockers - Feel Good Week

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published: 27 Oct 2012

LONG DAT O KAOHSIUNG

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published: 22 Oct 2012

Ellen's Dance Dare (Kaohsiung, Taiwan)

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published: 28 Apr 2012

Asymptote Architecture: KAOHSIUNG PORT TERMINAL, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, 2010

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published: 02 Feb 2011

SENSATION TAIWAN-KAOHSIUNG 29-09-2012 WARM UP MIX DJ VINTRONIC SIMON

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published: 03 Sep 2012

Coffee Time

Every cup of coffee contains its own soul, extracted from your feeling today.every cup of ...

published: 08 May 2011

Author: wan-tzu

Meme Proposal | Tim * Audrey

published: 11 Dec 2011

Author: Crazy Monkey Studio

No Robots

A student film, from San Jose State University, which is directed by Kimberly Knoll (USA)...

published: 28 Apr 2011

Author: YungHan Chang

out of sight

This is a graduation Production made by three students graduated from the National Taiwan ...

published: 07 Sep 2010

Author: kynight

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Photo: WN / Yolanda Leyba

Virgin for sale: Website auctions off virginity of college student for $780,000 (Video)

The Examiner

26 Oct 2012

Related topics virgin auctionvirginity auction Advertisement A 20 year-old Brazilian student has sold her virginity for the sum of $780,000 through an online auction on a website simply called Virgins...

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Photo: Creative Commons / Neogeolegend

Kim Jong-il Funeral ceremony .Kim Jong-il died of a suspected heart attack on 17 December 2011 at 08:30 while traveling by train to an area outside Pyongyang.

N. Korean Army General Executed with Mortar for Drinking

Novosti

25 Oct 2012

MOSCOW, October 25 (RIA Novosti) - A high-ranking North Korean Army official was reportedly executed with a mortar round for drinking liquor during the 100-day...

Chat

Photo: US Navy / MCS2 Justin Ailes

Hurricane Sandy makes landfall at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, October 24, 2012.

Slow-moving Hurricane Sandy marches toward East Coast

CNBC

27 Oct 2012

MIAMI (Reuters) - Hurricane Sandy pulled away from the Bahamas on Saturday after killing at least 41 people in the Caribbean, beginning a slow march toward the U.S. East Coast where it threatens to...

Chat

Photo: AP / Khin Maung Win

A Rakhine refugee lies on a bed under medical treatment at Sittwe hospital in Sittwe, Rakhine State, western Myanmar, Friday, Oct. 26, 2012.

Burma: HRW satellite images 'show Rakhine destruction'

BBC News

27 Oct 2012

A human rights group has released pictures showing what appears to be the destruction of a western Burmese district riven by ethnic unrest. Human Rights Watch says more than 800 buildings and...

Chat

Photo: AP / Carolyn Kaster

President Barack Obama speaks at a campaign event at Chicago Cultural Center, Friday, June 1, 2012, in Chicago.

Obama warns GOP not to undo Wall Street law

WPXI

27 Oct 2012

President Barack Obama is warning congressional Republicans not to undo financial regulations he signed two years ago, taking specific note of the work of a consumer agency created by the new law. In...

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Barla set for Taiwan meet JAYESH THAKER Shanti Mukta Barla at JRD Tata Sports Complex ... 28 Oct 2012

The Telegraph India Jamshedpur, Oct....(size: 0.1Kb)

Suzann Pettersen wins Taiwan Championship for second straight LPGA Tour victory 28 Oct 2012

The Washington Post YANG MEI, Taiwan — Suzann Pettersen won the Taiwan Championship on Sunday for her second straight LPGA Tour victory, rallying to beat Inbee Park by three strokes. Pettersen closed with a 3-under 69 at Sunrise to finish at 19...(size: 1.5Kb)

Suzann Pettersen wins Taiwan Championship 28 Oct 2012

Newsday Photos...(size: 1.3Kb)

In-form Norwegian Suzann Pettersen wins again in Taiwan 28 Oct 2012

Sky Sports Suzann Pettersen claimed her second LPGA Tour title in eight days, by securing a three-stroke victory in Taiwan....(size: 0.9Kb)

Sunrise LPGA Taiwan Championship R4 28 Oct 2012

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South Korea’s Inbee Park shoots 64 to lead Taiwan Championship by 2 strokes after 3rd round 27 Oct 2012

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Inbee Park leads Taiwan Championship by 2 strokes 27 Oct 2012

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South Korea's Inbee Park shoots 64 to lead Taiwan Championship by 2 strokes after 3rd round 27 Oct 2012

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Thousands in Taiwan rally for gay marriage 27 Oct 2012

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Park leads Pettersen by 2 in Taiwan 27 Oct 2012

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Eagle swoop gives Park In-Bee clear air in Taiwan 27 Oct 2012

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This article is about the country. For other uses, see Taiwan (disambiguation).

"Republic of China" redirects here. For other uses, see Republic of China (disambiguation).

Republic of China

中華民國
Zhōnghuá Mínguó^[a]


Flag	Emblem

Anthem:
"National Anthem of the Republic of China"
《中華民國國歌》

"National Flag Anthem"
《中華民國國旗歌》

depicting the Free area of the Republic of China

Capital Taipei^[1]
25°02′N 121°38′E / 25.033°N 121.633°E / 25.033; 121.633

Largest city New Taipei

Official language(s) Mandarin^[2]

Recognised regional languages Taiwanese
Hakka
Formosan languages^[3]

Official scripts

Traditional Chinese

Ethnic groups

98% Han^[4]^[5]

70% Hoklo
14% Hakka
14% Mainlanders^[b]

2% Taiwanese aborigines^[c]

Demonym Taiwanese^[6]^[7]^[8] or Chinese^[d] or both

Government

Unitary semi-presidential republic

- President Ma Ying-jeou (KMT)^[9]

- Vice President Wu Den-yih (KMT)^[10]

- Premier Sean Chen (KMT)^[11]

- President of the Legislative Yuan Wang Jin-pyng (KMT)^[12]

- President of the Judicial Yuan Rai Hau-min^[13]

- President of the Control Yuan Wang Chien-shien (NP)^[14]

- President of the Examination Yuan Kuan Chung (KMT)^[15]

Legislature Legislative Yuan

Establishment

Xinhai Revolution

- Wuchang Uprising 10 October 1911

- Republic established 1 January 1912

- Constitution 25 December 1947

Area

- Total 36,192^[16] km² (136th)
13,974 sq mi

- Water (%) 10.34

Population

- 2012 estimate 23,239,268^[16] (50th)

- Density 641/km² (17th)
1,662/sq mi

GDP (PPP) 2011 estimate

- Total $876.035 billion^[17] (19th)

- Per capita $37,719^[17] (19th)

GDP (nominal) 2011 estimate

- Total $466.832 billion^[17] (26th)

- Per capita $20,100^[17] (39th)

Gini (2010) 34.2^[18] (medium)

HDI (2010) 0.868*^[e]^[19] (Very high)

Currency New Taiwan dollar (NT$) (TWD)

Time zone CST (UTC +8)

- Summer (DST) not observed (UTC +8)

Date formats yyyy-mm-dd
yyyy年m月d日
(CE; CE+2697) or 民國yy年m月d日

Drives on the right

ISO 3166 code

Internet TLD .tw, .台灣, .台湾^[20]

Taiwan

臺灣 or 台灣

Transcriptions
Hakka
- Romanization	Thòi-vàn
Mandarin
- Hanyu Pinyin	Táiwān
- Tongyong Pinyin	Táiwan
- Wade–Giles	T'ai²-wan¹
- Postal Map	Taiwan
- Gwoyeu Romatzyh	Tair'uan
- MPS2	Táiwān
- Bopomofo	ㄊㄞˊ ㄨㄢ
Min
- Hokkien POJ	Tâi-oân
- Tâi-Lô	Tâi-uân
- Min-dong BUC	Dài-uăng
Cantonese (Yue)
- Jyutping	Toi⁴ Waan¹

Republic of China

Transcriptions
Gan
- Romanization	tung¹ fa⁴ min⁴ koet⁷
Hakka
- Romanization	Chûng-fà Mìn-koet
Mandarin
- Hanyu Pinyin	Zhōnghuá Mínguó
- Tongyong Pinyin	Jhonghuá Mínguó
- Wade–Giles	Chung¹-hua² Min²-kuo²
- Postal Map	Chunghwa Minkwo
- Gwoyeu Romatzyh	Jonghwa Min'gwo
- MPS2	Jūng-huá Mín-guó
- Bopomofo	ㄓㄨㄥㄏㄨㄚˊ ㄇㄧㄣˊ ㄍㄨㄛˊ
Min
- Hokkien POJ	Tiong-hôa Bîn-kok
- Min-dong BUC	Dṳ̆ng-huà Mìng-guók
Wu
- Romanization	tson^平 gho^平 min^平 koh^入
Cantonese (Yue)
- Jyutping	zung¹ waa⁴ man⁴ gwok³

This article contains Chinese text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Chinese characters.

Taiwan (ⁱ/ˌtaɪˈwɑːn/ TY-WAHN; Chinese: 臺灣 or 台灣; pinyin: Táiwān; see below), officially the Republic of China (ROC; Chinese: 中華民國; pinyin: Zhōnghuá Mínguó), is a state in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China now governs the island of Taiwan (formerly known as Formosa), which forms over 99% of its current territory,^[f] as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu, and other minor islands. Neighboring states include the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east and northeast, and the Philippines to the south. Taipei is the capital city and economic and cultural centre of the country,^[1] and New Taipei is the most populous city.

The earliest evidence of inhabitation of Taiwan dates back to the late Paleolithic era. The island of Taiwan was mainly inhabited by Taiwanese aborigines before being colonized in the 17th century by the Dutch and the Spanish Empire. The first Han Chinese polity on Taiwan began when Koxinga's troops defeated Dutch forces and established the Kingdom of Tungning. The island was subsequently ruled by the Qing Dynasty after the kingdom's defeat in the Battle of Penghu in 1683, a period that lasted for over 200 years. Following Japan's victory over the Qing Dynasty in the first Sino-Japanese war, Taiwan was ceded to Japan under the Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895.

The Republic of China was established in mainland China in 1912 and governed varying amounts of the mainland until 1949. At the end of World War II, Japan surrendered Taiwan and associated islands to ROC forces. When Communist forces took control of mainland China and founded the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, the ROC government moved to Taiwan. Since the founding of the PRC, international recognition of the ROC has gradually eroded as most countries switched recognition to the PRC. In 1971, the PRC assumed China's seat at the United Nations. Only 23 states now recognize the ROC as a sovereign state and maintain formal diplomatic relations with it.

Officially, the ROC government still claims sovereignty over all of "China", in a definition that includes mainland China and Mongolia, as well as Taiwan, via the ROC Constitution^[21] but has not made retaking the mainland a political goal since 1992.^[22] However, the government's stance on whether "retaking" or "reuniting" with China is desired or whether Taiwan and China are separate countries or are regions of one country depends on the which administration is in power (See Politics below). Meanwhile, the PRC also officially asserts itself to be the sole legal representation of China and actively claims Taiwan to be under its sovereignty, denying the status and existence of ROC as a sovereign state. It has not renounced the use of force as a response to any formal declaration of Taiwanese independence, or if it deems peaceful reunification no longer possible.^[23] Cross-strait relations between Taiwan and China as well as issues of national identity within the country are important factors in Taiwanese politics and a cause of social and political division among political parties and their respective supporters.

In the 1980s and early 1990s, Taiwan evolved into a multi-party democracy with universal suffrage. Building on the infrastructure and education improvements initiated during the Japanese era, Taiwan has experienced rapid economic growth and industrialization during the latter half of the 20th century and is now an advanced industrial economy. It is one of the Four Asian Tigers and a member of the WTO and APEC. The 19th-largest economy in the world,^[24]^[25] its advanced technology industry plays a key role in the global economy. Taiwan is ranked highly in terms of freedom of the press, health care,^[26] public education, economic freedom, and human development.^[e]^[19]^[27]

1 Names
2 History
3 Geography
- 3.1 Geology
4 Political and legal status
5 Government
6 Politics
7 Military
8 Administrative divisions
9 Economy
10 Education
11 Demographics
12 Public health
13 Culture
- 13.1 Sports
- 13.2 Calendar
14 See also
15 Notes
16 References
17 Works cited
18 Further reading
19 External links

[edit] Names

Main article: Names of the Republic of China

History [link]

Main article: History of Taiwan

Evidence of inhabitation on Taiwan dates back to the late Paleolithic era. Organized control of parts of Taiwan was first established by the Dutch East India Company in the 17th century and from 1683, Taiwan was placed under Qing rule until its cession to Japan in 1895, in the aftermath of the First Sino-Japanese War.

On mainland China, the rule of Qing Dynasty ended when the Republic of China was formally established in 1912. The early years of the nation were rife with fights for power among factions. From the latter half of the 1920s, rivalry intensified between the ruling Kuomintang and the Communist Party of China, eventually leading to the Chinese Civil War.

In 1945, after the end of World War II, Taiwan was surrendered to ROC forces. In 1949, the central government of the ROC evacuated to Taiwan after it lost the civil war to the communists. The government on Taiwan was authoritarian until gradual liberalization from the mid-1980s onwards.

Aboriginal Taiwan [link]

Main article: Prehistory of Taiwan

A young Tsou man

Taiwan was joined to the Asian mainland in the Late Pleistocene, until sea levels rose about 10,000 years ago. Fragmentary human remains have been found on the island, dated 20,000 to 30,000 years ago, as well as later artifacts of a Paleolithic culture.^[32]^[33]^[34]

More than 4,000 years ago farmers from mainland China, believed to be the ancestors of current Taiwanese aborigines, settled on Taiwan. Their languages belong to the Austronesian language family, which also includes the Malayo-Polynesian languages spanning a huge area from Madagascar to Easter Island. The aboriginal languages on Taiwan show much greater diversity than the rest of Austronesian put together, leading linguists to propose Taiwan as the Urheimat of the family, from which sea-faring peoples dispersed across southeast Asia and the Pacific and Indian Oceans.^[35]^[36]

Han Chinese began settling in the Penghu islands in the 13th century, but Taiwan's hostile tribes and its lack of trade resources valued in that era rendered it unattractive to all but "occasional adventurers or fishermen engaging in barter" until the 16th century.^[37]

Opening in the 17th century [link]

Main articles: Dutch Formosa, Spanish Formosa, and Kingdom of Tungning

Overview of Fort Zeelandia, painted around 1635

The Dutch East India Company attempted to establish a trading outpost on the Penghu Islands (Pescadores) in 1622, but were driven off by the Ming authorities.^[38] In 1624, the Company established a stronghold called Fort Zeelandia on an coastal islet of Tayouan, which is now part of the main island at Anping, Tainan.^[29] David Wright, a Scottish agent of the Company who lived on the island in the 1650s, described the lowland areas of the island as being divided among 11 chiefdoms ranging in size from two settlements to 72. Some of these fell under Dutch control while others remained independent.^[29]^[39] The Company began to import laborers from Fujian and Penghu (Pescadores), many of whom settled.^[38]

In 1626, the Spanish landed on and occupied northern Taiwan, at the ports of Keelung and Tamsui, as a base to extend their trading. This colonial period lasted sixteen years until 1642, when the last Spanish fortress fell to Dutch forces.

Following the fall of the Ming Dynasty, Koxinga (Zheng Chenggong), a self-styled Ming loyalist, arrived on the island and captured Fort Zeelandia in 1662, expelling the Dutch government and military from the island. Koxinga established the Kingdom of Tungning (1662–1683), with his capital at Tainan. He and his heirs, Zheng Jing, who ruled from 1662 to 1682, and Zheng Keshuang, who ruled less than a year, continued to launch raids on the south-east coast of mainland China well into the Qing Dynasty.^[38]

Qing rule [link]

Main article: Taiwan under Qing Dynasty rule

Hunting deer. Painted in 1746.

In 1683, following the defeat of Koxinga's grandson by an armada led by Admiral Shi Lang of southern Fujian, the Qing formally annexed Taiwan, placing it under the jurisdiction of Fujian province. The Qing imperial government tried to reduce piracy and vagrancy in the area, issuing a series of edicts to manage immigration and respect aboriginal land rights. Immigrants mostly from southern Fujian continued to enter Taiwan. The border between taxpaying lands and "savage" lands shifted eastward, with some aborigines becoming Sinicized while others retreated into the mountains. During this time, there were a number of conflicts between Chinese from different regions of southern Fujian, and between southern Fujian Chinese and aborigines.^[28]

Northern Taiwan and the Penghu Islands were the scene of subsidiary campaigns in the Sino-French War (August 1884 to April 1885). The French occupied Keelung on 1 October 1884, but were repulsed from Tamsui a few days later. The French won some tactical victories but were unable to exploit them and the Keelung Campaign ended in stalemate. The Pescadores Campaign, beginning on 31 March 1885, was a French victory, but had no long-term consequences. The French evacuated both Keelung and the Penghu archipelago after the end of the war.

In 1885, the Qing redesignated Taiwan Prefecture of Fujian as Taiwan Province, the twentieth in the empire, with its capital at Taipei.^[28] This was accompanied by a modernization drive that included building Taiwan's first railroad and starting a postal service.^[40]

Japanese rule [link]

Main articles: Taiwan under Japanese rule and Republic of Formosa

Japanese soldiers entering Taipei in 1895 after the Treaty of Shimonoseki

The Qing Dynasty was defeated in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895) and Taiwan and Penghu were ceded in full sovereignty to the Empire of Japan. Inhabitants wishing to remain Qing subjects were given a two-year grace period to sell their property and move to mainland China. Very few Taiwanese saw this as feasible.^[41] On 25 May 1895, a group of pro-Qing high officials proclaimed the Republic of Formosa to resist impending Japanese rule. Japanese forces entered the capital at Tainan and quelled this resistance on 21 October 1895.^[42]

The ROC Presidential Office Building was originally built as the Office of the Governor-General by the Japanese government.

Japanese rule was instrumental in the industrialization of the island, extending the railroads and other transportation networks, building an extensive sanitation system and establishing a formal education system.^[43] Japanese rule ended the practice of headhunting.^[44] During this period, both rice and sugarcane production greatly increased. By 1939, Taiwan was the seventh greatest sugar producer in the world.^[45] Still, the Taiwanese and aborigines were classified as second- and third-class citizens. After supressing Chinese guerillas in the first decade of their rule, Japanese authorites engaged in a series of bloody campaigns against the mountain aboriginals, culminating in the Wushe Incident of 1930.^[46]

Around 1935, the Japanese began an island-wide assimilation project to bind the island more firmly to the Japanese Empire and people were taught to see themselves as Japanese. During World War II, tens of thousands of Taiwanese served in the Japanese military.^[47] For example, former ROC President Lee Teng-hui's elder brother served in the Japanese navy and died while on duty in the Philippines in February 1945. The Imperial Japanese Navy operated heavily out of Taiwanese ports. The "South Strike Group" was based at the Taihoku Imperial University in Taipei. Many of the Japanese forces participating in the Aerial Battle of Taiwan-Okinawa were based in Taiwan. Important Japanese military bases and industrial centers throughout Taiwan, like Kaohsiung, were targets of heavy American bombing.^[48]

In 1938 there were 309,000 Japanese settlers in Taiwan.^[49] After World War II, most of the Japanese were repatriated to Japan.

After World War II [link]

Further information: Taiwan after World War II and Taiwan Strait Crisis

On 25 October 1945, the US Navy ferried ROC troops to Taiwan in order to accept the formal surrender of Japanese military forces in Taipei (then called "Taihoku"). General Rikichi Andō, governor-general of Taiwan and commander-in-chief of all Japanese forces on the island, signed the instrument of surrender and handed it over to General Chen Yi of the ROC military to complete the official turnover. Chen Yi proclaimed that day to be "Retrocession Day of Taiwan," but the Allies considered Taiwan and the Penghu Islands to be under military occupation but still under Japanese sovereignty until 1952.^[50]^[51]

The ROC administration of Taiwan under Chen Yi was strained by increasing tensions between Taiwanese and mainlanders, which were compounded by economic woes, such as hyperinflation. Furthermore, cultural and linguistic conflicts between Taiwanese and the mainland Chinese quickly led to the loss of popular support for the new government.^[52] The shooting of a civilian on 28 February 1947 triggered island-wide unrest, which was suppressed with military force in what is now called the 228 Incident. Mainstream estimates of the number killed range from 18,000 to 30,000, mainly Taiwanese elites.^[53]^[54]

Chinese Nationalist one-party rule [link]

Main articles: Republic of China (1912–1949) and Nationalist Government

A Chinese man in military uniform, smiling and looking towards the left. He holds a sword in his left hand and has a medal in shape of a sun on his chest.

Chiang Kai-shek, leader of the Kuomintang from 1925 until his death

After the end of World War II, the Chinese Civil War resumed between the Chinese Nationalists (Kuomintang), led by Chiang Kai-shek, and the Chinese Communist Party, led by Mao Zedong. By 1949, a series of Chinese Communist offensives led to the defeat of the Nationalist army, and the Communists founded the People's Republic of China on 1 October.^[55]

In December 1949, Chiang evacuated his government to Taiwan and made Taipei the temporary capital of the ROC (also called the "wartime capital" by Chiang Kai-shek).^[56] Some 2 million people, consisting mainly of soldiers, members of the ruling Kuomintang party and the intellectual and business elites, were evacuated from mainland China to Taiwan at that time, adding to the earlier population of approximately six million. In addition, the ROC government took to Taipei many national treasures including China's gold reserves and foreign currency reserves.^[57]^[58]^[59]

With President Chiang Kai-shek, the U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower waved to Taiwanese crowds during his visit to Taipei, Taiwan in June 1960.

From this point onwards, the Kuomintang was reduced to control of Taiwan, Kinmen, Matsu Islands, and two major islands of Dongsha Islands and Nansha Islands. The Kuomintang continued to claim sovereignty over all "China", which it defined to include mainland China, Taiwan, Outer Mongolia and other areas. On mainland China, the victorious Communists claimed they ruled the sole and only China (which they claimed included Taiwan) and that the Republic of China no longer existed.^[60]

Martial law, declared on Taiwan in May 1949,^[61] continued to be in effect after the central government relocated to Taiwan. It was not repealed until 1987,^[61] and was used as a way to suppress the political opposition in the intervening years.^[62] During the White Terror, as the period is known, 140,000 people were imprisoned or executed for being perceived as anti-KMT or pro-Communist.^[63] Many citizens were arrested, tortured, imprisoned and executed for their real or perceived opposition to the Kuomintang. Since these people were mainly from the intellectual and social elite, an entire generation of political and social leaders was decimated. It was not until 2008 that a public apology was made for those actions. No form of restitution or compensation has been made as of 2010.^[64]

From this period through the 1980s, Taiwan was governed under the "Temporary Provisions Effective During the Period of Communist Rebellion". During this period of one-party rule, little distinction was made between the government and the Kuomintang, with public property, government property, and party property being largely interchangeable. Government workers and party members were mostly indistinguishable, with many government workers required to become KMT members, and party workers paid salaries and promised retirement benefits along the lines of government employees. In addition, the creation of other parties was outlawed, and many political opponents were persecuted and incarcerated.^{[citation needed]}

Initially, the United States abandoned the KMT and expected that Taiwan would fall to the Communists. However, in 1950 the conflict between North Korea and South Korea, which had been ongoing since the Japanese withdrawal in 1945, escalated into full-blown war, and in the context of the Cold War, US President Harry S. Truman intervened again and dispatched the 7th Fleet into the Taiwan Straits to prevent hostilities between Taiwan and mainland China.^[65] In the Treaty of San Francisco and the Treaty of Taipei, which came into force respectively on 28 April 1952 and 5 August 1952, Japan formally renounced all right, claim and title to Taiwan and Penghu, and renounced all treaties signed with China before 1942. Neither treaty specified to whom sovereignty over the islands should be transferred, because the United States and the United Kingdom disagreed on whether the ROC or the PRC was the legitimate government of China.^[66] Continuing conflict of the Chinese Civil War through the 1950s, and intervention by the United States notably resulted in legislation such as the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty and the Formosa Resolution of 1955.

As the Chinese Civil War continued without truce, the government built up military fortifications throughout Taiwan. Within this effort, former KMT soldiers built the now famous Central Cross-Island Highway through the Taroko Gorge in the 1950s. The two sides would continue to engage in sporadic military clashes with seldom publicized details well into the 1960s on the nearby islands with an unknown number of night raids. During the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis in September 1958, Taiwan's landscape saw Nike-Hercules missile batteries added, with the formation of the 1st Missile Battalion Chinese Army that would not be deactivated until 1997. Newer generations of missile batteries have since replaced the Nike Hercules systems throughout the island.

During the 1960s and 1970s, the ROC maintained an authoritarian, single-party government while its economy became industrialized and technology oriented. This rapid economical growth, known as the Taiwan Miracle, was the result of a fiscal regime independent from mainland China and backed up, among others, by the support of US funds and demand for Taiwanese products.^[67]^[68] In the 1970s, Taiwan was economically the second fastest growing state in Asia after Japan.^[69] Taiwan, along with Hong Kong, South Korea and Singapore, became known as one of the Four Asian Tigers. Because of the Cold War, most Western nations and the United Nations regarded the ROC as the sole legitimate government of China until the 1970s. Later, especially after the termination of the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty, most nations switched diplomatic recognition to the PRC (see United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2758).

Up until the 1970s, the government was regarded by Western critics as undemocratic for upholding martial law, for severely repressing any political opposition and for controlling media. The KMT did not allow the creation of new parties and those that existed did not seriously compete with the KMT. Thus, competitive democratic elections did not exist.^[70]^[71]^[72]^[73]^[74] From the late 1970s to the 1990s, however, Taiwan went through reforms and social changes that transformed it from an authoritarian state to a democracy. In 1979, a pro-democracy protest known as the Kaohsiung Incident took place in Kaohsiung to celebrate Human Rights Day. Although the protest was rapidly crushed by the authorities, it is today considered as the main event that united Taiwan's opposition.^[75]

Democratization [link]

Main article: Democratic reforms

Chiang Ching-kuo, Chiang Kai-shek's son and successor as the president, began to liberalize the political system in the mid-1980s. In 1984, the younger Chiang selected Lee Teng-hui, an ethnically Taiwanese and U.S.-educated technocrat, to be his vice president. In 1986, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was formed and inaugurated as the first opposition party in Taiwan to counter the KMT. A year later Chiang Ching-kuo lifted martial law. With the advent of democratization, the issue of the political status of Taiwan has resurfaced as a controversial issue (previously, discussion of anything other than unification under the ROC was taboo).

After the death of Chiang Ching-kuo in January 1988, Lee Teng-hui succeeded him and became the first ethnically Taiwanese president of the ROC. Lee continued to democratize the government and decrease the concentration of government authority in the hands of mainland Chinese. Under Lee, Taiwan underwent a process of localization in which Taiwanese culture and history were promoted over a pan-China viewpoint in contrast to earlier KMT policies which had promoted a Chinese identity. Lee's reforms included printing banknotes from the Central Bank rather than the Provincial Bank of Taiwan, and streamlining the Taiwan Provincial Government with most of its functions transferred to the Executive Yuan. Under Lee, the original members of the Legislative Yuan and National Assembly, elected in 1947 to represent mainland Chinese constituencies and having held the seats without re-election for more than four decades, were forced to resign in 1991. The previously nominal representation in the Legislative Yuan was brought to an end, reflecting the reality that the ROC had no jurisdiction over mainland China, and vice versa. Restrictions on the use of Taiwanese Hokkien in the broadcast media and in schools were also lifted.

Democratic reforms continued in the 1990s, with Lee Teng-hui re-elected in 1996, in the first direct presidential election in the history of the ROC.^[76] During the later years of Lee's administration, he was involved in corruption controversies relating to government release of land and weapons purchase, although no legal proceedings commenced. In 2000, Chen Shui-bian of the DPP was elected as the first non-KMT President and was re-elected to serve his second and last term since 2004. Polarized politics has emerged in Taiwan with the formation of the Pan-Blue Coalition of parties led by the KMT, favoring eventual Chinese reunification, and the Pan-Green Coalition of parties led by the DPP, favoring an eventual and official declaration of Taiwan independence.

On 30 September 2007, the ruling Democratic Progressive Party approved a resolution asserting a separate identity from China and called for the enactment of a new constitution for a "normal country". It also called for general use of "Taiwan" as the country's name, without abolishing its formal name, the Republic of China.^[77] The Chen administration also pushed for referendums on national defense and UN entry in the 2004 and 2008 elections, which failed due to voter turnout below the required legal threshold of 50% of all registered voters.^[78] The Chen administration was dogged by public concerns over reduced economic growth, legislative gridlock due to a pan-blue, opposition-controlled Legislative Yuan and corruption involving the First Family as well as government officials.^[79]^[80]

The KMT increased its majority in the Legislative Yuan in the January 2008 legislative elections, while its nominee Ma Ying-jeou went on to win the presidency in March of the same year, campaigning on a platform of increased economic growth, and better ties with the PRC under a policy of "mutual nondenial".^[78] Ma took office on 20 May 2008. Part of the rationale for campaigning for closer economic ties with the PRC stem from the strong economic growth China attained since joining the World Trade Organization. However, some analysts say that despite the election of Ma Ying-jeou, the diplomatic and military tensions with the PRC have not been reduced.^[81]

Geography [link]

Main article: Geography of Taiwan

Taiwan is mostly mountainous in the east, with gently sloping plains in the west. The Penghu Islands are west of the main island.

The island of Taiwan lies some 180 kilometers off the southeastern coast of China, across the Taiwan Strait, and has an area of 35,883 km² (13,855 sq mi).^[16] The East China Sea lies to the north, the Philippine Sea to the east, the Luzon Strait directly to the south and the South China Sea to the southwest.^[82] The shape of the main island of Taiwan is similar to a sweet potato seen in a south-to-north direction, and therefore, Taiwanese, especially the Min-nan division, often call themselves "children of the Sweet Potato."^[83]

The island is characterized by the contrast between the eastern two-thirds, consisting mostly of rugged mountains running in five ranges from the northern to the southern tip of the island, and the flat to gently rolling Chianan Plains in the west that are also home to most of Taiwan's population. Taiwan's highest point is Yu Shan (Jade Mountain) at 3,952 meters, and there are five other peaks over 3,500 meters.^[82] This makes it the world's fourth-highest island.^[84]

Taiwan lies on the Tropic of Cancer, and its climate is marine tropical.^[85] The northern part of the island has a rainy season that lasts from January through late March during the northeast monsoon, and experiences meiyu in May.^[86] The entire island experiences hot, humid weather from June through September. The middle and southern parts of the island do not have an extended monsoon season during the winter months. Typhoons are common between July and October.^[82]^[87]

The Penghu Islands, 50 km west of the main island, have an area of 126.9 km² (49.0 sq mi). More distant islands controlled by the Republic of China are the Kinmen, Wuchiu and Matsu Islands off the coast of Fujian, with a total area of 180.5 km² (69.7 sq mi), and the Pratas Islands and Taiping Island in the South China Sea, with a total area of 2.9 km² (1.1 sq mi) and no permanent inhabitants.^[16]

Geology [link]

Main article: Geology of Taiwan

Dabajian Mountain

The island of Taiwan lies in a complex tectonic area between the Yangtze Plate to the west and north, the Okinawa Plate on the north-east, and the Philippine Mobile Belt on the east and south. The upper part of the crust on the island is primarily made up of a series of terranes, mostly old island arcs which have been forced together by the collision of the forerunners of the Eurasian Plate and the Philippine Sea Plate. These have been further uplifted as a result of the detachment of a portion of the Eurasian Plate as it was subducted beneath remnants of the Philippine Sea Plate, a process which left the crust under Taiwan more buoyant.^[88]

The east and south of Taiwan are a complex system of belts formed by, and part of the zone of, active collision between the North Luzon Trough portion of the Luzon Volcanic Arc and South China, where accreted portions of the Luzon Arc and Luzon forearc form the eastern Coastal Range and parallel inland Longitudinal Valley of Taiwan respectively.^[89]

The major seismic faults in Taiwan correspond to the various suture zones between the various terranes. These have produced major quakes throughout the history of the island. On 21 September 1999, a 7.3 quake known as the "921 earthquake" killed more than 2,400 people. The seismic hazard map for Taiwan by the USGS shows 9/10 of the island as the highest rating (most hazardous).^[90]

Political and legal status [link]

Main articles: Political status of Taiwan and Legal status of Taiwan

The political and legal status of Taiwan is a contentious issue. The People's Republic of China (PRC) claims that the Republic of China government is illegitimate, referring to it as the "Taiwan Authority". The ROC, however, with its own constitution, independently elected president and a large army, continues to view itself as an independent sovereign state. The territory of Taiwan has never been controlled by the PRC.^[91]^[92] Internationally, there is controversy on whether the ROC still exists as a state or a defunct state per international law due to the loss of membership / recognition in the United Nations and lack of wide diplomatic recognition. According to a poll taken by the TVBS in 2010, the majority of Taiwanese residents—64%—opt for the status quo (i.e. no independence, no unification with mainland China), while 19% favor independence and 5% unification.^[93]

Relations with the PRC [link]

Foreign relations [link]

Main article: Foreign relations of the Republic of China

A map of the world showing 23 highlighted countries. Only a few small countries recognize the ROC, mainly in Central, South America and Africa.

Countries maintaining diplomatic relations with the ROC

diplomatic relations and embassy in Taipei

unofficial relations (see text)

Before 1928, the foreign policy of Republican China was complicated by a lack of internal unity—competing centers of power all claimed legitimacy. This situation changed after the defeat of the Peiyang Government by the Kuomintang, which led to widespread diplomatic recognition of the Republic of China.^[97]

After the KMT's retreat to Taiwan, most countries, notably the countries in the Western Bloc, continued to maintain relations with the ROC. Due to diplomatic pressure, recognition gradually eroded and many countries switched recognition to the PRC in the 1970s.

The PRC refuses to have diplomatic relations with any nation that recognizes the ROC, and requires all nations with which it has diplomatic relations to make a statement recognizing its claims to Taiwan.^[98] As a result, there are only 23 states that have official diplomatic relations with the Republic of China. In practice, most countries view the ROC as an independent state and as such maintain unofficial relations with it.^[99]

The ROC maintains unofficial relations with most countries via de facto embassies and consulates called Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Offices (TECRO), with branch offices called "Taipei Economic and Cultural Offices" (TECO). Both TECRO and TECO are "unofficial commercial entities" of the ROC in charge of maintaining diplomatic relations, providing consular services (i.e. visa applications), and serving the national interests of the ROC in other countries.^[100]

File:Taiwanarmspic1.jpg

F-16 fighters sold to the ROC by the United States

The United States is one of the main allies of the ROC and, since the Taiwan Relations Act passed in 1979, the United States has sold arms and provided military training to the Republic of China Armed Forces.^[101] This situation continues to be an issue for the People's Republic of China which considers US involvement disruptive to the stability of the region. In January 2010, the Obama administration announced its intention to sell $6.4 billion worth of military hardware to Taiwan. As a consequence, the PRC threatened the US with economic sanctions and warned that their cooperation on international and regional issues could suffer.^[102]

The official position of the United States is that the PRC is expected to "use no force or threat[en] to use force against Taiwan" and the ROC is to "exercise prudence in managing all aspects of Cross-Strait relations." Both are to refrain from performing actions or espousing statements "that would unilaterally alter Taiwan's status."^[103]

Participation in international events and organizations [link]

The flag of the ROC, under the name "Chinese Taipei" (中華台北), during the Olympic Games

The ROC was a founding member of the United Nations and held the seat of China on the Security Council and other UN bodies until 1971, when it was expelled by General Assembly Resolution 2758 and replaced in all UN organs with the PRC. Each year since 1992, the ROC has petitioned the UN for entry but its applications have not made it past committee.^[104]

Due to its limited international recognition, the Republic of China is a member of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, represented by a government-funded organization, the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy (TFD) under the name "Taiwan".^[105]^[106]

Also due to its One China policy, the PRC only participates in international organizations where the ROC is not recognized as a sovereign country. Most member states, including the United States, do not wish to discuss the issue of the ROC's political status for fear of souring diplomatic ties with the PRC.^[107] However, both the US and Japan publicly support the ROC's bid for membership in the World Health Organization as an observer.^[108] However, though the ROC has applied for WHO membership every year since 1997 under various denominations, their efforts have consistently been blocked by PRC.

Due to PRC pressure, the ROC is forced to use the name "Chinese Taipei" in international events such as the Olympic Games where the PRC is also a party.^[109] The ROC is typically barred from using its national anthem and national flag in international events due to PRC pressure; ROC spectators attending events such as the Olympics are often barred from bringing ROC flags into venues.^[110] The ROC is able to participate as "China" in organizations that the PRC does not participate in, such as the World Organization of the Scout Movement.

Opinions within Taiwan [link]

Within Taiwan, opinions are polarized between those supporting unification, represented by the Pan-Blue Coalition of parties, and those supporting independence, represented by the Pan-Green Coalition.

The KMT, the largest Pan-Blue party, supports the status quo for the indefinite future with a stated ultimate goal of unification. However, it does not support unification in the short term with the PRC as such a prospect would be unacceptable to most of its members and the public.^[111] Ma Ying-jeou, chairman of the KMT and the incumbent president of the ROC, has set out democracy, economic development to a level near that of Taiwan, and equitable wealth distribution as the conditions that the PRC must fulfill for reunification to occur.^[112]

The DPP, the largest Pan-Green party, officially seeks independence, but in practice also supports the status quo because its members and the public would not accept the risk of provoking the PRC.^[113]^[114]

Former President Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic Progressive Party stated during his years of administration that any decision should be decided through a public referendum of the people of the ROC. Both parties' current foreign policy positions support actively advocating ROC participation in international organizations, but while the KMT accepts the One-China principle, the DPP encourages the participation of Taiwan as a sovereign state.

On 2 September 2008, El Sol de México asked President Ma about his views on the subject of "two Chinas" and if there was a solution for the sovereignty issues between the two. The president replied that the relations are neither between two Chinas nor two states. It is a special relationship. Further, he stated that the sovereignty issues between the two cannot be resolved at present, but he quoted the "1992 Consensus", currently accepted by both the Kuomingtang and the Communist Party of China, as a temporary measure until a solution becomes available.^[115]

The relationship with the PRC and the related issues of Taiwanese independence and Chinese reunification continue to dominate politics.^[116] For any particular resolution, public favor shifts greatly with small changes in wording, illustrating the complexity of public opinion on the topic.^{[citation needed]}

Government [link]

Main article: Government of the Republic of China

A tall and large building with a tower in its center. A large road surrounded by trees leads to it.

The Presidential Building in Taipei has housed the Office of the President of the Republic of China since 1950

The government of the Republic of China was founded on the Constitution of the ROC and its Three Principles of the People, which states that the ROC "shall be a democratic republic of the people, to be governed by the people and for the people."^[117] The government is divided into five administrative branches (Yuan): the Executive Yuan (cabinet), the Legislative Yuan, the Judicial Yuan, the Control Yuan (audit agency), and the Examination Yuan (civil service examination agency). The Pan-Blue Coalition and Pan-Green Coalition are presently the dominant political blocs in the Republic of China.

An East Asian man in suit smiling to the crowd

Ma Ying-jeou, President of the Republic of China

The head of state and commander-in-chief of the armed forces is the president, who is elected by popular vote for a maximum of 2 four-year terms on the same ticket as the vice-president. The president has authority over the Yuan. The president appoints the members of the Executive Yuan as his cabinet, including a premier, who is officially the President of the Executive Yuan; members are responsible for policy and administration.^[117]

The main legislative body is the unicameral Legislative Yuan with 113 seats. Seventy-three are elected by popular vote from single-member constituencies; thirty-four are elected based on the proportion of nationwide votes received by participating political parties in a separate party list ballot; and six are elected from two three-member aboriginal constituencies. Members serve four-year terms. Originally the unicameral National Assembly, as a standing constitutional convention and electoral college, held some parliamentary functions, but the National Assembly was abolished in 2005 with the power of constitutional amendments handed over to the Legislative Yuan and all eligible voters of the Republic via referendums.^[117]

The premier is selected by the president without the need for approval from the legislature, but the legislature can pass laws without regard for the president, as neither he nor the Premier wields veto power.^[117] Thus, there is little incentive for the president and the legislature to negotiate on legislation if they are of opposing parties. After the election of the pan-Green's Chen Shui-bian as President in 2000, legislation repeatedly stalled because of deadlock with the Legislative Yuan, which was controlled by a pan-Blue majority.^[118] Historically, the ROC has been dominated by strongman single party politics. This legacy has resulted in executive powers currently being concentrated in the office of the president rather than the premier, even though the constitution does not explicitly state the extent of the president's executive power.^[119]

The Judicial Yuan is the highest judicial organ. It interprets the constitution and other laws and decrees, judges administrative suits, and disciplines public functionaries. The president and vice-president of the Judicial Yuan and additional thirteen justices form the Council of Grand Justices.^[120] They are nominated and appointed by the president, with the consent of the Legislative Yuan. The highest court, the Supreme Court, consists of a number of civil and criminal divisions, each of which is formed by a presiding judge and four associate judges, all appointed for life. In 1993, a separate constitutional court was established to resolve constitutional disputes, regulate the activities of political parties and accelerate the democratization process. There is no trial by jury but the right to a fair public trial is protected by law and respected in practice; many cases are presided over by multiple judges.^[117]

Like most Asian democracies, Taiwan still allows for capital punishment. Efforts have been made by the government to reduce the number of executions, although they have not been able to completely abolish the punishment. As of 2006, about 80% of Taiwanese want to keep the death penalty.^[121]

The Control Yuan is a watchdog agency that monitors (controls) the actions of the executive. It can be considered a standing commission for administrative inquiry and can be compared to the Court of Auditors of the European Union or the Government Accountability Office of the United States.^[117] The Control Yuan is sometimes also compared to an ombudsman or national human rights institution.^{[citation needed]} The Examination Yuan is in charge of validating the qualification of civil servants. It is based on the old imperial examination system used in pre-modern China. It can be compared to the European Personnel Selection Office of the European Union or the Office of Personnel Management of the United States.^[117]

Politics [link]

Main article: Politics of the Republic of China

Tangwai (Independent) Taiwanese politician Wu San-lian (2L) celebrated his landslide victory (65.5%) in the first-time Taipei mayoral election in January 1951 with his supporters.

The constitution of the Republic of China was drafted before the fall of mainland China to the Communists. It was created by the KMT for the purpose of all of its claimed territory, including Taiwan, even though the Chinese Communist party boycotted the drafting of the constitution. The constitution went into effect on 25 December 1947.^[122]

The ROC remained under martial law from 1948 until 1987 and much of the constitution was not in effect. Political reforms beginning in the late 1970s and continuing through the early 1990s liberalized the country and transformed into a multiparty democracy. Since the lifting of martial law, the Republic of China has democratized and reformed, suspending constitutional components that were originally meant for the whole of China. This process of amendment continues. In 2000, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) won the presidency, ending KMT's continuous control of the government. In May 2005, a new National Assembly was elected to reduce the number of parliamentary seats and implement several constitutional reforms. These reforms have been passed; the National Assembly has essentially voted to abolish itself and transfer the power of constitutional reform to the popular ballot.^[123]

Major camps [link]

Emblem of the Democratic Progressive Party, the main Pan-Green Coalition party.

Emblem of the Kuomintang, the main Pan-Blue Coalition party.

The tension between the PRC and Taiwan colors most of the political life, and any government move towards "Taiwan independence" is met by threat of military attack from the PRC.^[124] The PRC's official policy is to reunify Taiwan and mainland China under the formula of "one country, two systems" and refuses to renounce the use of military force, especially should Taiwan seek a declaration of independence.^[125]

The political scene is generally divided into two major camps in terms of views on how Taiwan should relate to China or the PRC, referred to as Cross-Strait relations. It is the main political difference between two camps: the Pan-Blue Coalition, composed of the pro-unification Kuomintang, People First Party (PFP), and New Party, who believe that the ROC is the sole legitimate government of "China" (including Taiwan) and supports eventual Chinese reunification. The opposition Pan-Green Coalition is composed of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party and Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU). It regards Taiwan as an independent, sovereign state synonymous with the ROC, opposes the definition that Taiwan is part of "China", and seeks wide diplomatic recognition and an eventual declaration of formal Taiwan independence.^[126] The Pan-Green camp tends to favor emphasizing the Republic of China as being a distinct country from the People's Republic of China. Thus, in September 2007, the then ruling Democratic Progressive Party approved a resolution asserting separate identity from China and called for the enactment of a new constitution for a "normal country". It called also for general use of "Taiwan" as the country's name, without abolishing its formal name, the "Republic of China".^[127] Some members of the coalition, such as former President Chen Shui-bian, argue that it is unnecessary to proclaim independence because "Taiwan is already an independent, sovereign country" and the Republic of China is the same as Taiwan.^[128] Despite being a member of KMT prior to and during his presidency, Lee Teng-hui also held a similar view and was a supporter of the Taiwanization movement.^[129]

Pan-Blue members generally support the concept of the One-China policy, which states that there is only one China and that its only government is the ROC. They favor eventual re-unification of China.^[130] The more mainstream Pan-Blue position is to lift investment restrictions and pursue negotiations with the PRC to immediately open direct transportation links. Regarding independence, the mainstream Pan-Blue position is to maintain the status quo, while refusing immediate reunification.^[111] President Ma Ying-jeou stated that there will be no unification nor declaration of independence during his presidency.^[131]^[132] As of 2009, Pan-Blue members usually seek to improve relationships with mainland China, with a current focus on improving economic ties.^[133]

Current political issues [link]

The dominant political issue in Taiwan is its relationship with the PRC. For almost 60 years, there were no direct transportation links, including direct flights, between Taiwan and mainland China. This was a problem for many Taiwanese businesses that had opened factories or branches in mainland China. The former DPP administration feared that such links would lead to tighter economic and political integration with mainland China, and in the 2006 Lunar New Year Speech, President Chen Shui-bian called for managed opening of links. Direct weekend charter flights between Taiwan and mainland China began in July 2008 under the current KMT government, and the first direct daily charter flights took off in December 2008.^[134]

Other major political issues include the passage of an arms procurement bill that the United States authorized in 2001.^[135] In 2008, however, the United States were reluctant to send over more arms to Taiwan out of fear that it would hinder the recent improvement of ties between the PRC and the ROC.^[136] Another major political issue is the establishment of a National Communications Commission to take over from the Government Information Office, whose advertising budget exercised great control over the media.^[137]

The politicians and their parties have themselves become major political issues. Corruption among some DPP administration officials has been exposed. In early 2006, President Chen Shui-bian was linked to possible corruption. The political effect on President Chen Shui-bian was great, causing a divide in the DPP leadership and supporters alike. It eventually led to the creation of a political camp led by ex-DPP leader Shih Ming-teh which believes the president should resign. The KMT assets continue to be another major issue, as it was once the richest political party in the world.^[138] Nearing the end of 2006, KMT's chairman Ma Ying-jeou was also hit by corruption controversies, although he has since then been cleared of any wrong-doings by the courts.^[139] Since completing his second term as President, Chen Shui-bian has been charged with corruption and money laundering.^[140]

The merger of the KMT and People First Party (PFP) was thought to be certain, but a string of defections from the PFP to the KMT have increased tensions within the Pan-Blue camp.^[141]^[142]

National identity [link]

Main articles: Taiwanese identity and Chinese nationalism

Roughly 84% of Taiwan's population descends from Han Chinese who migrated from mainland China between 1661 and 1895. Another significant fraction descends from Han Chinese who immigrated from mainland China in the 1940s and 1950s. But between 1895 and the present, Taiwan and mainland China have shared a common government for only 4 years. The shared cultural origin combined with several hundred years of geographical separation, some hundred years of political separation and foreign influences, as well as hostility between the rival ROC and PRC have resulted in national identity being a contentious issue with political overtones. Since democratization and the lifting of martial law, a distinct Taiwanese identity (as opposed to Taiwanese identity as a subset of a Chinese identity) is often at the heart of political debates. Its acceptance makes the island distinct from mainland China, and therefore may be seen as a step towards forming a consensus for de jure Taiwan independence.^[143] The pan-green camp supports a distinct Taiwanese identity, while the pan-blue camp supports a Chinese identity only.^[130] The KMT has downplayed this stance in the recent years and now supports a Taiwanese identity as part of a Chinese identity.^[144]^[145]

According to a survey conducted in March 2009, 49% of the respondents consider themselves as Taiwanese only, and 44% of the respondents consider themselves as Taiwanese and Chinese. 3% consider themselves as only Chinese.^[93] Another survey, conducted in Taiwan in July 2009, showed that 82.8% of respondents consider that the ROC and the PRC are two separate countries developing each on its own.^[146] A recent survey conducted in December 2009 showed that 62% of the respondents consider themselves as Taiwanese only, and 22% of the respondents consider themselves as both Taiwanese and Chinese. 8% consider themselves as only Chinese. The survey also shows that among 18–29 year old respondents, 75% consider themselves as Taiwanese only.^[147]

Percentage of Taiwanese residents who consider themselves Taiwanese, Chinese or Taiwanese and Chinese according to various surveys.
Survey	Taiwanese	Chinese	Taiwanese and Chinese
Research, Development, and Evaluation Commission, Executive Yuan (April 2008)^[148]	67.1%	13.6%	15.2%
TVBS Poll Center (June 2008)^[148]	45%	4%	45%
Common Wealth Magazine (December 2009)^[147]	62%	8%	22%
National Chengchi University (June 2010)^[149]	51.6%	3.8%	40.4%
TVBS Poll Center (March 2009)^[93]^[150]	72%	16%	(not an option for this question)
TVBS Poll Center (March 2009)^[93]^[151]	49%	3%	44%

Military [link]

Main article: Republic of China Armed Forces

A light fighter aircraft on the ground surrounded by two men who are maintaining it.

Republic of China Air Force Indigenous Defense Fighter

The Republic of China Army takes its roots in the National Revolutionary Army, which was established by Sun Yat-sen in 1925 in Guangdong with a goal of reunifying China under the Kuomintang. When the People's Liberation Army won the Chinese Civil War, much of the National Revolutionary Army retreated to Taiwan along with the government. It was later reformed into the Republic of China Army. Units which surrendered and remained in mainland China were either disbanded or incorporated into the People's Liberation Army.

Today, the Republic of China maintains a large and technologically advanced military, mainly as defense against the constant threat of invasion by the PRC under the Anti-Secession Law of the People's Republic of China.^[95] From 1949 to the 1970s, the primary mission of the military was to "retake the mainland" through the Project National Glory. As this mission has shifted to defense, the ROC military has begun to shift emphasis from the traditionally dominant Army to the air force and navy. Control of the armed forces has also passed into the hands of the civilian government.^[152] As the ROC military shares historical roots with the KMT, the older generation of high ranking officers tends to have Pan-Blue sympathies. However, many have retired and there are many more non-mainlanders enlisting in the armed forces in the younger generations, so the political leanings of the military have moved closer to the public norm in Taiwan.^[153]

The ROC began a force reduction program to scale down its military from a level of 450,000 in 1997 to 380,000 in 2001.^[154] As of 2009, the armed forces of the ROC number approximately 300,000,^[155] with nominal reserves totaling 3.6 million as of 2005.^[156] Conscription remains universal for qualified males reaching age eighteen, but as a part of the reduction effort many are given the opportunity to fulfill their draft requirement through alternative service and are redirected to government agencies or defense related industries.^[157] Current plans call for a transition to a predominantly professional army over the next decade.^[158]^[159] Conscription periods are planned to decrease from 14 months to 12.^[160] In the last months of the Bush administration, Taipei took the decision to reverse the secular trend of declining defense spending, at a time when most Asian countries kept on reducing their military expenditures. It also decided to modernize both defensive and offensive capabilities. Taipei still keeps a large military apparatus relative to the island’s population: defense expenditures for 2008 were NTD 334 billion (approximately U.S. $10.5 billion), which accounted for 2.94% of GDP.

Two men in military uniform getting off an helicopter. They are both running and carrying a weapon.

ROC Military Police special forces disembarking from a UH-1H helicopter from the ROC Army 602nd Air Cavalry Brigade during a counter-terrorism exercise (ROC Ministry of National Defense)

The armed forces' primary concern at this time is the possibility of an attack by the PRC, consisting of a naval blockade, airborne assault and/or missile bombardment. Four upgraded Kidd class destroyers were recently purchased from the United States, significantly upgrading Taiwan's air defense and submarine hunting abilities.^[161] The Ministry of National Defense planned to purchase diesel-powered submarines and Patriot anti-missile batteries from the United States, but its budget has been stalled repeatedly by the opposition-Pan-Blue Coalition controlled legislature. The defense package was stalled from 2001–2007 where it was finally passed through the legislature and the US responded on 3 October 2008, with a $6.5 billion arms package including PAC III Anti-Air defense systems, AH-64D Apache Attack helicopters and other arms and parts.^[162] A significant amount of military hardware has been bought from the United States, and, as of 2009, continues to be legally guaranteed by the Taiwan Relations Act.^[101] In the past, France and the Netherlands have also sold military weapons and hardware to the ROC, but they almost entirely stopped in the 1990s under pressure of the PRC.^[163]^[164]

The first line of defense against invasion by the PRC is the ROC's own armed forces. Current ROC military doctrine is to hold out against an invasion or blockade until the US military responds.^[165] There is, however, no guarantee in the Taiwan Relations Act or any other treaty that the United States will defend Taiwan, even in the event of invasion.^[166] The joint declaration on security between the US and Japan signed in 1996 may imply that Japan would be involved in any response. However, Japan has refused to stipulate whether the "area surrounding Japan" mentioned in the pact includes Taiwan, and the precise purpose of the pact is unclear.^[167] The Australia, New Zealand, United States Security Treaty (ANZUS Treaty) may mean that other US allies, such as Australia, could theoretically be involved.^[168] In practice, the risk of losing economic ties with China may prevent Australia from taking action.^[169] The United States, United Kingdom, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Canada, Chile, and Peru conduct maritime exercises in the Pacific Ocean every 2 years called RIMPAC. They are conducted to promote stability and to be able to respond in case of an armed conflict in the region – that includes an invasion of Taiwan by China.^[170]

Administrative divisions [link]

Main article: Administrative divisions of the Republic of China

Administrative divisions since 2010

Lienchiang County
(Matsu)

Fujian Province

According to the 1947 constitution, written and promulgated whilst the ROC government still controlled mainland China, the territory of the ROC consisted of provinces, special municipalities, as well as Mongolia^[171] and Tibet. Accordingly, when the ROC retreated to Taiwan in 1949, its claimed territory consisted of 35 provinces, 12 special municipalities, 1 special administrative region, as well as Mongolia^[171] and Tibet. However, since its retreat, the ROC has controlled only Taiwan Province and some islands of Fujian Province. The ROC also controls the Pratas Islands (Dong-Sha) and Taiping Island in the Spratly Islands, which are part of the disputed South China Sea Islands. They were placed under Kaohsiung administration after the retreat to Taiwan.^[172]

Since 1949, the government has made some changes in the area under its control. Taipei became a special municipality in 1967 and Kaohsiung in 1979. The two provincial governments were "streamlined", with their functions transferred to the central government (Fujian in 1956 and Taiwan in 1998).^[173] In 2010, New Taipei, Taichung and Tainan were upgraded to special municipalities. This brought the top-level divisions of the ROC to their current state:^[174]

Level	Division type					Total
1st	Special municipality (直轄市 zhíxiáshì) (5)	Province (省 shěng) (2) (Streamlined)				22
2nd	Special municipality (直轄市 zhíxiáshì) (5)	Provincial city (市 shì) (3)	County (縣 xiàn) (14)			22
3rd	District (區 qū) (157)		County-controlled city (縣轄市 xiànxiáshì) (17)	Urban Township (鎮 zhèn) (41)	Rural Township (鄉 xiāng) (153)	368
4th	Village (里 lǐ)				Village (村 cūn)	7,835
5th	Neighborhood (鄰 lín)					147,877

According to Article 4 of the Local Government Act, laws pertaining to special municipalities also apply to counties with a population exceeding 2 million. This provision is currently applied only to Taoyuan County.^[175]

Economy [link]

Main articles: Economy of Taiwan and Economic history of Taiwan

Photo of a high tower against a blue sky.

Taipei 101 was the world's tallest building from its opening in 2004 until 2010.

The quick industrialization and rapid growth of Taiwan during the latter half of the 20th century has been called the "Taiwan Miracle". Taiwan is one of the "Four Asian Tigers" alongside Hong Kong, South Korea and Singapore.

Japanese rule prior to and during World War II brought changes in the public and private sectors, most notably in the area of public works, which enabled rapid communications and facilitated transport throughout much of the island. The Japanese also improved public education and made it compulsory for all Taiwanese citizens.

By 1945, hyperinflation was in progress in mainland China and Taiwan as a result of the war with Japan. To isolate Taiwan from it, the Nationalist government created a new currency area for the island, and started a price stabilization program. These efforts helped significantly slow the inflation.

When the KMT government fled to Taiwan it brought millions of taels of gold and the foreign currency reserve of mainland China to the island, which, according to the KMT stabilized prices and reduced hyperinflation.^[176] Perhaps more importantly, as part of its retreat to Taiwan, the KMT brought the intellectual and business elites from Mainland China.^[177] The KMT government instituted many laws and land reforms that it had never effectively enacted on mainland China. The government also implemented a policy of import-substitution, attempting to produce imported goods domestically. Much of this was made possible through US economic aid, subsidizing the higher cost of domestic production.

In 1950, with the outbreak of the Korean War, the US began an aid program which resulted in fully stabilized prices by 1952.^[178] The KMT government instituted many laws and land reforms that it had never effectively enacted on mainland China; it implemented a policy of import-substitution, and it attempted to produce imported goods domestically. Much of this was made possible through US economic aid, subsidizing the higher cost of domestic production.

In 1962, Taiwan had a per-capita gross national product (GNP) of $170, placing its economy on a par with those of Zaire and Congo. By 2011 per-capita GNP, adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPP), had risen to $37,000, contributing to a Human Development Index equivalent to that of other developed countries. Taiwan's HDI in 2007 is 0.943 (25th, very high),^[179] and stands at 0.868 in 2010 (18th, very high), according to the UN's new calculating method ("Inequality-adjusted HDI").

Taiwan High Speed Rail, with trains running at above 300 km/h, links Taipei and the southern port city of Kaohsiung in just 90 minutes.

Today Taiwan has a dynamic, capitalist, export-driven economy with gradually decreasing state involvement in investment and foreign trade. In keeping with this trend, some large government-owned banks and industrial firms are being privatized.^[180] Real growth in GDP has averaged about 8% during the past three decades. Exports have provided the primary impetus for industrialization. The trade surplus is substantial, and foreign reserves are the world's fifth largest.^[181] The Republic of China has its own currency, the New Taiwan dollar.

Since the beginning of the 1990s, the economic ties between Taiwan and Mainland China have been very prolific. As of 2008, more than US$150 billion^[182] have been invested in the PRC by Taiwanese companies, and about 10% of the Taiwanese labour force works in the PRC, often to run their own businesses.^[183] Although the economy of Taiwan benefits from this situation, some have expressed the view that the island has become increasingly dependent on the Mainland Chinese economy. A 2008 white paper by the Department of Industrial Technology states that "Taiwan should seek to maintain stable relation with China while continuing to protect national security, and avoiding excessive 'Sinicization' of Taiwanese economy."^[184] Others argue that close economic ties between Taiwan and Mainland China would make any military intervention by the PLA against Taiwan very costly, and therefore less probable.^[185]

Taiwan’s total trade in 2010 reached an all-time high of US$526.04 billion, according to Taiwan's Ministry of Finance. Both exports and imports for the year reached record levels, totaling US$274.64 billion and US$251.4 billion, respectively.^[186]

Paddy field in Yilan County

In 2001, agriculture constituted only 2% of GDP, down from 35% in 1952.^[187] Traditional labor-intensive industries are steadily being moved offshore and with more capital and technology-intensive industries replacing them. High-technology industrial parks have sprung up in every region in Taiwan. The ROC has become a major foreign investor in the PRC, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Vietnam. It is estimated that some 50,000 Taiwanese businesses and 1,000,000 businesspeople and their dependents are established in the PRC.^[188]

Because of its conservative financial approach and its entrepreneurial strengths, Taiwan suffered little compared with many of its neighbors from the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. Unlike its neighbors, South Korea and Japan, the Taiwanese economy is dominated by small and medium sized businesses, rather than the large business groups. The global economic downturn, however, combined with poor policy coordination by the new administration and increasing bad debts in the banking system, pushed Taiwan into recession in 2001, the first whole year of negative growth since 1947. Due to the relocation of many manufacturing and labor intensive industries to the PRC, unemployment also reached a level not seen since the 1970s oil crisis. This became a major issue in the 2004 presidential election. Growth averaged more than 4% in the 2002–2006 period and the unemployment rate fell below 4%.^[189]

Since the global financial crisis starting with United States in 2007, the unemployment rate has risen to over 5.9% and Economic Growth fallen to –2.9%.^{[citation needed]} However, Taiwan managed to emerge from the crisis in very good shape. In 2010, economic growth reached 10%, the highest rate in almost 30 years, international trade jumped more than 39% to US$526.04 billion, and the job market rose with most businesses set to recruit. As a result, the IMF estimated Taiwan's 2010 GDP-PPP per capita at over US$34,700, surpassing those of Finland, France and Japan.

The ROC often joins international organizations under a politically neutral name. The ROC is a member of governmental trade organizations such as the World Trade Organization under the name Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu (Chinese Taipei) since 2002.^[190]

Education [link]

Main article: Education in Taiwan

The higher education system was established in Taiwan by Japan during the colonial period. However, after the Republic of China took over Taiwan from Japan in 1945, the system was promptly replaced by the same system as in mainland China which mixed with features of the Chinese and American educational systems.^[191]

The educational system includes six years of elementary school, three years of middle school, three years of high school, and four years of university.^[192] The system has been successful in that pupils in Taiwan boast some of the highest test scores in the world, especially in mathematics and science;^[193] However, it has also been criticized for placing excessive pressure on students and eschewing creativity in favor of rote memorization.^[194]^[195]

Many Taiwanese students attend cram schools, or bushiban, to improve skills and knowledge on problem solving against exams of subjects like mathematics, nature science, history and many others. Courses are available for most popular subjects. Lessons are organized in lectures, reviews, private tutorial sessions, and recitations.^[196]^[197]

As of 2003, the literacy rate in Taiwan is 96.1%.^[5]

Demographics [link]

Main article: Demographics of Taiwan

Taiwan's population was estimated in 2012 at 23,239,268, most of whom are on the island of Taiwan. The remainder live on Penghu (97,268), Kinmen (105,434) and the Matsu Islands (10,135).^[16]

Ethnic groups [link]

Main articles: Taiwanese aborigines and Taiwanese people

Bunun dancer in traditional aboriginal dress

About 98% of Taiwan's population is of Han Chinese ethnicity.^[5] Of these, 86% are descendants of early Han Chinese immigrants known as the "benshengren" (Chinese: 本省人; pinyin: Běnshěng rén; literally "home-province person") in Chinese.^[5] This group is often referred to "native Taiwanese" in English, but the term is also frequently used for the Taiwanese aborigines. The benshengren group contains two subgroups: the Hoklo people (70% of the total population), whose ancestors migrated from the coastal southern Fujian (Min-nan) region in the southeast of mainland China starting in the 17th century, and the Hakka (15% of the total population), whose ancestors originally migrated south to Guangdong, its surrounding areas and Taiwan.^[5]

About 12% of the population are known as waishengren (Chinese: 外省人; pinyin: Wàishěng rén; literally "out-of-province person"), composed of people who (or whose ancestors) emigrated from mainland China after the Chinese Civil War with the KMT government.^[5]

The other 2% of the population are about 521,000 Taiwanese aborigines, divided into 14 major groups. The Ami, Atayal, Bunun, Kavalan, Paiwan, Puyuma, Rukai, Saisiyat, Sakizaya, Sediq, Thao, Truku and Tsou live mostly in the eastern half of the island, while the Yami inhabit Orchid Island.^[5]^[198]^[199]

Languages [link]

Main article: Languages of Taiwan

Mandarin is the official national language and is spoken by the vast majority of the population of Taiwan. It has been the primary language of instruction in schools since the Japanese were forced out in the 1940s. Like Hong Kong and Macau, the ROC uses Traditional Chinese characters.^[200] However, a small number of characters differ from those used in Hong Kong and Macau.

Most Waishengren speak primarily Mandarin. The 70% of the population belonging to the Hoklo ethnic group speak Taiwanese (a variant of the Min Nan speech of Fujian province) as their mother tongue, in addition to Mandarin, and many others have some degree of understanding. The Hakka ethnic group (15% of the population) use the Hakka language.^[201] Although Mandarin is the language of instruction in schools and dominates television and radio, non-Mandarin languages or dialects have undergone a revival in public life in Taiwan, particularly since restrictions on their use were lifted in the 1990s.^[200]

People educated during the period of Japanese rule (1895–1945) were taught using Japanese as the medium of instruction. A declining number of people in the older generations understand little or no Mandarin, speaking only the Japanese they learned in school and the Taiwanese or Hakka they spoke at home.

Taiwan's indigenous languages, the Formosan languages, do not belong to the Chinese or Sino-Tibetan language family, but rather to the Austronesian language family. Their use among Taiwan's aboriginal minority groups has been in decline as usage of Mandarin has risen.^[200]

Religion [link]

Main article: Religion in Taiwan

Main sanctuary of Fo Guang Shan Monastery near Kaohsiung

The Constitution of the Republic of China protects people's freedom of religion and the practices of belief.^[202] There are approximately 18,718,600 religious followers in Taiwan as of 2005 (81.3% of total population) and 14–18% are non-religious. According to the 2005 census, of the 26 religions recognized by the ROC government, the five largest are: Buddhism (8,086,000 or 35.1%), Taoism (7,600,000 or 33%), I-Kuan Tao (810,000 or 3.5%), Protestantism (605,000 or 2.6%), and Roman Catholicism (298,000 or 1.3%).^[203] But according to the CIA World Factbook and other latest sources from US State Department or the Religious Affairs Section of the MOI, over 93% of Taiwanese are adherents of a combination of the polytheistic ancient Chinese religion, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism; 4.5% are adherents of Christianity, which includes Protestants, Catholics, and other, non-denominational, Christian groups; and less than 2.5% are adherents of other religions, such as Islam.^[5]^[204] Taiwanese aborigines comprise a notable subgroup among professing Christians: "...over 64 percent identify as Christian... Church buildings are the most obvious markers of Aboriginal villages, distinguishing them from Taiwanese or Hakka villages."^[205]

Confucian temple at Lotus Lake in Kaohsiung

Confucianism is a philosophy that deals with secular moral ethics, and serves as the foundation of both Chinese and Taiwanese culture. The majority of Taiwanese people usually combine the secular moral teachings of Confucianism with whatever religions they are affiliated with.

As of 2009, there are 14,993 temples in Taiwan, approximately one place of worship per 1,500 residents. 9,202 of those temples were dedicated to Taoism. In 2008, Taiwan had 3,262 Churches, an increase of 145.^[206]

Largest cities [link]

Main article: List of cities in Taiwan

The figures below are the 2011 estimates for the twenty largest urban populations within administrative city limits; a different ranking exists when considering the total metropolitan area populations (in such rankings the Taipei-Keelung metro area is by far the largest agglomeration).

v t e Largest cities or towns of Taiwan http://www.geonames.org/TW/largest-cities-in-taiwan.html
	Rank	City name	Division	Pop.
New Taipei Kaohsiung	1	New Taipei	New Taipei City	3,913,595	Taichung Taipei
	2	Kaohsiung	Kaohsiung City	2,773,855
	3	Taichung	Taichung City	2,662,770
	4	Taipei	Taipei City	2,647,122
	5	Tainan	Tainan City	1,876,706
	6	Hsinchu	Hsinchu City	419,384
	7	Taoyuan	Taoyuan County	409,796
	8	Keelung	Keelung City	380,281
	9	Zhongli	Taoyuan County	372,117
	10	Chiayi	Chiayi City	271,594

Public health [link]

Main article: Healthcare in Taiwan

Health care in Taiwan is managed by the Bureau of National Health Insurance (BNHI).^[207]

The current program was implemented in 1995, and is considered social insurance. The government health insurance program maintains compulsory insurance for citizens who are employed, impoverished, unemployed, or victims of natural disasters with fees that correlate to the individual and/or family income; it also maintains protection for non-citizens working in Taiwan. A standardized method of calculation applies to all persons and can optionally be paid by an employer or by individual contributions.^[208]

BNHI insurance coverage requires co-payment at the time of service for most services unless it is a preventative health service, for low-income families, veterans, children under three years old, or in the case of catastrophic diseases. Low income households maintain 100% premium coverage by the BNHI and co-pays are reduced for disabled or certain elderly peoples.

According to a recently published survey, out of 3,360 patients surveyed at a randomly chosen hospital, 75.1% of the patients said they are "very satisfied" with the hospital service; 20.5% said they are "okay" with the service. Only 4.4% of the patients said they are either "not satisfied" or "very not satisfied" with the service or care provided.^[209]

Taiwan has its own Center for Disease Control, and during the SARS outbreak in March of 2003 there were 347 confirmed cases. During the outbreak the CDC and local governments set up monitored stations throughout public transportation, recreational sites and other public areas. With full containment in July 2003, there has not been a case of SARS since.^[210]

As of 2006, the BNHI Facility Contract Distribution facilities total 17,259, including:^[211]

Number	Subject
16,174	outpatient-only facilities
5,701	dental clinics
2,422	Chinese medicine clinics
1,085	inpatient/outpatient facilities
437	local community hospitals
35	Chinese medicine hospitals
123	academic medical centers

Basic coverage areas of the insurance include:

In-patient care
Ambulatory care
Laboratory tests
Prescription and over-the-counter drugs
Dental services

Mental Illness
Traditional Chinese medicine
Home care
Preventative services (check-ups, prenatal care, pap smears)

In 2004, the infant mortality rate was 5.3 with 15 physicians and 63 hospital beds per 10,000 people. The life expectancy for males was 73.5 years and 79.7 years for females according to the World Health Report.

Other health related programs in Taiwan are the Centers for Disease Control^[212] and the Department of Health.^[213]

Culture [link]

Main article: Culture of Taiwan

Apo Hsu and the NTNU Symphony Orchestra on stage in the National Concert Hall

The cultures of Taiwan are a hybrid blend of various sources, incorporating elements of traditional Chinese culture, attributable to the historical and ancestry origin of the majority of its current residents, Japanese culture, traditional Confucianist beliefs, and increasingly Western values.

After their move to Taiwan, the Kuomintang imposed an official interpretation of traditional Chinese culture over Taiwan. The government launched a program promoting Chinese calligraphy, traditional Chinese painting, folk art, and Chinese opera.

The status of Taiwanese culture is debated.^[214] It is disputed whether Taiwanese culture is a regional form of Chinese culture or a distinct culture. Reflecting the continuing controversy surrounding the political status of Taiwan, politics continues to play a role in the conception and development of a Taiwanese cultural identity, especially in the prior dominant frame of a Taiwanese and Chinese dualism. In recent years, the concept of Taiwanese multiculturalism has been proposed as a relatively apolitical alternative view, which has allowed for the inclusion of mainlanders and other minority groups into the continuing re-definition of Taiwanese culture as collectively held systems of meaning and customary patterns of thought and behavior shared by the people of Taiwan.^[215] Identity politics, along with the over one hundred years of political separation from mainland China, has led to distinct traditions in many areas, including cuisine and music.

Wang Tuoh, a Taiwanese writer, literary critic and politician

One of Taiwan's greatest attractions is the National Palace Museum, which houses more than 650,000 pieces of Chinese bronze, jade, calligraphy, painting and porcelain, and is considered one of the greatest collections of Chinese art and objects in the world.^[216] The KMT moved this collection from the Forbidden City in Beijing in 1949 when it fled to Taiwan. The collection, estimated to be one-tenth of China's cultural treasures, is so extensive that only 1% is on display at any time. The PRC had said that the collection was stolen and that it legitimately belongs in China, but Taiwan has long defended its collection as a necessary act to protect the pieces from destruction, especially during the Cultural Revolution. Relations regarding this treasure have warmed recently as each side has agreed to lend relics to the other; Beijing Palace Museum Curator Zheng Xinmiao said that artifacts in both Chinese and Taiwanese museums are "China's cultural heritage jointly owned by people across the Taiwan Strait."^[217]

Karaoke, drawn from contemporary Japanese culture, is extremely popular in Taiwan, where it is known as KTV. KTV businesses operate in a hotel-like style, renting out small rooms and ballrooms varying on the number of guests in a group. Many KTV establishments partner with restaurants and buffets to form all-encompassing elaborate evening affairs for families, friends, or businessmen. Tour buses that travel around Taiwan have several TV's, equipped not for watching movies, but primarily for singing Karaoke. The entertainment counterpart of a KTV is an MTV, being found much less frequently out of the city. There, movies out on DVD can be selected and played in a private theater room. However MTV, more so than KTV, has a growing reputation for being a place that young couples will go to be alone and intimate.

Taiwan has a high density of 24-hour convenience stores, which, in addition to the usual services, provide services on behalf of financial institutions or government agencies such as collection of parking fees, utility bills, traffic violation fines, and credit card payments.^[218] They also provide a service for mailing packages.

Taiwanese culture has also influenced other cultures. Bubble tea and milk tea are available in Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, Europe and North America. Taiwan television shows are popular in Singapore, Malaysia and other Asian countries. Taiwanese films have won various international awards at film festivals around the world. Ang Lee, a Taiwanese director, has directed critically acclaimed films such as: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; Eat Drink Man Woman; Sense and Sensibility; Brokeback Mountain; and Lust, Caution. Other famous Taiwanese directors include Tsai Ming-Liang, Edward Yang and Hou Hsiao-hsien.

Sports [link]

Main article: Sport in Taiwan

Baseball is Taiwan's national sport and it is a popular spectator sport. One of the most famous Taiwanese baseball pitchers is Chien-Ming Wang, who is a starting pitcher in Major League Baseball. Other notable players playing in the United States include Chin-hui Tsao who played for the Colorado Rockies (2003–2005) and the Los Angeles Dodgers (2007), Hong-Chih Kuo, Fu-Te Ni, and Chin-lung Hu. The Chinese Professional Baseball League in Taiwan was established in 1989,^[219] and eventually absorbed the competing Taiwan Major League in 2003. As of 2008^[update], the CPBL has four teams with average attendance of approximately 3,000 per game.

Yani Tseng with the 2011 Women's British Open trophy

Besides baseball, basketball is Taiwan's major sport.^[220] The national team's forth place at the 1959 FIBA World Championship remains the second best finish ever of an Asian nation to this date.

Taekwondo has also become a rather mature and successful sport in recent years. In the 2004 Olympics, Mu Yen Chu and Shih Hsin Chen proudly won the first two gold medals in men's flyweight event and women's flyweight event, respectively. Ever since the 2004 Olympics, Taiwan's taekwondo potential has become extremely prominent. Subsequent taekwondo competitors such as Shu Chun Yang successfully consolidated Taiwan's taekwondo culture.

The ROC participates in international sporting organizations and events under the name of "Chinese Taipei" due to the ambiguity of the political status of Taiwan. In 2009, Taiwan hosted two international sporting events on the island. The World Games 2009 were held in Kaohsiung between 16 and 26 July 2009. Taipei hosted the 21st Summer Deaflympics in September of the same year. Furthermore, Taipei will host the Summer Universiade in 2017.^[221]

Taiwan is also a major Asian country for Korfball. In 2008, Taiwan hosted the World Youth Korfball Championship and took the silver medal.^[222] In 2009, Taiwan's korfball team won a bronze medal at the World Game.^[223]

Yani Tseng is the most famous Taiwanese professional golfer currently playing on the U.S.-based LPGA Tour. She is the youngest player ever, male or female, to win five major championships and has been ranked number 1 in the Women's World Golf Rankings since February 2011.

Calendar [link]

Main article: Minguo calendar

A calendar with a picture of a Chinese man in the center. On top of it stands a flag with five horizontal stripes (red, yellow, blue, white and black).

A calendar that commemorates the first year of the Republic as well as the election of Sun Yat-sen as the provisional President

Taiwan uses two official calendars: the Gregorian calendar, and the Minguo calendar. The latter numbers years starting from 1911, the year of the founding of the Republic of China. For example, 2007 is the "96th year of the Republic",^[224] while its months and days are numbered according to the Gregorian calendar.

Usually, year numbering may use the Gregorian system as well as the ROC era system. For example, 3 May 2004, may be written 2004-05-03 or 93–05–03. The use of two different calendar systems in Taiwan may be confusing, in particular for foreigners. For instance, products for export marked using the Minguo calendar can be misunderstood as having an expiration date 11 years earlier than intended.^[225]

Taiwan also uses the lunar calendar for traditional festivals such as the Chinese New Year, the Lantern Festival, and the Dragon Boat Festival.^[226]

Notes [link]

^ See Names of the Republic of China.
^ Waishengren usually refers to people who moved from mainland China to Taiwan after 1949 when the KMT retreated to Taiwan due to the Chinese Civil War, and to their descendants born in Taiwan. It usually does not include citizens of the People's Republic of China who more recently moved to Taiwan.
^ Taiwanese aborigines are officially categorised into 14 separate ethnic groups by the Republic of China.
^ Although the territories controlled by the ROC imply that the demonym is "Taiwanese", some consider that it is "Chinese" due to the claims of the ROC over all of China. Taiwanese people have various opinions regarding their own national identity.
^ ^a ^b The UN has not calculated an HDI for the ROC, which is not a member nation. The ROC government calculated its HDI for 2010 to be 0.868, which would rank it 18th among countries.
^ The island of Taiwan covers an area of 36,008 km² (13,902.8 sq mi), while the total area under the jurisdiction of the ROC (Free Area) covers around 36,191 km² (13,973.4 sq mi).^[16]

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^ (Fung 2000, p. 67) "Nanjing was not only undemocratic and repressive but also inefficient and corrupt. [...] Furthermore, like other authoritarian regimes, the GMD sought to control people's mind."
^ (Fung 2000, p. 85) "The response to national emergency, critics argued, was not merely military, it was, even more important, political, requiring the termination of one-party dictatorship and the development of democratic institutions."
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^ "The One-China Principle and the Taiwan Issue". PRC Taiwan Affairs Office and the Information Office of the State Council. 2005. http://www.gwytb.gov.cn:8088/detail.asp?table=WhitePaper&title=White%20Papers%20On%20Taiwan%20Issue&m_id=4. Retrieved 2006-03-06. ^{[dead link]} Section 1: "Since the KMT ruling clique retreated to Taiwan, although its regime has continued to use the designations "Republic of China" and "government of the Republic of China," it has long since completely forfeited its right to exercise state sovereignty on behalf of mainland China and, in reality, has always remained only a separate state on the island of Taiwan."
^ BBC News, "Taiwan Flashpoint", "But Taiwan's leaders say it is clearly much more than a province, arguing that it is a sovereign state. It has its own constitution, democratically elected leaders, and 400,000 troops in its armed forces."
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d "ECFA issues and the nationality identification". TVBS. http://www.tvbs.com.tw/FILE_DB/DL_DB/yijung/200905/yijung-20090508145032.pdf.
^ "Liancheng / Lianfeng Airbase – Chinese Military Forces". Federation of American Scientists. http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/china/facility/liancheng.htm. Retrieved 2009-06-07. "In March 2000 it was reported that the PLA Air Force was deploying new air-defense missiles [possibly batteries of Russian-made S-300 missiles] opposite Taiwan at the coastal cities of Xiamen and Shantou, and at Longtian, near Fuzhou."
^ ^a ^b "2004 National Defense Report" (PDF). ROC Ministry of National Defense. 2004. pp. 89–90. Archived from the original on 11 March 2006. http://web.archive.org/web/20060311012134/http://report.mnd.gov.tw/eng/pdf/all-1-360.pdf. Retrieved 2006-03-05. "The PRC refusal to renounce using military power against Taiwan, its current emphasis on 'enhancing preparation for military struggle', its obvious intention of preparing a war against Taiwan reflected in operational deployment, readiness efforts, and annual military exercises in the Southeast China coastal region, and its progress in aerospace operations, information warfare, paralyzing warfare, and non-conventional warfare, all of these factors work together so that the ROC Armed Forces face an increasingly complicated and difficult situation in terms of self-defense and counterattack. These multiple daunting challenges are testing our defense security."
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^ BBC News, "Taiwan Flashpoint", "Given the huge divide between these two positions, most other countries seem happy to accept the current ambiguity, whereby Taiwan has most of the characteristics of an independent state, even if its legal status remains unclear."
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^ ^a ^b "Looking behind Ma's 'three noes'". 2008-01-21. http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2008/01/21/2003398185. Retrieved 2009-05-28.
^ Enav, Peter (2008-05-16). "Unification with China unlikely ‘in our lifetimes’: president-elect". The China Post. http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/national/national%20news/2008/05/16/156644/Unification-with.htm. Retrieved 2009-06-13. "'It is very difficult for us to see any unification talks even in our lifetimes,' Ma said. 'Taiwanese people would like to have economic interactions with the mainland, but obviously they don’t believe their political system is suitable for Taiwan.'"
^ Eckholm, Erik (2000-03-22). "Why a Victory in Taiwan Wasn't Enough for Some – The New York Times". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2000/03/22/world/why-a-victory-in-taiwan-wasn-t-enough-for-some.html. Retrieved 2009-05-28.
^ "Taiwan Flashpoint: Independence debate". BBC News. 2009. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/asia_pac/04/taiwan_flashpoint/html/independence_debate.stm. "Since neither outcome looks likely in the short or even medium term, it is perhaps not surprising that opinion polls suggest most Taiwanese people want things to stay as they are, with the island's ambiguous status unresolved."
^ "Impulsa Taiwan la reconciliación" (in Spanish). El Sol de México. 2008-09-02. http://www.oem.com.mx/oem/notas/n836891.htm. Retrieved 2009-06-09. "Esencialmente, no definiríamos la relación a través del estrecho de Taiwan como una relación de dos países o dos Chinas, porque nuestra Constitución no lo permite. Nosotros definiríamos está relación como una relación muy especial, ya que la Constitución nuestra, igual que la Constitución de China continental, no permite la existencia de otro país dentro del territorio."
^ "The Official Position of the Republic of China on China's Passing of the Anti-secession (Anti-Separation) Law" (Press release). Mainland Affairs Council, ROC Executive Yuan. 2005-03-29. http://www.mac.gov.tw/ct.asp?xItem=68048&ctNode=5910&mp=3. "Section II-2: "'The Republic of China is an independent and sovereign state. Taiwan's sovereignty belongs to the 23 million people of Taiwan. Only the 23 million citizens of Taiwan may decide on the future of Taiwan.' This statement represents the greatest consensus within Taiwan's society today concerning the issues of national sovereignty and the future of Taiwan. It is also a common position shared by both the ruling and opposition parties in Taiwan. A recent opinion poll shows that more than 90% of the people of Taiwan agree with this position."
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g "Chapter 4: Government". The Republic of China Yearbook. Government Information Office, Republic of China (Taiwan). 2011. pp. 55–65. http://www.gio.gov.tw/taiwan-website/5-gp/yearbook/docs/ch04.pdf.
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^ Ginsburg, Tom (2003). Judicial review in new democracies. Cambridge University Press. p. 111. ISBN 0-521-52039-8. http://books.google.com/?id=qJrsouEjOZEC&pg=PA111.
^ "Taiwan assembly passes changes". BBC News. 2005-06-07. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4616043.stm.
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^ "China's Threats, Editorial". Washington Post. 2000-02-23. http://www.fapa.org/chinawp/chinathreatwp223.html. Retrieved 31 October 2011.
^ BBC News, "Taiwan Flashpoint", "Officially, the DPP still favours eventual independence for Taiwan, while the KMT favours eventual re-unification."
^ "Taiwan party asserts separate identity from China". USATODAY.Com. 2007-09-30. http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-09-30-taiwan_N.htm. Retrieved 2009-05-29.
^ Crisis Group (6 June 2003). "Taiwan Strait I: What's Left of 'One China'?". International Crisis Group. Archived from the original on 9 July 2008. http://web.archive.org/web/20080709035143/http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=1653&l=1. Retrieved 2009-05-29.
^ Shirk, Susan L. (2007). China: Fragile Superpower. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-530609-5.
^ ^a ^b Pares, Susan (2005-02-24). A political and economic dictionary of East Asia. Routledge. p. 267. ISBN 978-1-85743-258-9. http://books.google.com/?id=xJKePP5ATKUC. "The Pan-Blue coalition on the whole favours a Chinese nationalist identity and policies supporting reunification and increased economic links with the People's Republic of China."
^ "Ma refers to China as ROC territory in magazine interview". Taipei Times. 2008-10-08. http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2008/10/08/2003425320.
^ "Taiwan and China in 'special relations': Ma". China Post. 2008-09-04. http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/china-taiwan%20relations/2008/09/04/173082/Taiwan-and.htm.
^ "World | Asia-Pacific | Taiwan opposition leader in China". BBC News. 2005-04-26. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4482617.stm. Retrieved 2009-05-28.
^ Yu, Sophie; Jane Macartney (16 December 2008). "Direct flights between China and Taiwan mark new era of improved relations". Times Online (London). http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article5346905.ece. Retrieved 2009-06-04.
^ Michael S. Chase (2008-09-04). "Caliber – Asian Survey – 48(4):703 – Abstract". Caliber.ucpress.net. DOI:10.1525/as.2008.48.4.703. http://caliber.ucpress.net/doi/abs/10.1525/as.2008.48.4.703?journalCode=as. Retrieved 2009-05-29.
^ "US Keeps Taiwan at Arm's Length | David Isenberg | Cato Institute: Commentary". Cato.org. http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9556. Retrieved 2009-05-29.
^ "NCC relinquishes power over China-related media". 2007-08-09. http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2007/08/09/2003373313. Retrieved 2009-05-29.
^ Bristow, Michael (2001-10-26). Wealth probe for 'world's richest' party. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/1621048.stm. Retrieved 2007-11-12
^ "Court clears Ma of graft charges". 2008-04-25. http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/2008/04/25/153499/Court-clears.htm. Retrieved 2009-05-29.
^ "Chen Shui-bian lied about Lien Chan-endorsed check". 2008-10-03. http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/national/national%20news/2008/10/03/177135/Chen-Shui-bian.htm. Retrieved 2009-05-29.
^ "No headway in KMT, PFP merger talks". http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-12/13/content_502869.htm. Retrieved 2009-05-29.
^ "PFP rejects merger with KMT". 2002-05-01. http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/archives/2002/05/01/0000134077. Retrieved 2009-05-29.
^ Shambaugh, David L. (2006). Power shift. University of California Press. pp. 179–183. ISBN 0-520-24570-9. http://books.google.com/?id=rMicZHVR_y4C&pg=PA179.
^ Okazaki, Hisahiko (30 December 2008). "No sign of a 'peace agreement'". The Japan Times Online. http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/eo20081230ho.html. Retrieved 2009-07-15. "For one thing, I believe there is recognition that the awareness of Taiwanese identity is now irreversible. The KMT government did things like rename the "Taiwan Post" to "Chunghwa Post" as soon as it came in. But it did not take much time to perceive that it would cause a backlash among the Taiwan populace. The cross-strait exchanges have also brought about opposition demonstrations from time to time. This appears to be one of the reasons for the abrupt decline in the approval rating of the Ma administration."
^ "10 Questions: Ma Ying-jeou". TIME. 10 July 2006. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1211639,00.html. Retrieved 2009-07-15. "I am Taiwanese as well as Chinese."
^ "Survey on President Ma’s Approval Rating and Cross-Strait Relations After First Year of Direct Flights". Global Views Survey Research Center. 24 July 2009. http://www.gvm.com.tw/gvsrc/200907_GVSRC_others_E.pdf. Retrieved 23 December 2009. ^{[dead link]}
^ ^a ^b "天下雜誌民調顯示：6成1民眾擔心經濟傾中 7成5年輕人自認台灣人" (in Traditional Chinese). http://www.libertytimes.com.tw/2009/new/dec/16/today-t1.htm.
^ ^a ^b "附表十二:民眾對自我認同的看法" (in Traditional Chinese). http://www.mac.gov.tw/public/Attachment/973944270.pdf. Retrieved 2010-04-27.
^ "資料庫─台灣民眾台灣人/中國人認同趨勢分布" (in Traditional Chinese). National Chengchi University. http://esc.nccu.edu.tw/modules/tinyd2/content/TaiwanChineseID.htm. Retrieved 2009-05-07.
^ Quote: "Table 12: In Taiwan, some people identify themselves as Chinese, some identify themselves as Taiwan (sic). Do you identify yourself as Taiwanese or Chinese? (Do not prompt both Taiwanese and Chinese)"
^ Quote: "Table 13: In Taiwan, some people identify themselves as Chinese, some identify themselves as Taiwan (sic). Do you identify yourself as Taiwanese, Chinese or both Taiwanese and Chinese?"
^ "Committed to Taiwan". The Wall Street Journal. 2001-04-26. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB988242686540854310.html?mod=googlewsj. Retrieved 2009-05-28.
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^ "Taiwan Yearbook 2004". Government Information Office, Republic of China. http://www.gio.gov.tw/taiwan-website/5-gp/yearbook/2004/P101.htm. Retrieved 2009-05-28.
^ Bishop, Mac William (2004-01-01). "Women Take Command". Government Information Office, Republic of China. http://www.gio.gov.tw/ct.asp?xItem=28601&ctNode=3389. Retrieved 2009-06-05.
^ "Taiwan Yearbook 2005". Government Information Office, Republic of China. http://www.gio.gov.tw/taiwan-website/5-gp/yearbook/2005/p104.html. Retrieved 2009-05-28.
^ "ASIA-PACIFIC | Military alternative in Taiwan". BBC News. 2000-05-01. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/729500.stm. Retrieved 2009-05-28.
^ "The myth: a professional military in five years". 2009-03-21. http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2009/03/21/2003439010/wiki. Retrieved 2009-05-28.
^ "Taiwan to end conscription". The Straits Times. 2009-03-09. http://www.straitstimes.com/print/Breaking%2BNews/Asia/Story/STIStory_347888.html. Retrieved 2009-05-28.
^ "Taiwan to shorten conscription term to one year". Central News Agency website, Taipei. 2008-12-03. http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=NewsLibrary&p_multi=BBAB&d_place=BBAB&p_theme=newslibrary2&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=124D9E23B9033ED0&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM. Retrieved 2009-05-28.
^ "Kidd-class warships set sail for Taiwan". Taipei Times. 2005-10-31. http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2005/10/31/2003278135.
^ Rickards, Jane (2008-10-05). "Taiwanese leader hails weapons deal with US". The Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/04/AR2008100400477.html.
^ Cabestan, Jean-Pierre (2001). "France's Taiwan Policy: A Case of Shopkeeper Diplomacy". CERI. http://www.ceri-sciencespo.com/archive/july01/jpcabest.pdf. Retrieved 2009-06-05. "By excluding the French companies from the bidding lists of many contract, Peking wanted above all to stop a growing trend (...) to disregard its objections and interests in the Taiwan issue. (...) In spite of the ban of arms sales to Taiwan approved by the French government in January 1994, discreet and small-sized deals have continued to be concluded since then."
^ "Taiwan trying to shore up weapons support". USATODAY.com. 2004-09-24. http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2004-09-24-taiwan_x.htm. Retrieved 2009-05-28.
^ Swaine, Michael; James C. Mulvenon (2001) [2001] (PDF). Taiwan's Foreign and Defense Policies: Features and Determinants. RAND Corporation. ISBN 0-8330-3094-9. http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1383/MR1383.ch3.pdf. Retrieved 2006-03-05.
^ "China Threat to Attack Taiwan Alarms Asia". Associated Press. 2005-03-14. http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/03/14/international/i003051S91.DTL. ^{[dead link]}
^ Kapstein, Ethan B.; Michael Mastanduno (1999). Unipolar politics. Columbia University Press. p. 194. ISBN 0-231-11309-9. http://books.google.com/?id=68s2k0ztkCMC&pg=PA194. "The Japanese leadership openly split on whether a crisis in Taiwan was included in the geographic expression "area surrounding Japan." In the event, Japan refused to stipulate the contingencies under which it would provide rear area support for U.S. forces or even the geographic scope of the "area surrounding Japan". (...) The two sides have not articulated clearly what the alliance stands for, nor who it is defined to protect against."
^ Tow, William (2005). "ANZUS: Regional versus Global Security in Asia?". International Relations in the Asia-Pacific 5 (2): 197. DOI:10.1093/irap/lci113.
^ "China and Taiwan: flashpoint for a war". The Sydney Morning Herald. 2004-07-14. http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/07/13/1089694360063.html. Retrieved 2009-06-13.
^ Lotta Danielsson-Murphy. "ECFA poses new risks for Taiwan-Japan ties". http://www.etaiwannews.com/etn/news_content.php?id=1305355&lang=eng_news&cate_img=46.jpg&cate_rss=news_Editorial. Retrieved 2010-08-02.
^ ^a ^b Article 119 of the Constitution of the Republic of China regards Mongolia as a self-governing provincial-level locality
^ "World: Asia-Pacific Analysis: Flashpoint Spratly". BBC. 1999-02-14. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/279170.stm.
^ Hwang, Jim (1 October 1999). "Gone with the Times". Taiwan Review. http://taiwanreview.nat.gov.tw/ct.asp?xItem=1465&CtNode=1347. Retrieved 13 April 2012.
^ "中華民國國情簡介政府組織". Taipei: Government Information Office. http://info.gio.gov.tw/ct.asp?xItem=19878&ctNode=2840&mp=21. Retrieved 13 April 2012.
^ "Premier Wu greenlights Taoyuan County upgrade". Taiwan Today. 14 December 2010. http://www.taiwantoday.tw/ct.asp?xItem=136286&ctNode=445.
^ "Gold Shipped to Taiwan in 1949 Helped Stabilize ROC on Taiwan". http://www.kmt.org.tw/english/page.aspx?type=article&mnum=112&anum=9442. Retrieved 14 June 2011.
^ Roy, Denny (2003). Taiwan: A Political History. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. pp. 76, 77. ISBN 0-8014-8805-2.
^ Makinen & Woodward 1989: "It was the fiscal regime change on Taiwan, as in the European episodes, that finally brought price stability. It was the aid program that brought the budget to near balance, and when the aid program reached its full proportions in 1952, prices stabilized."
^ As calculated by Taiwan's Ministry of Budget, National Accountancy and Statistics, based on the following figures (2007): life expectancy / 78.4 years ; literacy rate / 97.6% ; gross combined schooling rate / 101.9% ; per capita GDP-PPP / US$30,352
^ Her, Kelly (2005-01-12). "Privatization Set in Motion". http://taiwanreview.nat.gov.tw/ct.asp?xItem=1153&CtNode=128. Retrieved 2009-06-05.
^ "Reserves of foreign exchange and gold". World Fact Book. CIA. 4 September 2008. Archived from the original on 26 September 2008. http://www.webcitation.org/5b7FcMQjc. Retrieved 3 January 2011. "Rank 5 Taiwan $ 274,700,000,000 31 December 2007"
^ Harding, Phil (2010-01-23). "Taiwan's Grand Hotel welcome for Chinese visitors". BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/8475215.stm.
^ DoIT 2008, p. 5 "Notably, cross-strait political tensions have not prevented Taiwanese firms from investing heavily in China. The cross-strait investments now exceed US$ 100 billions. Four Taiwanese-owned firms rank among China's top 10 biggest exporters. 10% of the Taiwanese labor force now works in China."
^ DoIT 2008, p. 5 "Although used-to-be-hostile tension between Taiwan and China has been eased to a certain degree, Taiwan should seek to maintain stable relation with China while continuing to protect national security, and avoiding excessive "Sinicization" of Taiwanese economy. Strategies to avoid excessive "Sinicization" of the Taiwanese economy could include efforts to increase geographic diversity of overseas Taiwanese employment, diversifying Taiwan's export markets and investment. "
^ BBC News, "Taiwan Flashpoint", "Some Taiwanese worry their economy is now dependent on China. Others point out that closer business ties makes Chinese military action less likely, because of the cost to China's own economy."
^ "Taiwan’s 2010 trade hits record high". 2010-01-10. http://taiwantoday.tw/ct.asp?xItem=142731&ctNode=453&mp=9.
^ "US-Taiwan FTA would have limited impact". bilaterals.org. http://www.bilaterals.org/article.php3?id_article=242. Retrieved 2009-05-28.
^ Morris, Peter (4 February 2004). "Taiwan business in China supports opposition". Asia Times Online. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/FB04Ad04.html.
^ "Coping with Asian financial crisis: The Taiwan experience | Seoul Journal of Economics". Find Articles at BNET. 2009-04-28. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa5411/is_199801/ai_n21432097/. Retrieved 2009-05-28. ^{[dead link]}
^ "Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu (Chinese Taipei) and the WTO". World Trade Organization. http://www.wto.org/english/theWTO_e/countries_e/chinese_taipei_e.htm. Retrieved 2009-06-07.
^ Postiglione, Gerard A.; Grace C. L. Mak (1997). Asian higher education. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 346–348. ISBN 0-313-28901-8. http://books.google.com/?id=RTE8KCespeEC&pg=PA347.
^ "The Story of Taiwan-Education Taiwan's Educational Development and Present Situation". Government Information Office, Republic of China. http://www.gio.gov.tw/info/taiwan-story/education/edown/3-1.htm. Retrieved 2009-05-28.
^ Gary Phillips (17 November 2007) (PDF). Chance Favors the Prepared Mind: Mathematics and Science Indicators for Comparing States and Nations. American Institutes for Research. Archived from the original on 26 November 2007. http://web.archive.org/web/20071126225257/http://www.air.org/publications/documents/phillips.chance.favors.the.prepared.mind.pdf. Retrieved 2007-11-21.
^ Bucknall, Keven (2002). Chinese Business Etiquette and Culture. C&M Online Media, Inc.. p. 15. ISBN 0-917990-44-7. http://books.google.com/?id=npxUXbUg6uUC&pg=PA15.
^ "Betting on Taiwan's future with the Nankang software park". Taipei Times. 1999-11-01. http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/archives/1999/11/01/0000009019. Retrieved 2009-05-28.
^ "Over 70% of Taiwanese parents send kids to English bushibans". Invest in Taiwan, Department of Investment Services. 2005-09-02. Archived from the original on 8 June 2008. http://web.archive.org/web/20080608050510/http://investintaiwan.nat.gov.tw/en/news/200509/2005090201.html. Retrieved 2009-05-28.
^ C. Smith, Douglas (1997). Middle education in the Middle Kingdom. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 119. ISBN 0-275-95641-5. http://books.google.com/?id=NqJP5uE9LewC&pg=PA119.
^ "Indigenous People". MOI Statistical Information Service. Feb 2012. http://sowf.moi.gov.tw/stat/month/m1-04.xls. Retrieved 14 April 2012.
^ "An Overview of Taiwan's Indigenous Groups". Taipei: Government Information Office. 2006. http://www.gio.gov.tw/taiwan-website/5-gp/culture/indigenous/. Retrieved 14 April 2012.
^ ^a ^b ^c Languages, The Republic of China Yearbook 2011, Government Information Office, Republic of China (Taiwan).
^ Lynn F. Lee. "Languages in Taiwan Today". Government Information Office, Republic of China. http://www.gio.gov.tw/taiwan-website/5-gp/yearbook/2002/chpt03-2.htm. Retrieved 2009-05-07.
^ Constitution of the Republic of China - Chapter II, Article 13: "The people shall have freedom of religious belief."
^ "Taiwan Yearbook 2006". Government of Information Office. 2006. Archived from the original on 2007-07-08. http://web.archive.org/web/20070708213510/http://www.gio.gov.tw/taiwan-website/5-gp/yearbook/22Religion.htm. Retrieved 2007-09-01.
^ "Taiwan: International Religious Freedom Report 2010". US Department of State: Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. 17 November 2010. http://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/irf/2010/148895.htm. Retrieved 17 March 2012.
^ Stainton, Michael (2002). "Presbyterians and the Aboriginal Revitalization Movement in Taiwan". Cultural Survival Quarterly 26.2, 5 May 2010 . Retrieved 21 March 2012.
^ "15,000 temples", Taiwan News, 28 July 2009. Retrieved 21 March 2012.
^ "Bureau of National Health Insurance". Taiwan BNHI. 2006-07-18. http://www.nhi.gov.tw.
^ "Bureau of National Health Insurance-National Health Insurance Act". Bureau of National Health Insurance, ROC. http://www.nhi.gov.tw/english/webdata.asp?menu=11&menu_id=295&webdata_id=1865. Retrieved 2009-05-28.
^ "Taiwanese Hospital Public Satisfaction Poll". Taiwan Department of Health. October 2004. http://www.hcquality.helthe.net/reports/showreports.php?id=2_1. ^{[dead link]}
^ "Center for Disease Control". Taiwan CDC. 2006-07-18. http://www.cdc.gov.tw.
^ "Bureau of National Health Insurance Full Summary" (PDF). Taiwan BNHI. 18 July 2006. http://www.nhi.gov.tw/english/file/s92.pdf.
^ "Centers for Disease Control, ROC (Taiwan)" (in Traditional Chinese). http://www.cdc.gov.tw. Retrieved 2009-06-05.
^ "Department of Health, Executive Yuan, ROC (Taiwan)" (in Traditional Chinese). http://www.doh.gov.tw. Retrieved 2009-05-28.
^ (Yip 2004:230-248; Makeham 2005:2-8; Chang 2005:224)
^ (Makeham & Hsiau 2005:125–129); (Winckler 1994:23–41)
^ [1]^{[dead link]}
^ "Taiwan to loan art to China amid warming ties". Agence France-Presse. 22 September 2010. Archived from the original on 9 October 2010. http://www.webcitation.org/5tLc0bqi3.
^ American Chamber of Commerce in Taipei. "Convenience Stores Aim at Differentiation" ( – ^{Scholar search}). Taiwan Business Topics 34 (11). http://www.amcham.com.tw/publication_topics_view.php?volume=34&vol_num=11&topics_id=558. ^{[dead link]}
^ "Intro of CPBL". Cpbl.com.tw. http://www.cpbl.com.tw/html/english/cpbl.asp. Retrieved 1 August 2010. ^{[dead link]}
^ Wang, Audrey (2008-06-01). "A Passion for Hoops". The Taiwan Review (Taiwan Review). http://taiwanreview.nat.gov.tw/ct.asp?xItem=43967&CtNode=128. Retrieved 2012-04-08.
^ Yeh, Joseph (2011-12-01). "Taipei to host 2017 Summer Universiade". The China Post (The China Post.). http://www.chinapost.com.tw/sports/other/2011/12/01/324608/Taipei-to.htm. Retrieved 2012-04-08.
^ "Netherlands Retains World Youth Korfball Champion; Taiwan is On the Way to the World...". Reuters Newswire. Sat 8 November 2008. http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/11/08/idUS82890+08-Nov-2008+BW20081108. Retrieved 14 June 2011.
^ Hazeldine, Richard (22 July 2009). "Jujitsu, korfball put Taiwan back on winning track". Taipei Times. http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2009/07/22/2003449286. Retrieved 14 June 2011.
^ Lotta Danielsson-Murphy. "Taiwan Calendar and Holidays". US-Taiwan Business Council. http://www.us-taiwan.org/taiwan_holidays.html. Retrieved 2009-05-28.
^ "Taiwan may drop idiosyncratic Republican calendar". Taipei Times. 2006-02-25. http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2006/02/25/2003294523. Retrieved 2009-05-28.
^ "Holidays and Festivals in Taiwan". Government Information Office, ROC. http://www.gio.gov.tw/info/festival_c/index_e.htm. Retrieved 2009-05-28.

Works cited [link]

Fenby, Jonathan (2009). The Penguin History of Modern China: The Fall and Rise of a Great Power, 1850–2009. Penguin Books. ISBN 0-7139-9832-6.
"2008 White Paper On Taiwan Industrial Technology". Department of Industrial Technology. 2008. http://doit.moea.gov.tw/itech/data/2008_1_1_EN.pdf. Retrieved 27 November 2009.
Fung, Edmund S. K. (2000). In search of Chinese democracy: civil opposition in Nationalist China, 1929–1949. Cambridge modern China series. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-77124-5.
Makinen, Gail E.; Woodward, G. Thomas (1989). "The Taiwanese hyperinflation and stabilization of 1945–1952". Journal of Money, Credit and Banking 21 (1): 90–105. JSTOR 1992580.
Makeham, John; Hsiau, A-chin, eds. (2005). Cultural, Ethnic, and Political Nationalism in Contemporary Taiwan: Bentuhua. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-4039-7020-6.

External links [link]

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China Taiwan Strait	East China Sea	Japan East China Sea
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South China Sea Brunei / Indonesia / Malaysia / Vietnam	Philippines Bashi Channel	Pacific Ocean

v t e Taiwan topics

History	Timeline of Taiwan of the Republic of China Prehistory Kingdom of Middag Dutch rule Kingdom of Tungning Qing Dynasty rule Republic of Formosa Japanese rule After World War II Archaeological sites

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Geographic national

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(Otherwise known as Taiwan)

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Cities	Chiayi Hsinchu Keelung

Counties	Changhua Chiayi Hsinchu Hualien Miaoli Nantou Penghu Pingtung Taitung Taoyuan Yilan Yunlin

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v t e Countries and territories of East Asia

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Sometimes included	Vietnam Russia (Russian Far East) Philippines

v t e Countries and other territories in Southeast Asia

Sovereign states	Brunei Burma Cambodia East Timor Indonesia Laos Malaysia Philippines Singapore Thailand Vietnam

Dependent territories	Christmas Island, Australia Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Australia

Subdivisions	Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India Hainan, China Paracel Islands, China Pratas Islands, Taiwan Spratly Islands (Taiping Island, Taiwan))

International membership

v t e World Trade Organization

System	Accession and membership Appellate Body Dispute Settlement Body International Trade Centre Chronology of key events

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Agreements	General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade Agriculture Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures Technical Barriers to Trade Trade Related Investment Measures Trade in Services Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Government Procurement Information Technology Marrakech Agreement Doha Declaration

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People	Pascal Lamy (Director-General) Supachai Panitchpakdi (Former Director-General) Deputy Directors-General: Alejandro Jara Valentine Rugwabiza Harsha Singh Rufus Yerxa

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v t e Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)

Australia Brunei Darussalam Canada Chile People's Republic of China Hong Kong Indonesia Japan South Korea Malaysia Mexico New Zealand Papua New Guinea Peru Philippines Russian Federation Singapore Taiwan * Thailand United States Vietnam * Officially the Republic of China, participate as Chinese Taipei

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v t e Austronesian-speaking countries and territories

Formosan	Taiwan

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Coordinates: 22°57′N 120°12′E / 22.95°N 120.2°E / 22.95; 120.2

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This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan

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Further information: Legal status of Taiwan

This article contains Chinese text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Chinese characters.

The controversy regarding the political status of Taiwan (or "Taiwan Issue" as referred to by the Communist Party of China) hinges on whether Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, and Matsu should remain effectively independent as territory of the Republic of China (ROC), become unified with the territories now governed by the People's Republic of China (PRC), or formally declare independence and become the Republic of Taiwan; furthermore, on whether its existence and status as a state ("country") is legitimate and recognized by the international community.

Currently, Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu, and some other minor islands effectively make up the jurisdiction of the state with the official name of Republic of China but widely known as "Taiwan". The ROC, which took control of Taiwan (including Penghu and other nearby islands) in 1945, ruled mainland China and claimed sovereignty over Outer Mongolia (now Mongolia) and Tannu Uriankhai (part of which is present day Tuva, Russia) before losing the Chinese Civil War and relocating its government to Taipei, Taiwan in December 1949.

Since the ROC lost its United Nations seat as "China" in 1971 (replaced by the PRC), most sovereign states have switched their diplomatic recognition to the PRC, recognizing or acknowledging the PRC to be the sole legitimate representative of all China, though many deliberately avoid stating clearly what territories they believe China includes. As of 2011, the ROC maintains official diplomatic relations with 23 sovereign states,^[1] although informal relations are maintained with nearly all others. Agencies such as the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office and American Institute in Taiwan operate as de facto embassies without official diplomatic status.

Non-partisan Taiwanese politician Wu San-lian (2L) celebrated his landslide victory (65.5%) in the first-time Taipei city mayoral election in January 1951 with his supporters. Taipei has been the capital of the Republic of China since December 1949.

The ROC government has in the past actively pursued the claim as the sole legitimate government over mainland China and Taiwan. This position started to be largely adjusted in the early 1990s as democracy was introduced and new Taiwanese leaders were elected, changing to one that does not actively challenge the legitimacy of PRC rule over mainland China. However, with the election of the Kuomintang (KMT, "Chinese Nationalist Party") back into executive power in 2008, the ROC government has changed its position back to that "mainland China is also part of the territory of the ROC."^[2] Both the PRC and the ROC carry out cross-strait relations through specialized agencies (such as the Mainland Affairs Council of the ROC), rather than through foreign ministries. Different groups have different concepts of what the current formal political situation of Taiwan is. (See also: Chinese reunification, Taiwan independence, and Cross-Strait relations)

In addition, the situation can be confusing because of the different parties and the effort by many groups to deal with the controversy through a policy of deliberate ambiguity. The political solution that is accepted by many of the current groups is the perspective of the status quo: to unofficially treat Taiwan as a state and at a minimum, to officially declare no support for the government of this state making a formal declaration of independence. What a formal declaration of independence would consist of is not clear and can be confusing given the fact that the People's Republic of China has never controlled Taiwan since its founding and the fact that the Republic of China, whose government controls Taiwan, is still a sovereign state as established at Nanjing in 1911, but its territory is limited to the province of Taiwan, Penghu, a part of the Nansha Islands and Diaoyutai island. The status quo is accepted in large part because it does not define the legal status or future status of Taiwan, leaving each group to interpret the situation in a way that is politically acceptable to its members. At the same time, a policy of status quo has been criticized as being dangerous precisely because different sides have different interpretations of what the status quo is, leading to the possibility of war through brinkmanship or miscalculation.^{[citation needed]}

Background [link]

Main article: History of Taiwan

Taiwan (excluding Penghu) was first populated by Austronesian people and was colonized by the Dutch, who had arrived in 1623. The Kingdom of Tungning, lasting from 1661 to 1683, was the first Han Chinese government to rule Taiwan. From 1683, the Qing Dynasty ruled Taiwan as a prefecture and in 1875 divided the island into two prefectures. In 1885 the island was made into a separate Chinese province to speed up development in this region. In the aftermath of the First Sino-Japanese War, Taiwan and Penghu were ceded by the Qing Dynasty to Japan in 1895. Japanese troops in Taiwan surrendered to the Republic of China at end of World War II, putting Taiwan under a Chinese government again after 50 years of Japanese rule. The ROC would then claim sovereignty on the basis of the Qing dynasty's administration, Cairo Declaration, Potsdam Declaration, and Japanese Instrument of Surrender, but this became contested by pro-independence groups in subsequent years due to different perceptions of the said documents' legality. Upon losing the Chinese civil war in 1949, the ROC government retreated to Taipei, and kept control over a few islands along the coast of mainland China and in the South China Sea. The People's Republic of China (PRC) was established in mainland China on October 1, 1949, claiming to be the successor to the ROC.^[3]

Quemoy, Matsu and Wuchiu on the coast of Fukien, Taiping and Pratas in the South China Sea, are part of the ROC's present territory, but were not ceded to Japan. Some arguments supporting the independence of Taiwan do not apply to these islands.

Question of sovereignty over Taiwan [link]

Main article: Legal status of Taiwan

Cession, retrocession and self-determination of Taiwan [link]

According to the Treaty of Shimonoseki Taiwan was part of Japan at the establishment of the ROC in 1912. The PRC (founded October 1, 1949) argues that the Treaty of Shimonoseki was never valid, saying it was one of several unequal treaties forced upon the Qing.

China, during the Qing Dynasty, ceded the island of Taiwan, including Penghu, to Japan "in perpetuity" at the end of the First Sino-Japanese War by signing the Treaty of Shimonoseki. In the Cairo Conference of 1943, the allied powers agreed to have Japan restore "all the territories Japan has stolen from the Chinese", specifically listing "Formosa" and Penghu, to the Republic of China after the defeat of Japan. According to both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China, this agreement was given legal force by the Instrument of Surrender of Japan in 1945. The PRC's UN Ambassador, Wang Yingfan (Chinese 王英凡), has stated multiple times in the UN general committee: "Taiwan is an inseparable part of China's territory since antiquity" and "both the 1943 Cairo Declaration and the 1945 Potsdam Declaration have reaffirmed in unequivocal terms China's sovereignty over Taiwan as a matter of international law." The PRC rejects arguments involving the lack of a specific treaty (San Francisco Peace Treaty) transferring Taiwan's sovereignty to China by noting that neither PRC nor ROC was a signatory to any such treaty, making the treaties irrelevant with regard to Chinese claims. The ROC argues that the Treaty of Taipei implicitly transferred sovereignty of Taiwan to it, however the US State Dept. disagreed with such an interpretation in its 1971 Starr Memorandum^[4]

On the other hand, a number of supporters of Taiwan independence argue that Taiwan was only formally incorporated as a Chinese territory under the Qing Dynasty in 1683, and as a province in 1885. Subsequently, because of the Shimonoseki Treaty of 1895, Taiwan had been de jure part of Japan when the ROC was established in 1912 and thus was not part of the Chinese republic. Also, because the Cairo Declaration was an unsigned press communiqué, the independence advocates argue that the legal effectiveness of the Declaration is highly questionable. Furthermore, they point out that the Instrument of Surrender of Japan was no more than an armistice, a "modus vivendi" in nature, which served as a temporary or provisional agreement that would be replaced with a peace treaty. Therefore, only a military occupation of Taiwan began on October 25, 1945, and both the Treaty of San Francisco and Treaty of Taipei hold legal supremacy over the surrender instrument. These treaties did not transfer the title of Taiwan from Japan to China. According to this argument, the sovereignty of Taiwan was returned to the people of Taiwan when Japan renounced sovereignty of Taiwan in the Treaty of San Francisco (also known as San Francisco Peace Treaty, SFPT) in 1951, based on the policy of self-determination which has been applied to "territories which detached from enemy states as a result of the Second World War" as defined by article 76b and 77b of the United Nations Charter and also by the protocol of the Yalta Conference. The United Nations General Assembly has not been particularly receptive to this argument, and the ROC's applications for admission to the United Nations have been rejected 15 times.^[5]

Although the interpretation of the peace treaties was used to challenge the legitimacy of the ROC on Taiwan before the 1990s, the introduction of popular elections in Taiwan has compromised this position. Except for the most extreme Taiwan independence supporters, most Taiwanese support the popular sovereignty theory and no longer see much conflict between this theory of sovereignty and the ROC position. In this sense, the ROC government currently administering Taiwan is not the same ROC which accepted Japanese surrender because the ruling authorities were given popular mandate by different pools of constituencies: one is the mainland Chinese electorate, the other is the Taiwanese constituencies. In fact, former president Chen Shui-bian has been frequently emphasizing the popular sovereignty theory in his speeches.

A shopping bag produced by an independence-leaning pastry establishment. The address uses "State of Taiwan, Taipei County" (台灣國台北縣) rather than "Taiwan Province" (台灣省) or "Republic of China" (中華民國)

However, as of 2010, the conflict between these two theories still plays a role in internal Taiwanese politics. The popular sovereignty theory, which the pan-green coalition emphasizes, suggests that Taiwan could make fundamental constitutional changes by means of a popular referendum. The ROC legal theory, which is supported by the pan-blue coalition, suggests that any fundamental constitutional changes would require that the amendment procedure of the ROC constitution be followed.

Position of the People's Republic of China (PRC)[link]

Mainland Travel Permit for Taiwan Residents. This permit is issued by the People's Republic of China to enable the Taiwanese to travel to mainland China. The People's Republic of China refuses to accept the Republic of China passports.

The position of the PRC is that the ROC ceased to be a legitimate government upon the founding of the former on October 1, 1949 and that the PRC is the successor of the ROC as the sole legitimate government of China, with the right to rule Taiwan under the succession of states theory.^[6]

The position of PRC is that the ROC and PRC are two different factions in the Chinese Civil War, which never legally ended. Therefore both factions belong to the same sovereign country—China. Since Taiwan's sovereignty belongs to China, the secession of Taiwan should be agreed upon by 1.3 billion Chinese citizens instead of the 23 million ROC citizens who currently live in Taiwan.^[7] Furthermore, the position of PRC is that UN General Assembly Resolution 2758, which states "Recognizing that the representatives of the Government of the People's Republic of China are the only lawful representatives of China to the United Nations", means that the PRC is recognized as having the sovereignty of all of China, including Taiwan (established by Cairo Declaration, Potsdam Proclamation and Japanese Instrument of Surrender). Therefore, the PRC believes that it is within their legal rights to extend its jurisdiction to Taiwan, by military means if necessary.

In addition, the position of PRC is that the ROC does not meet the fourth criterion of the Montevideo Convention, as it is recognized by only 23 states and has been denied access to international organizations such as the UN. The PRC points out the fact that the Montevideo Convention was only signed by 19 states at the Seventh International Conference of American States. Thus the authority of the United Nations as well as UN Resolutions should supersede the Montevideo Convention.

It is clear that the PRC still maintains that "there is only one China in the world" and "Taiwan is an inalienable part of China", however instead of "the Government of the People's Republic of China is the sole legal government of China", the PRC now emphasizes that "both Taiwan and the mainland belong to one and the same China"^{[citation needed]}. Although the current position allows for flexibility in terms of defining that "one China", any departure from the One-China policy is deemed unacceptable by the PRC government. The PRC government is unwilling to negotiate with the Republic of China government under any formulation other than One-China policy, although a more flexible definition of "one China" such as found in the 1992 consensus is possible under PRC policy. The PRC government considers the 1992 consensus a temporary measure to set aside sovereignty disputes and to enable talks.

The PRC government considers perceived violations of its "One-China policy" or inconsistencies with it such as supplying the ROC with arms a violation of its rights to territorial integrity.^[8] International news organizations often report that "China considers Taiwan a renegade province that must be united with the mainland by force if necessary", even though the PRC does not explicitly say that Taiwan is a "renegade province" in any press releases. However, official PRC media outlets and officials often refer to Taiwan as "China's Taiwan Province" or simply "Taiwan, China", and pressure international organizations to use the term. (Note: the PRC also claims Quemoy, Wuchiu and Matsu as part of its Fujian Province, and the South China Sea Islands part of its Guangdong and Hainan provinces.)

The PRC also pressured the International Olympic Committee to use the pseudonym "Chinese Taipei" to eliminate the appearance of the "Republic of China" name in the Olympics.^{[citation needed]}

Position of the Republic of China (ROC)[link]

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Republic of China passport issued in 2009.

The ROC argues that it maintains all the characteristics of a state and that it was not "replaced" or "succeeded" by the PRC because it has continued to exist long after the PRC's founding. According to the Montevideo Convention of 1933, the most cited source for the definition of statehood, a state must possess a permanent population, a defined territory, a government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other states. The ROC claims to meet all these criteria as it possesses a government exercising effective jurisdiction over well-defined territories with over 23 million permanent residents and a full fledged foreign ministry.

Both the original 1912 constitution and the 1923 'Cao' version failed to list Taiwan as a part of the ROC since the framers at the time considered Taiwan to be Japanese territory. It was only in the mid 1930's when both the CCP and KMT realised the future strategic importance of Taiwan that they altered their party positions to make a claim on Taiwan as a part of China. After losing the Civil War against the Communist Party in 1949, Chiang Kai Shek (Jiang JieShi) and the Nationalist Party fled to Taiwan, establishing a new government there, but always maintained that their government represented all of China, i.e. both Taiwan and the mainland.

The position of most supporters of Taiwan independence is that the PRC is the government of China, that Taiwan is not part of China, and the 'Republic of China (Taiwan)' is an independent, sovereign state. The Democratic Progressive Party states that Taiwan has never been under the jurisdiction of the PRC, and that the PRC does not exercise any hold over the 23 million Taiwanese on the island. On the other hand, the position of most Chinese reunification supporters believe the Chinese Civil War is still not concluded as no peace agreement was even signed. Therefore, the current political separation across the Taiwan strait is only temporary and a reunified China including both mainland China and Taiwan will be the result.

The position of the Republic of China had been that it was a de jure sovereign state. "Republic of China," according to the ROC government's definition, extended to both mainland China and the island of Taiwan.^[9]

In 1991, President Lee Teng-hui unofficially claimed that the government would no longer challenge the rule of the Communists in mainland China, the ROC government under Kuomintang (KMT) rule actively maintained that it was the sole legitimate government of China. The Courts in Taiwan have never accepted President Lee's statement, primarily due to the reason that the (now defunct) National Assembly never officially changed the national borders. Notably, the People's Republic of China claims that changing the national borders would be "a precursor to Taiwan independence". The task of changing the national borders now requires a constitutional amendment passed by the Legislative Yuan and ratified by a majority of all eligible ROC voters, which the PRC has implied would constitute grounds for military attack.

Exit and Entry Permit Taiwan, Republic of China. This permit is issued by the Republic of China to enable mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau residents to travel to Taiwan. The Republic of China refuses to accept the The People's Republic of China passports.

On the other hand, though the constitution of the Republic of China promulgated in 1946 does not state exactly what territory it includes, the draft of the constitution of 1925 did individually list the provinces of the Republic of China and Taiwan was not among them, since Taiwan was arguably de jure part of Japan as the result of the Treaty of Shimonoseki of 1895. The constitution also stipulated in Article I.4, that "the territory of the ROC is the original territory governed by it; unless authorized by the National Assembly, it cannot be altered." However, in 1946, Sun Fo, son of Sun Yat-Sen and the minister of the Executive Yuan of the ROC, reported to the National Assembly that "there are two types of territory changes: 1. renouncing territory and 2. annexing new territory. The first example would be the independence of Mongolia, and the second example would be the reclamation of Taiwan. Both would be examples of territory changes." Japan renounced all rights to Taiwan in the Treaty of San Francisco in 1951 and the Treaty of Taipei of 1952 without an explicit recipient. While the ROC continuously ruled Taiwan after the government was directed to Taiwan by the General Order No. 1 (1945) to receive Japanese surrender, there has never been a meeting of the ROC National Assembly in making a territory change according to the ROC constitution. The explanatory memorandum to the constitution explained the omission of individually listing the provinces as opposed to the earlier drafts was an act of deliberate ambiguity: as the ROC government does not recognize the validity of the Treaty of Shimonoseki, based on Chiang Kai-shek's Denunciation of the treaty in the late 1930s, hence (according to this argument) the sovereignty of Taiwan was never disposed by China. A ratification by the ROC National Assembly is therefore unnecessary.

The Additional Articles of the Constitution of the Republic of China have mentioned "Taiwan Province," and the now defunct National Assembly passed constitutional amendments that give the people of the "Free Area of the Republic of China", comprising the territories under its current jurisdiction, the sole right, until reunification, to exercise the sovereignty of the Republic through elections ^[9]^[10] of the President and the entire Legislature as well as through elections to ratify amendments to the ROC constitution. Also, Chapter I, Article 2 of the ROC constitution states that "The sovereignty of the Republic of China shall reside in the whole body of citizens." This suggests that the constitution implicitly admits that the sovereignty of the ROC is limited to the areas that it controls even if there is no constitutional amendment that explicitly spells out the ROC's borders.

The building of the Provincial Government of the Taiwan Province of the Republic of China at Jhongsing Village

The Republic of China Presidential Office Building is located in the Zhongzheng District of Taipei.

In 1999, ROC President Lee Teng-hui proposed a two-state theory (兩國論) in which both the Republic of China and the People's Republic of China would acknowledge that they are two separate countries with a special diplomatic, cultural and historic relationship.^[11]^[12] This however drew an angry reaction from the PRC who believed that Lee was covertly supporting Taiwan independence.^[13]

President Chen Shui-bian (2000-May 2008) fully supported the idea that the "Republic of China is an independent, sovereign country" but held the view that the Republic of China is Taiwan and Taiwan does not belong to the People's Republic of China. This is suggested in his Four-stage Theory of the Republic of China. Due to the necessity of avoiding war with the PRC however, President Chen had refrained from formally declaring Taiwan's independence. Government publications have implied that Taiwan refers to the ROC, and "China" refers to the PRC.^[9] After becoming chairman of the Democratic Progressive Party in July 2002, Chen appeared to move further than Lee's special two-state theory and in early August 2002, by putting forward the "one country on each side" concept, he stated that Taiwan may "go on its own Taiwanese road" and that "it is clear that the two sides of the straits are separate countries." These statements essentially eliminate any "special" factors in the relations and were strongly criticized by opposition parties in Taiwan. President Chen has repeatedly refused to endorse the One China Principle or the more "flexible" 1992 Consensus the PRC demands as a precursor to negotiations with the PRC. During Chen's presidency, there had not been any successful attempts to restart negotiations on a semi-official level.

In the 2008 ROC elections, the people delivered KMT's Ma Ying-jeou with an election win as well as a sizable majority in the legislature. President Ma, throughout his election campaign, maintained that he would accept the 1992 consensus and promote better relations with the PRC. In respect of Taiwan political status, his policy was 1. he would not negotiate with the PRC on the subject of reunification during his term; 2. he would never declare Taiwan independence; and 3. he would not provoke the PRC into attacking Taiwan. He officially accepted the 1992 Consensus in his inauguration speech which resulted in direct semi-official talks with the PRC, and this later led to the commencement of weekend direct charter flights between mainland China and Taiwan. President Ma also interprets the cross-strait relations as "special", "but not that between two nations".^[14] He later stated that mainland China is part of the territory of the Republic of China, and laws relating to international relations are not applicable to the relations between mainland China and Taiwan, as they are parts of a state.^[2]^[15]^[16]

Position of other countries and international organizations [link]

See also Foreign relations of the Republic of China

Voting situation in the UN general assembly respect to resolution 2758 (1971).

Because of anti-communist sentiment at the start of the Cold War, the Republic of China was initially recognized as the sole legitimate government of China by the United Nations and most Western nations. On January 9, 1950, the Israeli government extended recognition to the People's Republic of China. United Nations General Assembly Resolution 505, passed on February 1, 1952 considered the Chinese communists to be rebels against the Republic of China. However, the 1970s saw a switch in diplomatic recognitions from the ROC to the PRC. On 25 October 1971, Resolution 2758 was passed by the UN General Assembly, which "decides to restore all its rights to the People's Republic of China and to recognize the representatives of its Government as the only legitimate representatives of China to the United Nations, and to expel forthwith the representatives of Chiang Kai-shek from the place which they unlawfully occupy at the United Nations and in all the organizations related to it." Multiple attempts by the Republic of China to rejoin the UN, no longer to represent all of China but just the people of the territories it governs, have not made it past committee, largely due to diplomatic maneuvering by the PRC, which claims Resolution 2758 has settled the matter. (See China and the United Nations.)

The PRC refuses to maintain diplomatic relations with any nation that recognizes the ROC,^[6] but does not object to nations conducting economic, cultural, and other such exchanges with Taiwan that do not imply diplomatic relation. Therefore, many nations that have diplomatic relations with Beijing maintain quasi-diplomatic offices in Taipei. Similarly, the government in Taiwan maintains quasi-diplomatic offices in most nations under various names, most commonly as the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office.

With President Chiang Kai-shek, the U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower waved hands to Taiwanese people during his visit to Taipei, Taiwan in June 1960.

File:Taiwanarmspic1.jpg

F-16 fighters sold to the ROC by the United States

The United States is one of the main allies of Taiwan and, since the Taiwan Relations Act passed in 1979, the United States has sold arms and provided military training to the Republic of China Armed Forces.^[17] This situation continues to be an issue for China, which considers US involvement disruptive to the stability of the region. In January 2010, the Obama administration announced its intention to sell $6.4 billion worth of military hardware to Taiwan. As a consequence, China threatened the US with economic sanctions and warned that their cooperation on international and regional issues could suffer.^[18] The official position of the United States is that China is expected to "use no force or threat[en] to use force against Taiwan" and that Taiwan is to "exercise prudence in managing all aspects of Cross-Strait relations." Both are to refrain from performing actions or espousing statements "that would unilaterally alter Taiwan's status."^[19] The United States maintains the American Institute in Taiwan.

The United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Republic of India, Pakistan and Japan have formally adopted the One China policy, under which the People's Republic of China is theoretically the sole legitimate government of China. However, the United States and Japan acknowledge rather than recognize the PRC position that Taiwan is part of China. In the case of Canada^[20] and the UK, bilateral written agreements state that the two respective parties take note of Beijing's position but do not use the word support. The UK government position that "the future of Taiwan be decided peacefully by the peoples of both sides of the Strait" has been stated several times. Despite the PRC claim that the United States opposes Taiwanese independence, the United States takes advantage of the subtle difference between "oppose" and "does not support". In fact, a substantial majority of the statements Washington has made says that it "does not support Taiwan independence" instead of saying that it "opposes" independence. Thus, the US currently does not take a position on the political outcome, except for one explicit condition that there be a peaceful resolution to the differences between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait.^[21] All of this ambiguity has resulted in the United States constantly walking on a diplomatic tightrope with regard to cross strait relations.

President Chen Shui-bian (far left) attended the funeral of Pope John Paul II in 2005. As the Holy See's recognized head of state of China, Chen was seated in the front row (in French alphabetical order) beside the first lady and president of Brazil.

The ROC maintains formal diplomatic relations with 23 countries, mostly in Central America and Africa. Notably the Holy See also recognizes the ROC, a largely non-Christian/Catholic state, mainly to protest what it sees as the PRC's suppression of the Catholic faith in mainland China. However, Vatican diplomats were engaged in talks with PRC politicians at the time of Pope John Paul II's death, with a view towards improving relations between the two countries. When asked, one Vatican diplomat suggested that relations with Taiwan might prove "expendable" should PRC be willing to engage in positive diplomatic relations with the Holy See.^[22] Under Pope Benedict XVI the Vatican and PRC have shown greater interest in establishing ties, including the appointment of pro-Vatican bishops and the Pope canceling a planned visit from the Dalai Lama.^[23]

During the 1990s, there was a diplomatic tug of war in which the PRC and ROC attempted to outbid each other to obtain the diplomatic support of small nations. This struggle seems to have slowed as a result of the PRC's growing economic power and doubts in Taiwan as to whether this aid was actually in the Republic of China's interest. In March 2004, Dominica switched recognition to the PRC in exchange for a large aid package.^[24] However, in late 2004, Vanuatu briefly switched recognition from Beijing to Taipei,^[25] leading to the ousting of its Prime Minister and a return to its recognition of Beijing.^[26] On January 20, 2005, Grenada switched its recognition from Taipei to Beijing, in return for millions in aid (US$1,500 for every Grenadian).^[27] However, on May 14, 2005, Nauru announced the restoration of formal diplomatic relations with Taipei after a three-year hiatus, during which it briefly recognized the People's Republic of China.^[28]

On October 26, 2005, Senegal broke off relations with the Republic of China and established diplomatic contacts with Beijing.^[29] The following year, on August 5, 2006, Taipei ended relations with Chad when Chad established relations with Beijing.^[30] On April 26, 2007, however, Saint Lucia, which had previously severed ties with the Republic of China following a change of government in December 1996, announced the restoration of formal diplomatic relations with Taipei.^[31] On June 7, 2007, Costa Rica broke off diplomatic ties with the Republic of China in favour of the People's Republic of China.^[32] In January 2008 Malawi's foreign minister reported Malawi decided to cut diplomatic recognition of the Republic of China and recognize the People's Republic of China.^[33]

Currently, the countries who maintain formal diplomatic relations with the ROC are:

Belize (1989)
Burkina Faso (1994)
Dominican Republic (1957)
El Salvador (1961)
Gambia (1995)
Guatemala (1960)
Haiti (1956)
Honduras (1965)
Kiribati (2003)
Marshall Islands (1998)
Nauru (1980–2002, 2005)
Nicaragua (1990)

Palau (1999)
Panama (1954)
Paraguay (1957)
Saint Kitts and Nevis (1983)
Saint Lucia (1984–1997, 2007)
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (1981)
São Tomé and Príncipe (1997)
Solomon Islands (1983)
Swaziland (1968)
Tuvalu (1979)
Vatican City (The Holy See) (1942)

Under continuing pressure from the PRC to bar any representation of the ROC that may imply statehood, international organizations have adopted different policies toward the issue of ROC's participation. In cases where almost all UN members or sovereign states participate, such as the World Health Organization,^[34] the ROC has been completely shut out, while in others, such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) and International Olympic Committee (IOC) the ROC participates under unusual names: "Chinese Taipei" in the case of APEC and the IOC, and the "Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kimmen and Matsu" (often shortened as "Chinese Taipei") in the case of the WTO. The issue of ROC's name came under scrutiny during the 2006 World Baseball Classic. The organizers of the 16-team tournament intended to call Taiwan as such, but reverted to "Chinese Taipei" under pressure from PRC. The ROC protested the decision, claiming that the WBC is not an IOC event, but did not prevail.^{[citation needed]} The ISO 3166 directory of names of countries and territories registers Taiwan (TW) separately from and in addition to the People's Republic of China (CN), but lists Taiwan as "Taiwan, Province of China" based on the name used by the UN under PRC pressure. In ISO 3166-2:CN, Taiwan is also coded CN-71 under China, thus making Taiwan part of China in ISO 3166-1 and ISO 3166-2 categories.

Naming issues surrounding Taiwan/ROC continue to be a contentious issue in non-governmental organizations such as the Lions Club, which faced considerable controversy naming its Taiwanese branch.^[35]

Controversies [link]

Many political leaders who have maintained some form of One-China Policy have committed slips of the tongue in referring to Taiwan as a country or as the Republic of China. United States presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush have been known to have referred to Taiwan as a country during their terms of office. Although near the end of his term as U.S. Secretary of State, Colin Powell said that Taiwan is not a state, he referred to Taiwan as the Republic of China twice during a testimony to the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee on March 9, 2001.^[36] In the People's Republic of China Premier Zhu Rongji's farewell speech to the National People's Congress, Zhu accidentally referred to Mainland China and Taiwan as two countries.^[37] There are also those from the PRC who informally refer to Taiwan as a country.^[38] South Africa delegates once referred to Taiwan as the "Republic of Taiwan" during Lee Teng-hui's term as President of the ROC.^[39] In 2002, Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York City, referred to Taiwan as a country.^[40] Most recently, former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld stated in a local Chinese newspaper in California in July 2005 that Taiwan is "a sovereign nation". The People's Republic of China discovered the statement about three months after it was made.^{[citation needed]}

In a controversial speech on February 4, 2006, Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso called Taiwan a country with very high education levels because of previous Japanese colonial rule over the island.^[41] One month later, he told a Japanese parliamentary committee that "[Taiwan's] democracy is considerably matured and liberal economics is deeply ingrained, so it is a law-abiding country. In various ways, it is a country that shares a sense of values with Japan." At the same time, he admitted that "I know there will be a problem with calling [Taiwan] a country".^[42] Later, the Japanese Foreign Ministry tried to downplay or reinterpret his remarks.^{[citation needed]}

In February 2007, the Royal Grenada Police Band played the National Anthem of the Republic of China in an inauguration of the reconstructed St George's Queen's Park Stadium funded by the PRC. Grenada had broken off diplomatic relations with Taiwan just two years prior in favor of the PRC.^[43]

When the Kuomintang visited Mainland China in 2005, the government-controlled PRC media called this event a "visit," and called the KMT one of "Taiwan's political parties" even though the Kuomintang's full name remains the "Chinese Nationalist Party." Interestingly in Mainland China, there is a legal party called the Revolutionary Committee of the Kuomintang that is officially one of the nine "consultative parties," according to the PRC's Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

On the Foreign Missions page of the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for China, the embassy of the People's Republic of China was referred to as the 'Republic of China'.^[44]

Possible military solutions and intervention [link]

Until 1979, both sides intended to resolve the conflict militarily.^{[citation needed]} Intermittent clashes occurred throughout the 1950s and 1960s, with escalations comprising the First and Second Taiwan Strait crises. In 1979, with the U.S. change of diplomatic recognition to the PRC, the ROC lost its ally needed to "recover the mainland." Meanwhile, the PRC's desire to be accepted in the international community led it to promote peaceful unification under what would later be termed "one country, two systems", rather than to "liberate Taiwan" and to make Taiwan a Special Administrative Region.

PRC's condition on military intervention [link]

Notwithstanding, the PRC government has issued triggers for an immediate war with Taiwan, most notably via its controversial Anti-Secession Law of 2005. These conditions are:

if events occur leading to the "separation" of Taiwan from China in any name, or
if a major event occurs which would lead to Taiwan's "separation" from China, or
if all possibility of peaceful unification is lost.

It has been interpreted that these criteria encompass the scenario of Taiwan developing nuclear weapons (see main article Taiwan and weapons of mass destruction also Timeline of the Republic of China's nuclear program).

Much saber-rattling by the PRC has been done over this, with Jiang Zemin, after assuming the mantle of the Chairman of the Central Military Commission, becoming a leading voice.

The third condition has especially caused a stir in Taiwan as the term "indefinitely" is open to interpretation.^{[citation needed]} It has also been viewed by some as meaning that preserving the ambiguous status quo is not acceptable to the PRC, although the PRC stated on many occasions that there is no explicit timetable for reunification.

Concern over a formal declaration of de jure Taiwan independence is a strong impetus for the military buildup between Taiwan and mainland China. The former US Bush administration publicly declared that given the status quo, it would not aid Taiwan if it were to declare independence unilaterally.^[45]

According the US Department of Defense report "Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2011" conditions that mainland China has warned may cause the use of force have varied. They have included "a formal declaration of Taiwan independence; undeﬁned moves “toward independence”; foreign intervention in Taiwan’s internal affairs; indeﬁnite delays in the resumption of cross-Strait dialogue on uniﬁcation; Taiwan’s acquisition of nuclear weapons; and, internal unrest on Taiwan. Article 8 of the March 2005 “Anti-Secession Law” states Beijing would resort to “non-peaceful means” if “secessionist forces . . . cause the fact of Taiwan’s secession from China,” if “major incidents entailing Taiwan’s secession” occur, or if “possibilities for peaceful reuniﬁcation” are exhausted".^[46]

According to President Chen Shui-bian who was President of the Republic of China between 2000 and 2008, China accelerated the deployment of missiles against Taiwan up to 120 a year (May 2007), bringing the total arsenal to 706 ballistic missiles capable of being fitted with nuclear warheads that are aimed at Taiwan. Some believe that their deployment is a political tool on the part of the PRC to increase political pressure on Taiwan to abandon unilateral moves toward formal independence, at least for the time being, although the PRC government never declares such deployment publicly.^{[citation needed]}. Legislative elections were held in Taiwan on January 12, 2008. The results gave the Kuomintang and the Pan-Blue Coalition a supermajority (86 of the 113 seats) in the legislature, handing a heavy defeat to President Chen Shui-bian's Democratic Progressive Party, which won the remaining 27 seats only. The junior partner in the Pan-Green Coalition, the Taiwan Solidarity Union, won no seats. The election for the 12th-term President and Vice-President of the Republic of China was held in the Republic of China (Taiwan) on Saturday, March 22, 2008. Kuomintang nominee Ma Ying-jeou won, with 58% of the vote, ending eight years of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential power. Along with the 2008 legislative election, Ma's landslide victory brought the Kuomintang back to power in Taiwan.

Balance of power [link]

The possibility of war, the close geographical proximity of ROC-controlled Taiwan and PRC-controlled mainland China, and the resulting flare-ups that occur every few years, conspire to make this one of the most watched focal points in the Pacific. Both sides have chosen to have a strong naval presence. However, naval strategies between both powers greatly shifted in the 1980s and 1990s, while the ROC assumed a more defensive attitude by building and buying frigates and missile destroyers, and the PRC a more aggressive posture by developing long-range cruise missiles and supersonic surface-to-surface missiles.

Although the People's Liberation Army Air Force is considered large, most of its fleet consists of older generation J-7 fighters (localized MiG-21s and Mig-21BIs), raising doubts over the PLAAF's ability to control Taiwan's airspace in the event of a conflict. Since mid-1990s PRC has been purchasing, and later localizing, SU-27 based fighters. These Russian fighters, as well as their Chinese J11A variants, are currently over 170 in number, and have increased the effectiveness of PLAAF's Beyond Visual Range (BVR) capabilities. The introduction of 60 new-generation J10A fighters is anticipated to increase the PLAAF's firepower. PRC's acquisition of Russian Su30MKKs further enhanced the PLAAF's air-to-ground support ability. The ROC's air force, on the other hand, relies on Taiwan's second generation fighters, consisting of 150 US-built F-16 Fighting Falcons, approximately 60 French-built Mirage 2000-5s, and approximately 130 locally developed IDFs (Indigenous Defense Fighters). All of these ROC fighter jets are able to conduct BVR combat missions with BVR missiles, but the level of technology in mainland Chinese fighters is catching up. Also the United States Defense Intelligence Agency has reported that few of Taiwan's 400 total fighters are operationally capable.^[47]^[48]

In 2003, the ROC purchased four missile destroyers—the former USS Kidd class, and expressed a strong interest in the Arleigh Burke class. But with the growth of the PRC navy and air force, some doubt that the ROC could withstand a determined invasion attempt from mainland China in the future. These concerns have led to a view in certain quarters that Taiwanese independence, if it is to be implemented, should be attempted as early as possible, while the ROC still has the capacity to defend itself in an all-out military conflict. Over the past three decades, estimates of how long the ROC can withstand a full-scale invasion from across the Strait without any outside help have decreased from three months to only six days.^[49] Given such estimates, the US Navy has continued practicing "surging" its carrier groups, giving it the experience necessary to respond quickly to an attack on Taiwan.^[50] The US also collects data on the PRC's military deployments, through the use of spy satellites, for example.^{[citation needed]} For early surveillance may effectively identify PRC's massive military movement, which may imply PRC's preparation for a military assault against Taiwan.

However, numerous reports issued by the PRC, ROC and US militaries make mutually wild contradictory statements about the possible defense of Taiwan.^{[citation needed]}

Naturally, war contingencies are not being planned in a vacuum. In 1979, the United States Congress passed the Taiwan Relations Act, a law generally interpreted as mandating U.S. defense of Taiwan in the event of an attack from the Chinese Mainland (the Act is applied to Taiwan and Penghu, but not to Jinmen or Matsu). The United States maintains the world's largest permanent fleet in the Pacific Region near Taiwan. The Seventh Fleet, operating primarily out of various bases in Japan, is a powerful naval contingent built upon the world's only permanently forward-deployed aircraft carrier USS George Washington (CVN-73). Although the stated purpose of the fleet is not Taiwanese defense, it can be safely assumed from past actions, that is one of the reasons why the fleet is stationed in those waters.^{[citation needed]}

Starting in 2000, Japan renewed its defense obligations with the US and embarked on a rearmament program, partly in response to fears that Taiwan might be invaded. Some analysts believed that the PRC could launch preemptive strikes on military bases in Japan to deter US and Japanese forces from coming to the ROC's aid. Japanese strategic planners also see an independent Taiwan as vital, not only because the ROC controls valuable shipping routes, but also because its capture by PRC would make Japan more vulnerable. During World War II, the US invaded the Philippines, but another viable target to enable direct attacks on Japan would have been Taiwan (then known as Formosa). However, critics of the preemptive strike theory assert that the PRC would be loath to give Japan and the US such an excuse to intervene.^{[citation needed]}

The United States Department of Defense in a 2011 report stated that the primary mission of the PRC military is a possible military conflict with Taiwan, including also possible US military assistance. Although the risk of a crisis in the short-term is low, in the absence of new political developments, Taiwan will likely dominate future military modernization and planning. However, also other priorities are becoming increasingly prominent and possible due to increasing military resources. Many of mainland China's most advanced military systems are stationed in areas opposite Taiwan. The rapid military modernization is continually changing the military balance of power towards mainland China.^[51]

A 2008 report by the RAND Corporation analyzing a theoretical 2020 attack by mainland China on Taiwan suggested that the US would likely not be able to defend Taiwan. Cruise missile developments may enable China to partially or completely destroy or make inoperative US aircraft carriers and bases in the Western Pacific. New Chinese radars will likely be able to detect US stealth aircraft and China is acquiring stealthy and more effective aircraft. The reliability of US beyond-visual-range missiles as a mean to achieve air superiority is questionable and largely unproven.^[52]

Third Taiwan Strait Crisis [link]

ROCS Kang Ding-class frigate with S-70C helicopter

In 1996, the PRC began conducting military exercises near Taiwan, and launched several ballistic missiles over the island. The saber-rattling was done in response to the possible re-election of then President Lee Teng-hui.^{[citation needed]} The United States, under President Clinton, sent two aircraft carrier battle groups to the region, sailing them into the Taiwan Strait. The PRC, unable to track the ships' movements, and probably unwilling to escalate the conflict, quickly backed down. The event had little impact on the outcome of the election, since none of Lee's contestants were strong enough to defeat him, but it is widely believed that the PRC's aggressive acts, far from intimidating the Taiwanese population, gave Lee a boost that pushed his share of votes over 50 percent.^{[citation needed]}

The possibility of war in the Taiwan Straits, even though quite low in the short-term, requires the PRC, ROC, and U.S. to remain wary and vigilant^[who?]. The goal of the three parties at the moment seems to be, for the most part, to maintain the status quo^[who?].

Developments since 2004 and future prospects [link]

Judicial [link]

On October 24, 2006, Dr. Roger C. S. Lin led a group of Taiwanese residents, including members of the Taiwan Nation Party, to file a Complaint for Declaratory Relief in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. According to their lawyer, Mr. Charles Camp, "[t]he Complaint asks the Court to declare whether the Taiwanese plaintiffs, including members of the Taiwan Nation Party, have certain rights under the United States Constitution and other US laws".^[53] Their central argument is that, following Japanese renunciation of all rights and claims to Taiwan, Taiwan came under U.S. jurisdiction based on it being the principal occupying power as designated in the Treaty of Peace with Japan and remains so to this day. This case was opposed by the United States government.

The District Court agreed with United States government on March 18, 2008 and ruled that the case presents a political question; as such, the court concluded that it had no jurisdiction to hear the matter and dismissed the complaint.^[54] This decision has been appealed by plaintiffs^[55] and the appeals court unanimously upheld the district court ruling.^[56]

The PRC and Taiwan have agreed to increase cooperation in the area of law enforcement. Mainland police will begin staffing a liaison office in Taipei in 2010.^[57]

Political [link]

Although the situation is confusing, most observers believe that it is stable with enough understandings and gentlemen's agreements to keep things from breaking out into open warfare. The current controversy is over the term one China, as the PRC insists that the ROC must recognize this term to begin negotiations. Although the Democratic Progressive Party has moderated its support for Taiwan independence, there is still insufficient support within that party for former President Chen Shui-bian to agree to one China. By contrast, the Kuomintang (KMT) and the People First Party (PFP) appear willing to agree to some variation of one China, and observers believed the position of the PRC was designed to sideline Chen until the 2004 presidential election where it was hoped that someone who was more supportive of Chinese reunification would come to power. Partly to counter this, Chen Shui-bian announced in July 2002 that if the PRC does not respond to Taiwan's goodwill, Taiwan may "go on its own ... road."^{[citation needed]}

With Chen's re-election in 2004, Beijing's prospects for a speedier resolution were dampened, though they seemed strengthened again following the Pan-Blue majority in the 2004 legislative elections. However, public opinion in Taiwan reacted unfavorably towards the anti-secession law passed by the PRC in March 2005. Following two high profile visits by KMT and PFP party leaders to the PRC, the balance of public opinion appears to be ambiguous, with the Pan-Green Coalition gaining a majority in the 2005 National Assembly elections, but the Pan-Blue Coalition scoring a landslide victory in the 2005 municipal elections.

Legislative elections were held in Taiwan on January 12, 2008. The results gave the Kuomintang and the Pan-Blue Coalition an absolute majority (86 of the 113 seats) in the legislature, handing a heavy defeat to President Chen Shui-bian's Democratic Progressive Party, which won the remaining 27 seats. The junior partner in the Pan-Green Coalition, the Taiwan Solidarity Union, won no seats.

The election for the 12th President of ROC was held on March 22, 2008. Kuomintang candidate Ma Ying-jeou won, with 58% of the vote, ending eight years of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) leadership. Along with the 2008 legislative election, Ma's landslide victory brought the Kuomintang back to power in Taiwan. This new political situation has led to a decrease of tension between both sides of the Taiwan Strait and the increase of cross-strait relations, making a declaration of independence, or war, something unlikely.

Taiwan's Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) and its Chinese counterpart – the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) signed four agreements in Taipei on November 4, 2008. Both SEF and ARATS have agreed to address direct sea links, daily charter flights, direct postal service and food safety.^[58]

Public opinion [link]

Public opinion in Taiwan regarding relations with the PRC is notoriously difficult to gauge, as poll results tend to be extremely sensitive to how the questions are phrased and what options are given, and there is a tendency by all political parties to spin the results to support their point of view.^{[citation needed]}^{[dubious – discuss]}

According to a November 2005 poll from the Mainland Affairs Council, 37.7% of people living in the ROC favor maintaining the status quo until a decision can be made in the future, 18.4% favors maintaining the status quo indefinitely, 14% favors maintaining the status quo until eventual independence, 12% favors maintaining the status quo until eventual reunification, 10.3% favors independence as soon as possible, and 2.1% favors reunification as soon as possible. According to the same poll, 78.3% are opposed to the "One Country, Two Systems" model, which was used for Hong Kong and Macau, while 10.4% is in favor.^[59]

According to a June 2008 poll from a Taiwanese mainstream media TVBS, 58% of people living in Taiwan favor maintaining the status quo, 19% favors independence, and 8% favors unification. According to the same poll, if status quo is not an option and the ones who were surveyed must choose between "Independence" or "Unification", 65% are in favor of independence while 19% would opt for unification. The same poll also reveals that, in terms of self-identity, when the respondents are not told that a Taiwanese can also be a Chinese, 68% of the respondents identify themselves as "Taiwanese" while 18% would call themselves "Chinese". However, when the respondents are told that duo identity is an option, 45% of the respondents identify themselves as "Taiwanese only", 4% of the respondents call themselves "Chinese only" while 45% of the respondents call themselves "both Taiwanese as well as Chinese". Furthermore, when it comes to preference in which national identity to be used in international organizations, 54% of people in the survey indicated that they prefer "Taiwan" and only 25% of the people voted for "Chinese Taipei".^[60]

According to an October 2008 poll from the Mainland Affairs Council, on the question of Taiwan's status, 36.17% of respondents favor maintaining the status quo until a decision can be made in the future, 25.53% favors maintaining the status quo indefinitely, 12.49% favors maintaining the status quo until eventual independence, 4.44% favors maintaining the status quo until eventual reunification, 14.80% favors independence as soon as possible, and 1.76% favors reunification as soon as possible. In the same poll, on the question of the PRC government's attitude towards the ROC government, 64.85% of the respondents consider the PRC government hostile or very hostile, 24.89 consider the PRC government friendly or very friendly, while 10.27% did not express an opinion. On the question of the PRC government's attitude towards the people in Taiwan, 45.98% of the respondents consider the PRC government hostile or very hostile, 39.6% consider the PRC government friendly or very friendly, while 14.43% did not express an opinion.^[61]

May 2009 Taiwan's (Republic of China) Department of the Interior published a survey examining whether people in Taiwan see themselves as Taiwanese, Chinese or both. 64.6% see themselves as Taiwanese, 11.5% as Chinese, 18.1% as both and 5.8% were unsure.^[62]

According to a December 2009 poll from a Taiwanese mainstream media TVBS, if status quo is not an option and the ones who were surveyed must choose between "Independence" or "Unification", 68% are in favor of independence while 13% would opt for unification.^[63]

Changing Taiwan’s status with respect to the ROC constitution [link]

From the perspective of the ROC constitution, which the mainstream political parties such as the KMT and DPP currently respect and recognize, changing the ROC’s governing status or completely clarifying Taiwan’s political status would at best require amending the ROC constitution. In other words, if reunification supporters wanted to reunify Taiwan with mainland China in such a way that would effectively abolish the ROC or affect the ROC’s sovereignty, or if independence supporters wanted to abolish the ROC and establish a Republic of Taiwan, they would also need to amend or abolish the ROC constitution and redraft a new constitution. Passing an amendment requires an unusually broad political consensus, which includes approval from three-quarters of a quorum of members of the Legislative Yuan. This quorum requires at least three-quarters of all members of the Legislature. After passing the legislature, the amendments need ratification from at least fifty percent of all eligible voters of the ROC, irrespective of voter turnout.

Given these harsh constitutional requirements, neither the pan-greens nor pan-blues can unilaterally change Taiwan’s political and legal status with respect to the ROC’s constitution. However, extreme Taiwan independence supporters view the ROC’s constitution as illegal and therefore believe that amendments to the ROC constitution are an invalid way to change Taiwan’s political status.

Note on terminology [link]

Political status vs. Taiwan issue [link]

Some scholarly sources as well as political entities like the PRC refer to Taiwan's controversial status as the "Taiwan question", "Taiwan issue", or "Taiwan problem" (台灣問題). The ROC government does not like these terminologies, emphasizing that it should be called the "Mainland issue" or "Mainland question", because from the ROC's point of view, the PRC is making an issue out of or creating a problem out of Taiwan. Others use the term "Taiwan Strait Question" because it implies nothing about sovereignty and because "Cross-Strait relations" is a term used by both the ROC and the PRC to describe their interactions. However, this term is also objectionable to some because it still implies that there is an issue, which they feel is created only by the PRC.

De facto vs. de jure and whether ROC ceased to exist [link]

The use of the terms de facto and de jure to describe Taiwan's as well as the Republic of China's status as a state is itself a contentious issue. This partially stems from the lack of precedents regarding derecognized, but still constitutionally functioning states. For instance, it is regularly argued that Taiwan satisfies the requirements of statehood at international law as stated in the Montevideo Convention. At the same time, there is continued debate on whether UN membership or recognition as a state by the UN is a decisive feature of statehood (since it represents broad recognition by the international community); the debate arises because non-state entities can often satisfy the Montevideo Convention factors, while the list of states recognised by the UN, for the most part, correlate well with entities recognised as states by customary international law. If the latter argument is accepted, then the Republic of China may have ceased to be a state post-1971 as a matter of international law ("de jure"), yet continued to otherwise function as the state that it previously was recognised as ("de facto").

From the 1990s onwards, media wire services sometimes describe Taiwan as having de-facto independence, whereas the Republic of China has always considered itself as a continuously functioning de jure state.

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US-PRC Joint Communique

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First United Front (1924)
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Part of the Cold War

Full-scale Civil War (1946–1949)
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Territories currently administered by the two governments that formally use the name China: the PRC (in purple) and the ROC (in orange). The size of minor islands have been exaggerated in this map for ease of identification.

Cross-Strait relations

Traditional Chinese

海峽兩岸關係

Simplified Chinese

海峡两岸关系

Transcriptions
Mandarin
- Hanyu Pinyin	Hǎixiá Liǎng'àn guānxì
- Wade–Giles	Hai-hsia Liang'an kuan-hsi
Min
- Hokkien POJ	Hái-kiap Lióng-gān koan-hē
Cantonese (Yue)
- Jyutping	Hoi2 haap6 Loeng5 ngog6 gwaan1 hai6
- Yale Romanization	Hai1 sya2 Lyang3 'an4 gwan1 syi4

Cross-Strait relations (simplified Chinese: 海峡两岸关系; traditional Chinese: 海峽兩岸關係; pinyin: Hǎixiá Liǎng'àn guānxì) refers to the relations between mainland China and Taiwan, which are separated by the Taiwan Strait in the west Pacific Ocean, and especially the relations between their respective governments, the People's Republic of China ("PRC") and the Republic of China ("ROC").

In 1949, with the Chinese Civil War turning decisively in the Communists' (CPC) favour, the ROC government led by the Kuomintang (KMT) retreated to Taipei, in Taiwan, while the CPC proclaimed the PRC government in Beijing.

Since then, the relations between mainland China and Taiwan have been characterised by limited contact, tensions, and instability. In the early years, military conflicts continued, while diplomatically both governments competed to be the legitimate government of "China". More recently^[when?], the legal and political status of Taiwan have become more controversial, when the expression of pro-Taiwan independence sentiments are no longer suppressed and outlawed. At the same time, there has been increasing non-governmental and semi-governmental exchanges between the two sides. From 2008, negotiations began to restore the "three links" (transportation, commerce, and communications) between the two sides, cut off since 1949. Party-to-party talks between the CPC and the KMT have resumed and semi-official negotiations through organizations representing the interests of their respective governments are being scheduled.

The English expression "cross-Strait relations" has been used by the two sides concerned and by many observers so that the relationship between mainland China and Taiwan would not be referred to as "China–Taiwan relations" or "PRC–ROC relations". The former phrase implies the exclusion of Taiwan from China, and is considered non-neutral. The latter phrase implies the co-existence of the two governments as states, and does not reflect the official positions of either government. There is also no commonly used Chinese language phrase equivalent to the latter two phrases.

**Cross-Strait relations**


China	Taiwan

History [link]

Before 1949 [link]

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A 1912 map of the Japanese Empire, showing Taiwan, which was under Japanese rule from 1895 to 1945.

Main article: History of Taiwan

The early history of cross-Strait relations involved the exchange of cultures, people, and technology.^[1]^[2]^[3] However, no Chinese dynasty formally incorporated Taiwan in ancient times.^[4] In the 16th and 17th centuries, Taiwan caught the attention of first Portuguese, then Dutch and Spanish explorers. In 1624, the Dutch established their first settlement in Taiwan. In 1662, Zheng Chenggong, a Ming-loyalist, defeated the Dutch rulers of Taiwan, and took the island, establishing the first formally Han Chinese regime in Taiwan. Zheng's heirs used Taiwan as a base for launching raids into mainland China against the Manchu Qing Dynasty. However, they were defeated in 1683 by Qing forces. The following year, Taiwan was incorporated into Fujian province. Over the next two centuries, the Imperial government paid little attention to Taiwan.^{[citation needed]}

The situation changed in the 19th century, with other powers increasingly eying Taiwan for its strategic location and resources. In response, the administration began to implement a modernization drive. In 1885, the Imperial government raised Taiwan to a province. Within 10 years, Taiwan had become one of the most modern provinces in the Empire. However, the fall of the Qing outpaced the development of Taiwan, and in 1895, following its defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War, the Imperial government ceded Taiwan to Japan in perpetuity. Qing loyalists briefly resisted the Japanese rule under the banner of the "Republic of Taiwan", but order was quickly established by Japanese authorities.^{[citation needed]}

Japan ruled Taiwan until 1945. During this time, Taiwan, as part of the Japanese Empire, was a foreign jurisdiction in relation to first the Qing Empire, and, after 1912, the ROC. In 1945, Japan was defeated in World War II and surrendered its forces in Taiwan to the ROC, then ruled by the Kuomintang (KMT). The period of post-war Kuomintang rule over China (1945–1949) was marked in Taiwan by conflicts between local residents and the new KMT authority, most violently in the 228 Incident, which occurred on February 28, 1947. The seeds for the Taiwan autonomy and independence movement were sown in this time. During this time and in subsequent periods, the Taiwan autonomy and independence movement was allied with the CPC in the struggle against Chiang Kai-shek's KMT-led government in the ROC. Indeed, one such organization, the Taiwan Democratic Self-Government League, remains one of the eight official minor parties in mainland China.^{[citation needed]}

China was soon engulfed in full scale civil war. In 1949, the war turned decisively against the KMT and in favor of the CPC. On October 1, 1949, the CPC proclaimed the founding of the People's Republic of China in Beijing. The ROC government retreated, eventually declaring Taipei its temporary capital in December 1949.^{[citation needed]}

Military stalemate to diplomatic war (1949–1979)[link]

With President Chiang Kai-shek, the U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower waved hands to Taiwanese people during his visit to Taipei, Taiwan in June 1960.

The two governments continued in a state of war until 1979. In October 1949, PRC's attempt to take the ROC controlled island of Kinmen was thwarted in the Battle of Kuningtou, halting the PLA advance towards Taiwan.^[5] The Communists' other amphibious operations of 1950 were more successful: they led to the Communist conquest of Hainan Island in April 1950, capture of Wanshan Islands off the Guangdong coast (May–August 1950) and of Zhoushan Island off Zhejiang (May 1950).^[6]

In June 1949, the ROC declared a "closure" of all mainland China ports and its navy attempted to intercept all foreign ships. The closure covered from a point north of the mouth of Min river in Fujian province to the mouth of the Liao river in Manchuria.^[7] Since mainland China's railroad network was underdeveloped, north-south trade depended heavily on sea lanes. ROC naval activity also caused severe hardship for mainland China fishermen.

After losing mainland China, a group of approximately 12,000 KMT soldiers escaped to Burma and continued launching guerrilla attacks into southern China. Their leader, General Li Mi, was paid a salary by the ROC government and given the nominal title of Governor of Yunnan. Initially, the United States supported these remnants and the Central Intelligence Agency provided them with aid. After the Burmese government appealed to the United Nations in 1953, the U.S. began pressuring the ROC to withdraw its loyalists. By the end of 1954, nearly 6,000 soldiers had left Burma and Li Mi declared his army disbanded. However, thousands remained, and the ROC continued to supply and command them, even secretly supplying reinforcements at times.

The Kuomintang Islamic Insurgency in China (1950–1958) was fought by Muslim Kuomintang army officers who refused to surrender to the communists throughout the 1950s and 60's.

During the Korean War, some captured Communist Chinese soldiers, many of whom were originally KMT soldiers, were repatriated to Taiwan rather than mainland China. A KMT guerrilla force continued to operate cross-border raids into south-western China in the early 1950s. The ROC government launched a number of air bombing raids into key coastal cities of mainland China such as Shanghai.

Though viewed as a military liability by the United States, the ROC viewed its remaining islands in Fujian as vital for any future campaign to defeat the PRC and retake mainland China. On September 3, 1954, the First Taiwan Strait crisis began when the PLA started shelling Quemoy and threatened to take the Dachen Islands.^[7] On January 20, 1955, the PLA took nearby Yijiangshan Island, with the entire ROC garrison of 720 troops killed or wounded defending the island. On January 24 of the same year, the United States Congress passed the Formosa Resolution authorizing the President to defend the ROC's offshore islands.^[7] The First Taiwan Straits crisis ended in March 1955 when the PLA ceased its bombardment. The crisis was brought to a close during the Bandung conference.^[7]

The Second Taiwan Strait Crisis began on August 23, 1958 with air and naval engagements between the PRC and the ROC military forces, leading to intense artillery bombardment of Quemoy (by the PRC) and Amoy (by the ROC), and ended on November of the same year.^[7] PLA patrol boats blockaded the islands from ROC supply ships. Though the United States rejected Chiang Kai-shek's proposal to bomb mainland China artillery batteries, it quickly moved to supply fighter jets and anti-aircraft missiles to the ROC. It also provided amphibious assault ships to land supply, as a sunken ROC naval vessel was blocking the harbor. On September 7, the United States escorted a convoy of ROC supply ships and the PRC refrained from firing. On October 25, the PRC announced an "even-day ceasefire" — the PLA would only shell Quemoy on odd-numbered days.

Despite the end of the hostilities, the two sides have never signed any agreement or treaty to officially end the war.

After the 1950s, the "war" became more symbolic than real, represented by on again, off again artillery bombardment towards and from Kinmen. In later years, live shells were replaced with propaganda sheets. The bombardment finally ceased in 1979 after the establishment of diplomatic relations between the People's Republic of China and the United States.

During this period, movement of people and goods virtually ceased between PRC- and ROC-controlled territories. There were occasional defectors. One high profile defector was Justin Yifu Lin, who swam across the Kinmen strait to mainland China and is now Chief Economist and Senior Vice President of the World Bank.

Most observers expected Chiang's government to eventually fall in response to a Communist invasion of Taiwan, and the United States initially showed no interest in supporting Chiang's government in its final stand. Things changed radically with the onset of the Korean War in June 1950. At this point, allowing a total Communist victory over Chiang became politically impossible in the United States, and President Harry S. Truman ordered the United States Seventh Fleet into the Taiwan straits to prevent the ROC and PRC from attacking each other.^[8]

After the ROC complained to the United Nations against the Soviet Union supporting the PRC, the UN General Assembly Resolution 505 was adopted on February 1, 1952 to condemn the Soviet Union.

Diplomatically during this period, until around 1971, the ROC government continued to be recognized as the legitimate government of mainland China and Taiwan by most NATO governments. The PRC government was recognized by Soviet Bloc countries, members of the non-aligned movement, and some Western nations such as the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. Both governments claimed to be the legitimate government of China, and labeled the other as illegitimate. Civil war propaganda permeated the education curriculum. Each side portrayed the people of the other as living in hell-like misery. In official media, each side called the other "bandits". The ROC also suppressed expressions of support for Taiwanese identity or Taiwan independence.

Thawing of relations (1979–1998)[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

The Taiwan Strait.

Following the break of relations between the United States and Taiwan in 1979, the ROC government under Chiang Ching-kuo maintained a "Three Noes" policy (三不政策) in regards to communicating with the mainland Chinese government. This policy however was revised following the May 1986 hijacking of a China Airlines cargo plane, in which the Taiwanese pilot subdued other members of the crew and flew the plane to Guangzhou. In response, Chiang sent delegates to Hong Kong to discuss with PRC officials for the return of the plane and crew, which is seen as a turning point between cross-strait relations.

In 1987, the ROC government began to allow visits to mainland China. This benefited many, especially old KMT soldiers, who had been separated from their family in mainland China for decades. This also proved a catalyst for the thawing of relations between the two sides. Problems engendered by increased contact necessitated a mechanism for regular negotiations.

In order to effect negotiations with mainland China on operational issues without compromising the government's position on denying the other side's legitimacy, the ROC government under Chiang Ching-kuo created the "Straits Exchange Foundation" (SEF), a nominally non-governmental institution directly led by the Mainland Affairs Council, an instrument of the Executive Yuan. The PRC responded to this initiative by setting up the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS), directly led by the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council. This system, described as "white gloves", allowed the two governments to engage with each other on a semi-official basis without compromising their respective sovereignty policies.

Led by highly respected elder statesmen Koo Chen-fu and Wang Daohan, the two organizations began a series of talks that culminated in the 1992 meetings, which, together with subsequent correspondence, established the 1992 Consensus, under which both sides agreed to deliberate ambiguity on questions of sovereignty, in order to engage on operational questions affecting both sides.

Also during this time, however, the rhetoric of ROC President Lee Tung-hui began to turn further towards Taiwan independence. Prior to the 1990s, the ROC had been a one-party authoritarian state committed to eventual reunification with mainland China. However with democratic reforms the attitudes of the general public began to influence policy in Taiwan. As a result, the ROC government shifted away from its commitment to the one China policy and towards a separate political identity for Taiwan. Lee's mainland China counterpart, Jiang Zemin, was also unwilling to compromise. Jiang attempted to influence the 1996 ROC election in Taiwan by conducting a missile exercise designed to warn pro-independence Pan-Green Coalition, leading to the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis. By 1998, semi-official talks had broken down.

Hostile contact (1998–2008)[link]

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Lien Chan (first row, fourth from left in background) and Chiang Pin-kung (first row, second from left in background) touring the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum in Nanjing, China with the Kuomintang delegation to mainland China in 2005.

Chen Shui-bian was elected President of the ROC in 2000. Politically, Chen is strongly pro-Taiwan independence. Chen's repudiation of the 1992 Consensus combined with the PRC's insistence that the ROC agree to the "one China" principle for negotiations to occur prevented improvement in cross-strait relations.

Hu Jintao became President of the PRC in 2003, though he was ruling de facto as General Secretary of the Communist Party of China since late 2002.

Chen called for talks without any preconditions, repudiating the 1992 consensus while Hu continued to insist that talks can only proceed under an agreement of the "one China" principle. Chen Shui-bian and his party continued to express an ultimate goal of Taiwanese independence, and make statements on the political status of Taiwan that the PRC considers provocative. At the same time, Hu and the PRC continued a military missile buildup across the strait from Taiwan while making threats of military action against Taiwan should it declare independence or if the PRC considers that all possibilities for a peaceful reunification are completely exhausted. The PRC also continued applying diplomatic pressure to other nations to isolate the ROC diplomatically.^{[citation needed]} One noted instance of co-operation in this period was during the 2003 Iraq war, when the PRC allowed Taiwanese airlines use of mainland airspace.^[9] However, in 2001 Chen lifted the 50-year ban on direct trade and investment with the PRC, which made the later ECFA possible.^[10]

After the re-election of Chen Shui-bian in 2004, Hu's government changed the previous blanket no-contact policy, a holdover from the Jiang Zemin administration. Under the new policy, on the one hand, the PRC government continued a no-contact policy towards Chen Shui-bian. It maintained its military build-up against Taiwan, and pursued a vigorous policy of isolating Taiwan diplomatically. In March 2005, the Anti-Secession Law was passed by the National People's Congress, formalising "non-peaceful means" as an option of response to a declaration of independence in Taiwan.^{[citation needed]}

On the other hand, the PRC administration loosened its rhetoric in relation to Taiwan, and pursued contact with apolitical, or politically non-independence leaning, groups in Taiwan. In his May 17 Statement in 2004, Hu Jintao made friendly overtures to Taiwan on resuming negotiations for the "three links", reducing misunderstandings, and increasing consultation. In the Anti-Secession Law passed in 2005, the PRC government for the first time authoritatively committed to negotiations on the basis of equal status between the two sides, and further refrained from imposing the "one China" policy as a precondition for talks. The CPC increased contacts on a party-to-party basis with the KMT, then the opposition party in Taiwan. Despite having been the warring parties in the Chinese Civil War, the CPC and the KMT also had a history of co-operation, when the two parties twice co-operated in the Northern Expedition and the war against Japan. The increased contacts culminated in the 2005 Pan-Blue visits to mainland China, including a meeting between Hu and then-KMT chairman Lien Chan in April 2005.^[11]^[12]

Resumption of high level contact (2008–present)[link]

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On March 20, 2008, the KMT party won the presidency in the Republic of China. It also has a majority in the Legislature.^{[citation needed]}

A series of meetings between the two sides have followed. On April 12, 2008, Hu Jintao held a meeting with ROC's then vice-president elect Vincent Siew as chairman of the Cross-strait Common Market Foundation during the Boao Forum for Asia. On May 28, 2008, Hu met with KMT chairman Wu Po-hsiung, the first meeting between the heads of the CPC and the KMT as ruling parties. During this meeting, Hu and Wu agreed that both sides should recommence semi-official dialogue under the 1992 consensus. Wu committed the KMT against Taiwanese independence, but also stressed that a "Taiwan identity" did not equate to "Taiwanese independence". Hu committed his government to addressing the concerns of the Taiwanese people in regard to security, dignity, and "international living space", with a priority given to discussing Taiwan's wish to participate in the World Health Organization.

Both Hu and his new counterpart Ma Ying-jeou agree that the 1992 Consensus is the basis for negotiations between the two sides of the Taiwan strait. On March 26, 2008, Hu Jintao held a telephone talk with the US President George W. Bush, in which he explained that the "1992 Consensus" sees "both sides recognize there is only one China, but agree to differ on its definition".^[13] The first priority for the SEF–ARATS meeting will be opening of the three links, especially direct flights between mainland China and Taiwan.

These events suggest a policy by the two sides to rely on the deliberate ambiguity of the 1992 Consensus to avoid difficulties arising from asserting sovereignty. As Wu Po-hsiung put it during a press conference in his 2008 mainland China visit, "we do not refer to the 'Republic of China' so long as the other side does not refer to the 'People's Republic of China'". Since the March elections in Taiwan, the PRC government has not mentioned the "one China policy" in any official announcements. The only exception has been one brief aberration in a press release by the Ministry of Commerce, which described Vincent Siew as agreeing to the "1992 consensus and the "one China policy". Upon an immediate protest from Siew, the PRC side retracted the press release and issued apologetic statements emphasising that only press releases published by the Xinhua News Agency represented the official PRC position. The official press release on this event did not mention the One China Policy.^[14]

Ma Ying-jeou, the current ROC President, has advocated that cross-strait relations should shift from "mutual non-recognition" to "mutual non-denial".^[15]

Dialogue through semi-official organisations (the SEF and the ARATS) reopened on June 12, 2008 on the basis of the 1992 Consensus, with the first meeting held in Beijing. Neither the PRC nor the ROC recognizes the other side as a legitimate entity, so the dialogue was in the name of contacts between the SEF and the ARATS instead of the two governments, though most participants were actually officials in PRC or ROC governments. Chen Yunlin, President of the ARATS, and Chiang Pin-kung, President of the SEF, signed files on June 13, agreeing that direct flights between the two sides would begin on July 4^[16] and that Taiwan would allow entrance of up to 3000 visitors from mainland China every day.^[17]

The financial relationship between the two areas improved on 1 May 2009 in a move described as "a major milestone" by The Times.^[18] The ROC's financial regulator, the Financial Supervisory Commission, announced that mainland Chinese investors would be permitted to invest in Taiwan's money markets for the first time since 1949.^[18] Investors can now apply to purchase Taiwan shares that do not exceed one tenth of the value of the firm’s total shares.^[18] The move came as part of a “step by step” movement which is supposed to relax restrictions on mainland Chinese investment. Taipei economist Liang Chi-yuan, commented: “Taiwan's risk factor as a flash point has dropped significantly with its improved ties with the mainland. The mainlanders would be hesitant about launching a war as their investment increases here.”^[18] Mainland China's biggest telecoms carrier, China Mobile, was the first company to avail of the new movement by spending $529 million on buying 12 percent of Far EasTone, the third largest telecoms operator in Taiwan.^[18]

President Ma has called repeatedly for the PRC to dismantle the missile batteries targeted on Taiwan's cities, without result.^[19]

On Jan 30 2010, the Obama administration announced it intended to sell $6.4 billion worth of antimissile systems, helicopters and other military hardware to Taiwan, an expected move which was met with the typical reaction from Beijing: in retaliation, China cut off all military-to-military ties with Washington and warned that US-China cooperation on international issues could suffer as a result of the sales.^[20]

A report from Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense said that China's current charm offensive is only accommodating on issues that do not undermine China's claim to Taiwan and that the PRC would invade if Taiwan declared independence, developed weapons of mass destruction, or suffered from civil chaos.^[21]

On the 100th anniversary of the Republic of China (Xinhai Revolution), President Ma called on the PRC to embrace Sun Yat-sen's call for freedom and democracy.^[22]

Current formal relations [link]

Interpretation of the relations [link]

Inter-government [link]

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Semi-governmental contact is maintained through the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) and the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS). Negotiations between the SEF and the ARATS resumed on 11 June 2008.^[28]

Although formally privately constituted bodies, the SEF and the ARATS are both directly led by the Executive Government of each side: the SEF by the Mainland Affairs Council of the Executive Yuan of the ROC, and the ARATS by the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council of the PRC. The heads of the two bodies, Chiang Pin-kung and Chen Yunlin, are both full time appointees and do not hold other government positions. However, both are senior members of their respective political parties (Kuomintang and Communist Party of China respectively), and both have previously served as senior members of their respective governments. Their deputies, who in practice are responsible for the substantive negotiations, are concurrently senior members of their respective governments. For the June 2008 negotiations, the main negotiators, who are deputy heads of the SEF and the ARATS respectively, are concurrently deputy heads of the Mainland Affairs Council and the Taiwan Affairs Office respectively.^{[citation needed]}

2008 meetings [link]

First 2008 meeting [link]

A series of meetings were held between the SEF and the ARATS at Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing from 11 June 2008 to 14 June 2008. By convention, SEF–ARATS negotiations proceed in three rounds: a technical round led by negotiators seconded from the relevant government departments, a draft round led by deputy heads of the two organisations, and a formal round led by the heads of the two organisations. In this case, however, both sides have already reached broad consensus on these issues on both the technical and political levels through previous negotiations via the non-governmental and inter-party channels. As a result, the initial technical round was dispensed with, and the negotiations began with the second, draft round.^[28]

The two sides agreed to the following:

Route Map of the weekend Cross-strait charter, for flights as of August, 2008. (Notice that although most lines do not cross over Hong Kong, in effect, planes by then did have to fly through Hong Kong airspace)

Initiate direct passenger airline services every weekend from 4 July 2008. Both parties agreed to negotiate on the routes of cross-strait direct flights and establish direct communication procedures concerning air traffic management systems as soon as possible. But before the routes of direct flights are finalized, charter flights may temporarily fly across Hong Kong Flight Information Region. There is no need to stop in Hong Kong, but planes still have to fly through its airspace. Weekend charter flights shall fly from each Friday to the following Monday for a total of four full days.

Mainland China agreed to open the following five cities as destinations: Beijing, Shanghai (Pudong), Guangzhou, Xiamen and Nanjing. Mainland China shall open Chengdu, Chongqing, Hangzhou, Dalian, Guilin, Shenzhen and other destinations later on and other cities if so demanded by the market.

Taiwan agreed to open the following eight cities as destinations: Taoyuan, Kaohsiung (Siaogang), Taichung (Chingchunkang), Taipei (Sungshan), Penghu (Makung), Hualien, Kinmen and Taitung.^[29]

Opening Taiwan to mainland Chinese tourists. Both parties agreed that mainland Chinese tourists must travel to the Taiwan in groups. Tourists must enter into, visit, and exit from Taiwan in groups. The maximum quota of tourists received by the party responsible for tourist reception shall not exceed the average of 3,000 persons per day, and each group shall consist of a minimum of ten persons and forty persons at the maximum, being in Taiwan for a maximum of ten days.^[30]

However, in 2012, it was agreed by both parties that individual tourists from the Mainland Chinese cities of Beijing, Shanghai, and Xiamen were allowed to visit Taiwan. Later, tourists from Chengdu, Chongqing, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Guangzhou, and Tianjin were allowed to visit Taiwan individually. Finally, Fuzhou, Jinan, and Xi'an will join the list by the end of 2012. ^[31]

To facilitate the above, both sides also agreed to further discuss on the possibilities of exchanging representative offices, with an SEF office to be opened in Beijing and an ARATS office in Taipei to issue travel permits to cross-Strait visitors, among other duties.

Second 2008 meeting [link]

Following an invitation issued by the SEF at the first meeting, the head of ARATS, Chen Yunlin, began a visit to Taiwan on 3 November 2008.^[32] Items on the agenda raised by SEF Chairman Chiang Pin-kung included direct maritime shipping, chartered cargo flights, direct postal service, and co-operation in ensuring food safety, in response to the 2008 Chinese milk scandal,^[32] while ARATS chairman Chen Yunlin raised the matters of direct freight service, and opening up air routes that directly cross the Taiwan Strait. Previous routes avoided crossing the Strait for security reasons, with planes detouring through Hong Kong or Japan air control areas.^[33]

On 4 November 2008, ARATS and SEF signed a number of agreements in Taipei. The agreement relating to direct passenger flights increased the number of charter flights from 36 to 108 per week, operating daily instead of the four days a week previously. Flights would now operate to and from 21 mainland Chinese cities. Flights would also take a more direct route. Private business jet flights would also be allowed. The agreement relating to cargo shipping allowed direct shipping between 11 sea ports in Taiwan and 63 in mainland China. The shipping would be tax free. The agreement relating to cargo flights provided for up to 60 direct cargo flights per month. Finally, an agreement was made to set up food safety alerts between the two sides. ^[34]

During Chen's visit in Taipei, he was met with a series of strong protests directed at himself and Ma Ying-jeou, some of which were violent with Molotov cocktails being thrown by the protesters at riot police. A series of arrests were made after the protests.^[35]^[36] Local police reported that 149 of its officers were injured during the opposition protests.^[37] Consistent with the 1992 Consensus, Chen did not call Ma as "President".^[38]^[39] Similarly, the representatives from Taiwan did not call the PRC President Hu Jintao as "President" in the previous meeting in Beijing.

The polls in two of Taiwan's biggest newspapers after the visit reported that the public was pleased with Chen's visit, with about 50% of the Taiwanese public considered Chen's visit having a positive effect on Taiwan's development, while 18 to 26% of the respondents thought the effect would be negative.^[40] In another poll, it suggested that 26% of the respondents were satisfied with the DPP Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen's handling of the crowds in the series of protests, while 53% of the respondents were unsatisfied. The same poll also showed that 33% of the respondents were satisfied with President Ma's performance at his meeting with Chen Yunlin, while 32% of the respondents were not satisfied.^[41] According to a telephone poll conducted by Taiwan's top-selling Apple Daily newspaper on 7 November 2008 on the subject of a series of anti-Chen protests organised by the DPP, 62.12% of the respondents considered it bad for DPP's image, describing it as a "violent party", 31.13% of the respondents considered it good for the DPP's image, as it demonstrated Taiwan's democracy, while 6.75% of the respondents did not express an opinion.^[42]

Inter-party [link]

The (current) ruling parties of the two sides, the Kuomintang and the Communist Party of China, maintain regular dialogue via the "KMT–CPC Forum". This has been called a "second rail" in Taiwan, and helps to maintain political understanding and aims for political consensus between the two sides.

Non-governmental [link]

A third mode of contact is through private bodies accredited by the respective governments to negotiate on technical and operational aspects of issues between the two sides. Called the "Macau mode", this avenue of contact was maintained even through the years of the Chen Shui-bian administration. For example, on the issues of opening Taiwan to mainland Chinese tourists, the accredited bodies were tourism industry representative bodies from both sides.

Public support [link]

According to an opinion poll released by the Mainland Affairs Council taken after the second 2008 meeting, 71.79% of the Taiwanese public supported continuing negotiations and solving issues between the two sides through the semi-official organisations, SEF and ARATS, 18.74% of the Taiwanese public did not support this, while 9.47% of the Taiwanese public did not have an opinion.^[43]

Informal relations [link]

The Three Links [link]

Main article: Three Links

Flight CAL581, the first direct flight between Taipei and Beijing, and also the first direct flight between mainland China and Taiwan: January 29, 2005.

Regular weekend direct, cross-strait charter flights between mainland China and Taiwan resumed on July 4, 2008 for the first time since 1950. Liu Shaoyong, China Southern Airlines chair, piloted the first flight from Guangzhou to Taipei airport. Simultaneously, a Taiwan-based China Airlines flight flew to Shanghai. Five mainland Chinese cities will be connected with eight Taiwan airports. The flights will operate four days a week (Friday to Monday), totalling 36 round-trip flights across the Taiwan Strait. Previously, regular passengers (other than festive or emergency charters) had to make a time-consuming stopover at a third destination, usually Hong Kong.^[44]^[45] Under the current procedure, the flights do not directly cross the Taiwan Strait for security reasons, but instead must enter the Hong Kong air control area before moving into or out of mainland China or Taiwan airspace.

Taiwan residents cannot use the Republic of China passport to travel to mainland China, as neither the ROC nor the PRC considers this international travel. The PRC government requires Taiwan residents to hold a Mainland Travel Permit for Taiwan Residents when entering the Chinese Mainland, whereas the ROC government requires mainland residents to hold a Mainland Compatriot Pass to enter the Taiwan Area.

Cross-strait investments [link]

Cross-strait investments have greatly increased in recent years. Predominantly, this involves Taiwan-based firms moving to, or collaborating in joint ventures, in mainland China. The collective body of Taiwanese investors in mainland China is now a significant economic force for both the mainland China and Taiwan.

Cultural, educational, religious and sporting exchanges [link]

Cultural exchanges have increased in frequency. The National Palace Museum in Taipei and the Palace Museum in Beijing have collaborated on exhibitions. Scholars and academics frequently visit institutions on the other side. Books published on each side are regularly re-published in the other side, though restrictions on direct imports and the different orthography between the two sides somewhat impede the exchange of books and ideas.

Students of Taiwan origin receive special concessions in the National Higher Education Entrance Examination in mainland China. There are regular programs for school students from each side to visit the other.

Religious exchange has become frequent. Frequent interactions occur between worshippers of Matsu, and also between Buddhists^{[citation needed]}.

Humanitarian actions [link]

The PRC and the ROC have provided humanitarian aid to each other on several occasions. Most recently, following the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, an expert search and rescue team was sent from Taiwan to help rescue survivors in Sichuan. Shipments of aid material was also provided under the co-ordination of the Red Cross Society of The Republic of China and charities such as Tzu Chi.

Military build-up [link]

A map depicting Taiwan and a part of China showing that the Surface-To-Air Missiles coverage of China extends to most of the west coast of the island

China's Surface to Air Missile coverage over the Taiwan Strait

Despite Chinese diplomatic and media efforts to portray an easing of military tension with Taiwan, the military build-up against Taiwan continues.^[46]

For example, China continues to move ballistic missiles and modern warplanes to bases within range of Taiwan. By the end of 2010, China will have 2,000 ballistic missiles aimed at Taiwan.^[47]^[48] That is 50 percent more than there were just two years prior, and ten times more than in 2000. Most of these are Dong Feng (DF)-11 and Dong Feng (DF)-15 models. The DF11 (also known as the M11) has a range of 300 kilometers and carries a one ton warhead. The DF15 (M9) has a range of 600 kilometers and carries a half ton warhead. There are also over 1,000 Chinese warplanes^[49] and over 100,000 troops (including several brigades of paratroopers) available for an attack on the island. The missiles would use high explosive or cluster bomb warheads. In response, Taiwan is investing in an anti-missile system intended to negate a large number of Chinese missiles.

Taiwanese intelligence has also spotted China converting recently retired jet fighters to pilotless aircraft, to be used in defeating Taiwanese air defense.^{[citation needed]} The Taiwanese Air Force believes that their air bases would be prime targets for Chinese bombers and ballistic missiles. The air force has thousands of engineer troops trained and equipped to repair airstrips that have been hit by Chinese bombs and warheads, and pilots trained to operate from damaged airstrips.

Taiwanese intelligence also noted that while China has moved amphibious training away from the coast opposite Taiwan, these drills are still carried out elsewhere. While China has halted most of the anti-Taiwan stories in the state-controlled media, the Chinese military has continued preparations for a possible invasion of Taiwan.

In addition, the United States has supplied Taiwan's military with ships and planes.^[50]^[51]

United States Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said that the United States would reduce arms sales to Taiwan if tensions are eased,^[52] but that this was not a change in American policy.^[53]

In 2012, PACCOM commander Willard said that Ma had reduced the possibility of a cross-strait conflict, in spite of the PRC's military buildup.^[54]

A 2008 report by the RAND Corporation analyzing a theoretical 2020 attack by mainland China on Taiwan suggested that the US would likely not be able to defend Taiwan.^[55]^[56]

Political stability [link]

Taiwanese National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Der-sheng has said that Xi Jinping, the presumed next president of the PRC, has the "best understanding" of Taiwan and this is likely to lead to continued political stability in cross-Strait relations.^[57]

References [link]

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^ Sanchze-Mazas (ed.) (2008) Past human migrations in East Asia : matching archaeology, linguistics and genetics. New York: Routledge.
^ Brown, Melissa J. (2004) Is Taiwan Chinese? : the impact of culture, power, and migration on changing identities. Berkeley: University of California Press
^ Lien, Heng. (1979 reprint) Taiwan Tongshi (General History of Taiwan). Taipei:Zhongwen Book Company.
^ Qi, Bangyuan. Wang, Dewei. Wang, David Der-wei. [2003] (2003). The Last of the Whampoa Breed: Stories of the Chinese Diaspora. Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-13002-3. pg 2
^ MacFarquhar, Roderick. Fairbank, John K. Twitchett, Denis C. [1991] (1991). The Cambridge History of China. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-24337-8. pg 820.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Tsang, Steve Yui-Sang Tsang. The Cold War's Odd Couple: The Unintended Partnership Between the Republic of China and the UK, 1950–1958. [2006] (2006). I.B. Tauris. ISBN 1-85043-842-0. p 155, p 115-120, p 139-145
^ Bush, Richard C. [2005] (2005). Untying the Knot: Making Peace in the Taiwan Strait. Brookings Institution Press. ISBN 0-8157-1288-X.
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^ "馬總統：兩岸關係是現實關係 (President Ma: Cross-strait relations are relations based on current reality)" (in Traditional Chinese). Central News Agency of the Republic of China. 2008-10-08. http://www.cna.com.tw/CNA/TodayTopicNews/TodayTopicNews.aspx?NewsID=200810070260.
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^ ^a ^b "兩會「跳級」復談高孔廉VS.孫亞夫 (SEF and ARATS "skip grades" in resuming negotiations; Gao Konglian vs Sun Yafu)" (in Chinese). China Times. June 11, 2008. http://news.chinatimes.com/2007Cti/2007Cti-Focus/2007Cti-Focus-Content/0,4518,9706110011+0+0+072123+0,00.html.
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^ http://taiwantoday.tw/ct.asp?xItem=188682&ctNode=413
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^ VOAnews.com: US Military Chief Voices Concern Over Chinese Buildup
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