Taiwan ( ), also known as
Formosa ( ; from , meaning "beautiful (island)"),
is the largest island of the Republic of
China in East Asia.
Taiwan is
located east of the Taiwan
Strait, off the southeastern coast of mainland China. Since the end of
World War II in 1945, the island
group has been under the government of the Republic of
China.
Separated
from the Asian continent by the 180-kilometre-wide Taiwan Strait, the main island of the group is long and
wide. To the northeast are the main
island of Japan, and the
southern end of the Ryukyu Islands of Japan is directly to the east; the Philippines lie to its south. The mountainous island
spans across the Tropic of
Cancer and is covered by tropical
and subtropical
vegetation. Other minor islands
and islets of the group include the Pescadores, Green Island,
and Orchid
Island as well as the Diaoyutai Islands which have been controlled by Japan since the 1970s
and are known as the Senkaku-shotō.
The
island
group has been governed by the Republic of China (ROC) since 1945 when the ROC acquired Taiwan from
Japan as a result of World War
II. Four years later the ROC lost the
Chinese Civil War to the
Communist Party of China and
retreated to Taiwan. Taiwan now composes most of ROC's territory
and the ROC itself is commonly known as "Taiwan".
The political status of Taiwan is
complex because it is claimed by the People's
Republic of China (PRC) which was established in 1949 on mainland
China and considers itself the successor
state to the ROC. Japan had originally annexed Taiwan
from the Qing Empire in 1895. At the end of World War II, Japan had
agreed to give up sovereignty over Taiwan to the Republic of
China..
Taiwan's rapid economic growth in the decades after World War II
has transformed it into an
advanced
economy as one of the
Four Asian
Tigers. This economic rise is known as the
Taiwan Miracle.
It is categorized as
an advanced economy by the IMF and
high-income economy by the World
Bank. Its technology industry plays a key role in the
global economy. Taiwanese companies manufacture a large portion of
the world's consumer electronics, although most of them are made in
their factories in mainland China.
History
Prehistory and early settlements
Evidence of human settlement in Taiwan dates back 30,000 years,
although the first inhabitants of Taiwan may have been genetically
distinct from any groups currently on the island. About 4,000 years
ago, ancestors of current
Taiwanese
aborigines settled in Taiwan. These aborigines are genetically
related to
Malay and maternally to
Polynesians, and linguists classify
their languages as
Austronesian. It is
thought likely that Polynesian ancestry may be traceable throughout
Taiwan.
Records
from ancient China indicate that the
Han Chinese might have known of the existence of the main island of
Taiwan since the Three Kingdoms
period (third century, 230 A.D.), having assigned offshore islands
in the vicinity names like Greater Liuqiu and
Lesser Liuqiu (etymologically, but perhaps
not semantically, identical to Ryūkyū in Japanese),
though none of these names has been definitively matched to the
main island of Taiwan. The Ming Dynasty admiral Cheng Ho (Zheng He) visited Taiwan in 1430.
Han Chinese began settling in the Penghu islands in
the 1200s, but Taiwan's hostile tribes and its lack of the trade
resources valued in that era rendered it unattractive to all but
"occasional adventurers or fishermen engaging in barter" until the
16th century.
European settlement
1600 drawing of Dutch ships in
Taiwan.
In 1544,
a Portuguese ship sighted the main island of Taiwan and named it
Ilha Formosa, which means "Beautiful Island."
In 1624,
the Dutch established
a commercial base on Taiwan and began to import workers from
Fujian and Penghu (Pescadores)
as laborers, many of whom settled. The Dutch made Taiwan a
colony with its colonial capital at Tayoan City (present day
Anping, Tainan).
Both Tayoan
and the island name Taiwan derive from a word in Sirayan, one of the Formosan
languages.
The Dutch
military presence was concentrated at a stronghold called Castle
Zeelandia. The Dutch colonists also started to hunt
the native
Formosan Sika deer (
Cervus
nippon taioanus) that inhabited Taiwan, contributing to the
eventual extinction of the subspecies on the island. Furthermore,
this contributed to the subsequent identification of native
tribes.
In 1626, the Spanish landed on and occupied northern Taiwan
(Keelong and Tanshui) as a base to extend its commercial trading.
The colonial period lasted 16 years until 1642.
Koxinga and Qing rule
Chinese
naval and troop forces of Southern Fujian defeated the
Dutch in 1662,
subsequently expelling the Dutch government and military from the
island. They were led by
Koxinga.
Following
the fall of the Ming
Dynasty, Koxinga retreated to Taiwan as a self-styled Ming
loyalist and established the Kingdom
of Tungning (1662–83). Koxinga established his capital at
Tainan and he and
his heirs, Zheng Jing, who ruled from
1662–82, and Zheng Keshuang, who
served less than a year, continued to launch raids on the
south-east coast of mainland China well into the Qing Dynasty, attempting to recapture mainland
China.
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 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 '
Sinicizing' 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.
Northern Taiwan and the Penghu Islands were the scene of an
important subsidiary campaign in the
Sino-French War (August 1884 to April 1885).
The French occupied Keelung from 1 October 1884 to 22 June 1885 and
the Penghu Islands from 31 March to 22 July 1885. A French attempt
to capture Tamsui was defeated at the
Battle of Tamsui (8 October 1884). Several
battles were fought around Keelung between October 1884 and March
1885 between Liu Ming-ch'uan's Army of Northern Taiwan and Colonel
Jacques Duchesne's Formosa
Expeditionary Corps. The
Keelung
Campaign, despite some notable French tactical victories, ended
in a stalemate. The
Pescadores
Campaign was a French victory, but had no long-term
consequences. The French evacuated both Keelung and the Penghu
archipelago at the end of the war.
In 1885,
the Qing upgraded Taiwan's status from prefecture of Fujian to full
province, the twentieth in the country, with its capital at
Taipei. This
was accompanied by a modernization drive that included building
Taiwan's first railroad and starting a postal service.
Japanese rule
Imperial
Japan had sought to control Taiwan since 1592, when
Toyotomi Hideyoshi began
extending Japanese influence overseas. In 1609, the Tokugawa
Shogunate sent
Arima Harunobu on an
exploratory mission. In 1616, Murayama Toan led an unsuccessful
invasion of the island.
In 1871,
an Okinawan vessel shipwrecked on the southern tip of Taiwan
and the crew of fifty-four was beheaded by the Paiwan aborigines. The Ryūkyū
Kingdom kept a tributary relationship with Great Qing, at
the same time was subordinate to Satsuma
Domain of Japan. When Japan sought compensation from Qing China, it was first rejected because Qing considered the
incident an internal affair since Taiwan was a prefecture of Fujian
Province of Qing and the Ryūkyū Kingdom was a tributary of
Qing. When Japanese foreign minister
Soejima Taneomi asked the compensation again
claiming four of the victims were Japanese citizens from
Okayama prefecture of Japan, Qing officials rejected
the demand on the grounds that the "wild" and "unsubjugated"
aboriginals ( ) were outside its jurisdiction. Such aboriginals
were treated extremely harshly; American consul J.W. Davidson
described how the Chinese in Taiwan ate and traded in their
aboriginal victims' flesh. The open renunciation of sovereignty led
to a Japanese invasion of Taiwan. In 1874, an expeditionary force
of three thousand troops was sent to the island. There were about
thirty Taiwanese and 543 Japanese casualties (twelve in battle and
531 by
endemic diseases for
the Japanese side).
Great
Qing was defeated in the First
Sino-Japanese War (1894–95) and Taiwan and Penghu were
ceded in full sovereignty to
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.
On May 25, 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 October 21, 1895.
The Japanese were instrumental in the industrialization of the
island; they extended the railroads and other transportation
networks, built an extensive sanitation system and revised the
public school system. During this period, both rice and sugarcane
production greatly increased. By 1939, Taiwan was the seventh
greatest sugar producer in the world. Still, the Taiwanese and
Aborigines were classified as second- and third-class citizens.
Large-scale violence continued in the first decade of rule. Japan
launched over 160 battles to destroy Taiwan's aboriginal tribes
during its 51-year rule of the island …' 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 WWII, tens of thousands of Taiwanese
served in the Japanese military. For example, former ROC President
Lee Teng-hui's elder brother served in the Japanese navy and died
while on duty in February 1945 in the Philippines.
The
Imperial Japanese Navy
operated heavily out of Taiwan. The "
South
Strike Group" was based out of the
Taihoku Imperial University in
Taiwan. 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.
Japan's rule of Taiwan ended after it lost World War II and signed
the
Instrument of
Surrender of Japan on August 15, 1945. But the Japanese rule
had long lasting effects on Taiwan and Taiwanese culture. Japanese
pop culture is popular in Taiwan, influenced by the 50-year
Japanese rule. Significant parts of Taiwanese infrastructure were
started under the Japanese rule.
The current Presidential
Building was also built during that time. In 1938
there were 309,000
Japanese
settlers in Taiwan. After World War II, most of the Japanese
were repatriated
to Japan.
Kuomintang martial law period
The
Cairo Conference from November 22
to 26, 1943 in Cairo, Egypt was held to
address the Allied position
against Japan during WWII and made decision about postwar
Asia. One of the three main clauses of the
Cairo Declaration is that "all the
territories Japan has stolen from China, including Manchuria,
Taiwan and the Pescadores, shall be restored to the Republic of
China'. This ultimatum was accepted when Japan signed the
Instrument of Surrender.
On October 25, 1945, ROC troops representing the Allied Command
accepted the formal surrender of Japanese military forces in Taipei
(then called
Taihoku). The ROC Government,
led by
Chiang Kai-shek, announced
that date as "Taiwan
Retrocession
Day". The ROC under
Chen Yi was
strained by social and political instabilities, which were
compounded by economic woes, such as
hyperinflation. Furthermore, cultural and
linguistic differences between the Taiwanese and the mainland
Chinese, quickly led to the loss of popular support for the new
government. This culminated in a series of severe clashes between
the ROC government and the Taiwanese, in turn leading to the
228 incident and the reign of
White Terror.
In 1949,
during the Chinese Civil War, the
Kuomintang (KMT), led by Chiang Kai-shek, retreated from mainland China and the ROC government fled
from Nanjing (then romanised as "Nanking") to Taipei, Taiwan's
largest city, while continuing to claim sovereignty over all
China, which the ROC defines to include mainland China, Taiwan, Outer Mongolia and other
areas. In mainland China, the victorious Communists
established the PRC, claiming to be the sole representative of
China (which it claimed included Taiwan) and portraying the ROC
government as an illegitimate entity.
Some 2 million people, consisting mainly of soldiers, KMT party
members and most importantly the intellectual and business elites
also fled mainland China and arrived in Taiwan around that time. In
addition, as part of its escape from Communists in mainland China,
the ROC government relocated to Taipei with many national treasures
including gold reserves and foreign currency reserves. This was
often used by the PRC government to explain its economic
difficulties and Taiwan's comparative prosperity. From this period
through the 1980s, Taiwan was governed by a
party-state dictatorship, with the KMT as
the
ruling party. Military rule
continued and little to no distinction was made between the
government and the party, with public property, government
property, and party property being interchangeable. Government
workers and party members were indistinguishable, with government
workers, such as teachers, required to become KMT members, and
party workers paid salaries and promised retirement benefits along
the lines of government employees. In addition all other parties
were outlawed, and political opponents were persecuted,
incarcerated, and executed.
Taiwan remained under
martial law and
one-party rule, under the name of
the "
Temporary
Provisions Effective During the Period of Communist Rebellion",
from 1948 to 1987, when the ROC Presidents
Chiang Ching-kuo and
Lee Teng-hui gradually
liberalized and democratized the system. 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).
As the Chinese Civil War continued without truce, the ROC 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 1960’s 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 began to develop into a
prosperous,
industrialized developed country with a strong and
dynamic economy, becoming one of the
Four Asian Tigers while maintaining the
authoritarian, single-party government. 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, when most nations
began switching recognition to the PRC.
Modern democratic era
Chiang Kai-shek's eventual
successor, his son
Chiang
Ching-kuo, began to liberalize Taiwan's political system. In
1984, the younger Chiang selected
Lee
Teng-hui, an ethnically Taiwanese 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.
After the 1988 death of Chiang Ching-Kuo, President Lee Teng-hui
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 taken 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, to reflect the reality that the ROC government
had no jurisdiction over mainland China. Restrictions on the use of
Taiwanese Hokkien in the broadcast
media and in schools were lifted as well. During 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 the 1990s, the ROC continued its democratic reforms, as
President
Lee Teng-hui was elected by
the first popular vote held in Taiwan during the 1996 Presidential
election. 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
September 30, 2007, the 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 also called for
general use of "Taiwan" as the island's name, without
abolishing its formal name, the Republic of China. 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. 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.
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". Ma
took office on May 20, 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, military tensions with the PRC
have not been reduced
Geography
Map of Taiwan
Landscape of Taiwan.
The
island of Taiwan lies some 180 kilometers off the southeastern
coast of China, across the
Taiwan
Strait, and has an area of . 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. 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 plains in the west that are also home to most of
Taiwan's population.
Taiwan's highest point is Yu Shan at 3,952 meters, and there are five other peaks
over 3,500 meters. This makes it the world's
fourth-highest island.
Taroko
National Park, located on the mountainous eastern side of the
island, has good examples of mountainous terrain, gorges and
erosion caused by a swiftly flowing
river.
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."
There are also other interpretations of the
island shape, one of which is a whale in the
ocean (the Pacific Ocean) if viewed in a west-to-east direction,
which is a common orientation in ancient maps, plotted either by
Western explorers or the Great Qing.
Geology
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.
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 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.
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 September 21,
1999, a 7.3 quake known as the "921 earthquake" occurred. The
seismic hazard map for Taiwan by the USGS
shows 9/10 of the island as the highest rating (most
hazardous).
Climate
Taiwan's
climate is marine
tropical. The Northern part of the island
has a rainy season that lasts from January to late March during the
northeast
monsoon, and also experiences
meiyu in May. The entire island
succumbs to hot humid weather from June until September, while
October to December are arguably the most pleasant times of year.
The middle and southern parts of the island do not have an extended
monsoon season during the winter months. Natural hazards such as
typhoons and
earthquakes are common in the region.
Taiwan is a center of bird
endemism; see
Endemic birds of Taiwan for further
information.
Environment and pollution
With its high population density and many factories, some areas in
Taiwan suffer from heavy pollution. Most notable are the southern
suburbs of Taipei and the western stretch from Tainan to Lin Yuan,
south of Kaohsiung. In the past, Taipei suffered from extensive
vehicle and factory
air pollution, but
with mandatory use of unleaded gasoline and the establishment of
the Environmental Protection Agency, the air quality of Taiwan has
improved dramatically.
Motor
scooters, especially older or cheaper
two-stroke versions, which are ubiquitous
in Taiwan, also contribute disproportionately to air
pollution.
Natural resources
Because of the intensive exploitation throughout Taiwan's
pre-modern and modern history, the island's mineral resources (eg.
coal,
gold,
marble), as well as wild animal reserves (eg. deer),
have been virtually exhausted. Moreover, much of its forestry
resources, especially
firs were
harvested during Japanese rule for the construction of
shrines and have only recovered slightly since
then. The remaining forests nowadays do not contribute to
significant timber production mainly because of concerns about
production costs and environmental regulations.
Camphor oil extraction and
cane
sugar production played an important role in
Taiwan's exportation from the late nineteenth century through the
first half of the twentieth century. The importance of the above
industries subsequently declined not because of the exhaustion of
related natural resources but mainly of the decline of
international market demands.
Nowadays, few natural resources with significant economic value are
retained in Taiwan, which are essentially agriculture-associated.
Domestic agriculture (
rice being the dominant
kind of crop) and
fisheries retain
importance to a certain degree, but they have been greatly
challenged by foreign imports since Taiwan's accession to the
World Trade Organization in
2001. Consequently, upon the decline of subsistent importance,
Taiwan's agriculture now relies heavily on the marketing and
exportation of certain kinds of specialty fruits, such as
banana,
guava,
lychee,
wax apple, and
high-mountain
tea.
Energy resources
Taiwan has significant coal deposits and some insignificant
petroleum and
natural gas deposits. Electrical power
generation is nearly 55% coal-based, 18%
nuclear power, 17% natural gas, 5% oil, and 5%
from renewable energy sources. Nearly all oil and gas for
transportation and power needs must be imported, making Taiwan
particularly sensitive to fluctuations in energy prices. Because of
this, Taiwan's Executive Yuan is pushing for 10% of energy
generation to come from renewable energy by 2010, double from the
current figure of approximately 5%.
In fact, several wind farms built by American and German companies
have come online or will in the near future. Taiwan is rich
in
wind energy resources, both
onshore and
offshore, though limited land area favors
offshore wind resources.
Solar energy
is also a potential resource to some extent. By promoting renewable
energy, Taiwan's government hopes to also aid the nascent renewable
energy manufacturing industry, and develop it into an export
market.
Demographics
Ethnic groups
Taiwan's population was estimated in 2005 at 22.9 million, most of
whom are on the island of Taiwan. About 98% of the population is of
Han Chinese ethnicity. Of these, 86% are descendants of early
Han Chinese immigrants known as the "
home-province people"
( ).
This
group contains two subgroups: the Southern Fujianese or "Hokkien" or "Min-nan" (70% of
the total population), who migrated from the coastal Southern Fujian region in the southeast of mainland China; and the Hakka (15% of the total population), who
originally migrated south to Guangdong, its surrounding areas and Taiwan. 12% of
population are known as
waishengren ( ) or "mainlanders"
in English and are composed of and descend from mainland Chinese
immigrants who arrived after the
Second
World War. This group mostly includes those who fled
mainland China in 1949 following the
Kuomintang defeat in the
Chinese Civil War. For
political reasons, the
mainlanders are also called
xin zhùmín (
), or "new residents", although the term is considered offensive by
many of the mainlanders themselves. , there were 343,000 foreign
workers.
The other 2% of Taiwan's population, numbering about 458,000, are
listed as the
Taiwanese
aborigines, divided into 13 major groups:
Ami,
Atayal,
Paiwan,
Bunun,
Rukai,
Puyuma,
Tsou,
Saisiyat,
Tao (Yami),
Thao,
Kavalan,
Truku and
Sakizaya.
Languages
About 70%
of the people in Taiwan belong to the Hoklo ethnic group and speak both Standard Mandarin (officially recognized
by the ROC as the National Language) and Taiwanese Hokkien (commonly known as
"Taiwanese"; a variant of Min Nan spoken in
Fujian
province). Standard Mandarin is the primary language of
instruction in schools. The
Hakka,
about 15% of the population, have a distinct Hakka dialect.
Aboriginal minority groups still speak their native languages,
although most also speak Mandarin.
English is a common second language, with
some large private schools providing English instruction. English
is compulsory in students' curriculum once they enter elementary
school. English as a school subject is also featured on Taiwan's
education exams.
Although Mandarin is still 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. A large
proportion of the population can speak Taiwanese, and many others
have some degree of understanding. Some also speak
Hakka. People educated during the Japanese
period of 1900 to 1945 used
Japanese as the medium of instruction.
Some in the older generations only speak the Japanese they learned
at school and the Taiwanese they spoke at home and are unable to
communicate with many in the younger generations who only speak
Mandarin.
Most aboriginal groups in Taiwan have their own languages which,
unlike Taiwanese or Hakka, do not belong to the Chinese language
family, but rather to the
Austronesian language family.
Religion
Over 93% of Taiwanese are adherents of a combination of
Buddhism,
Confucianism,
and
Taoism; 4.5% are adherents of
Christianity, which includes
Protestants,
Catholics,
Latter-day Saints and other,
non-denominational, Christian groups; , and 2.5% are adherents of
other religions, such as
Islam.
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."
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.
One
especially important goddess for Taiwanese people is Matsu, who symbolizes the seafaring spirit
of Taiwan's ancestors from Fujian and Guangdong.
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.
Culture
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 globalized values.
After their move to Taiwan, the
Kuomintang imposed an official interpretation of
traditional Chinese culture over Taiwanese cultures. The government
launched a program promoting
Chinese
calligraphy,
traditional Chinese
painting,
folk art, and
Chinese opera.
Since the
Taiwan
localization movement of the 1990s, Taiwan's cultural identity
has enjoyed greater expression.
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.
The status of Taiwanese culture is debated. It is disputed whether
Taiwanese culture is a regional form of Chinese culture or a
distinct culture. Speaking Taiwanese as a symbol of the
localization movement has become an emblem of Taiwanese
identity.
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 collection of Chinese art and
objects in the world. 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 the PRC has agreed to lending
relics and that that 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."
Popular sports in Taiwan include
basketball and
baseball.
International
Community Radio Taipei is the most listened to International
Radio Media in Taiwan.
Karaoke, drawn from contemporary Japanese
culture, is extremely popular in Taiwan, where it is known as
KTV.
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. They even provide the service of mailing packages.
Taiwanese culture has also influenced other cultures.
Bubble tea and
milk tea
are available in
Australia,
Europe and
North
America. Taiwan television variety shows are very 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, 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
Baseball is considered 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
for the
New York Yankees in
Major League Baseball. Other
notable players in the league include
Chin-hui Tsao who played for the
Colorado Rockies (2003–2005) and the
Los Angeles Dodgers (2007),
Kuo Hong-chih and
Hu Chin-lung who are both part of the
Los Angeles Dodgers. The
Chinese Professional
Baseball League in Taiwan was established in 1989, and
eventually absorbed the competing
Taiwan Major League in 2003. , the CPBL
has four teams with average attendance of approximately 3,000 per
game.
Besides baseball,
martial arts such as
taekwondo,
karate,
and
kung fu are also widely practiced and
competed.
In 2009, Taiwan hosted two international sporting events on the
island.
The World Games
2009 were held in Kaohsiung City between July 16, 2009 and July 26, 2009.
Taipei City hosted the 21st
Summer Deaflympics in September of the same year.
Political status
Economy
Taiwan's quick industrialization and rapid growth during the latter
half of the twentieth century, has been called the "
Taiwan Miracle" (台灣奇蹟) or "Taiwan Economic
Miracle".
As it has developed alongside Singapore, South
Korea, and Hong
Kong, Taiwan is one of the industrialized developed countries known as the "Four Asian Tigers".
Japanese rule prior to and during World War II brought forth
changes in the public and private sectors of the economy, 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 the
system compulsory for all Taiwanese citizens during this
time.
When the KMT government fled to Taiwan it brought the entire gold
reserve and the foreign currency reserve of mainland China to the
island which stabilized prices and reduced hyperinflation. More
importantly, as part of its retreat to Taiwan, KMT brought with
them the intellectual and business elites from mainland China. 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 1962, Taiwan had a per capita gross national product (GNP) of
$170, placing the island's economy squarely between Zaire and
Congo. By 2008 Taiwan's per capita GNP, adjusted for purchasing
power parity (PPP), had soared to $33,000 (2008 est.) contributing
to a
Human Development Index
equivalent to that of other developed countries.
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. Real growth in
GDP has averaged about eight percent
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 as of 31 December 2007.
Taiwan has its own currency, the
New
Taiwan dollar.
Agriculture constitutes only two percent
of the GDP, down from 35 percent in 1952. Traditional
labor-intensive industries are steadily being moved offshore and
with more capital and technology-intensive industries replacing
them.
Taiwan has become a major foreign investor
in mainland China, 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.
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 mainland China,
unemployment also reached a level not
seen since the
1973 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%. Since the global financial
crisis starting with United States in 2007, unemployment rate has
risen to over 5.9% and Economic Growth fallen to -2.9%.
Leading technologies of Taiwan include:
See also
References
Further reading
- Bush, R. & O'Hanlon, M.
(2007). A War Like No Other: The Truth About China's Challenge
to America. Wiley. ISBN 0471986771
- Bush, R. (2006). Untying the Knot: Making Peace in the
Taiwan Strait. Brookings Institution Press. ISBN
0815712901
- Carpenter, T. (2006). America's Coming War with China: A
Collision Course over Taiwan. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN
1403968411
- Cole, B. (2006). Taiwan's Security: History and
Prospects. Routledge. ISBN 0415365813
- Copper, J. (2006). Playing with Fire: The Looming War with
China over Taiwan. Praeger Security International General
Interest. ISBN 0275988880
- Copper, J. (2000). Historical Dictionary of Taiwan
(Republic of China). The Scarecrow Press. ISBN 0810836653
- Federation of American Scientists et al. (2006). Chinese Nuclear Forces and U.S. Nuclear War Planning
- Gill, B. (2007). Rising Star: China's New Security
Diplomacy. Brookings Institution Press. ISBN 0815731469
- Knapp, R. (1980). China's Island Frontier: Studies in the
Historical Geography of Taiwan. University of Hawai`i Press.
ISBN 0824807057
- Rubinstein, M. (2006). Taiwan: A New History. M.E.
Sharpe. ISBN 0765614952
- Shirk, S. (2007). China: Fragile Superpower: How China's
Internal Politics Could Derail Its Peaceful Rise. Oxford
University Press. ISBN 0195306090
- Tsang, S. (2006). If China Attacks Taiwan: Military
Strategy, Politics and Economics. Routledge. ISBN
0415407850
- Tucker, N.B. (2005). Dangerous Strait: the
U.S.-Taiwan-China Crisis. Columbia University Press. ISBN
0231135645
External links