{"id":39061,"date":"2024-01-13T01:33:41","date_gmt":"2024-01-12T20:03:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=39061"},"modified":"2025-04-24T01:12:57","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T19:42:57","slug":"china-taiwan-relation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/china-taiwan-relation\/","title":{"rendered":"China \u2013 Taiwan Relation"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>What\u2019s in today\u2019s article?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Why in news?<\/li>\n<li>China-Taiwan Relation<\/li>\n<li>Geographical location of Taiwan:<\/li>\n<li>China \u2013 Taiwan Dispute<\/li>\n<li>Who recognises Taiwan?<\/li>\n<li>India-Taiwan relations<\/li>\n<li>News Summary: China \u2013 Taiwan Relation<\/li>\n<li>Taiwan\u2019s transition to democracy<\/li>\n<li>China \u2013 Taiwan Relation: Current Status<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Why in news?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>On January 13, Taiwan will vote to elect its next President and legislature.<\/li>\n<li>With Taiwan&#8217;s complicated ties to China and rising global tensions, the election result could be a big deal for the island.\n<ul>\n<li>China, despite never ruling Taiwan, insists it&#8217;s theirs and has not ruled out using force to claim it, home to 24 million people.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Geographical location of Taiwan<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com\/media\/editor_images\/2024\/1\/13\/13\/30\/14\/65a2430e0c41e13adfd07dbb_OI.PNG\" alt=\"\" \/><\/li>\n<li>Taiwan is located <u>north of the Philippines and the South China Sea<\/u>.<\/li>\n<li>It is about 180 km off the south-eastern coast of China.<\/li>\n<li>It is separated from the mainland by the <u>Taiwan Strait<\/u>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>China \u2013 Taiwan Dispute<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Background\n<ul>\n<li>The island seems to have first appeared in Chinese records in AD239, when an emperor sent an expeditionary force to explore the area.\n<ul>\n<li>This <u>evidence is used by Beijing to back its territorial claim<\/u>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>After a relatively brief spell as a Dutch colony (1624-1661), Taiwan was administered by <u>China&#8217;s Qing dynasty from 1683 to 1895<\/u>.<\/li>\n<li>In 1895, Japan won the First Sino-Japanese War, and the Qing government had to cede Taiwan to Japan.<\/li>\n<li>After World War Two, Japan surrendered and relinquished control of territory.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Civil War\n<ul>\n<li>When Japan surrendered, The Chinese Nationalist Party (also known as the Kuomintang, KMT) began ruling Taiwan with the consent of its allies, the US and UK.\n<ul>\n<li>Chiang Kai-shek was the ruler of this party.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>However, almost immediately following Japan\u2019s surrender, the Chinese Civil War broke out between the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party (CPC).<\/li>\n<li>Chiang and the remnants of his Kuomintang government <u>fled to Taiwan in1949<\/u>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Disagreement and confusion about Taiwan\n<ul>\n<li>China regards Taiwan as a breakaway province which it has vowed to retake, by force if necessary.\n<ul>\n<li>China has repeatedly insisted that <u>Taiwan should be called Chinese Taipei,<\/u> in efforts to prevent international recognition of Taiwan as a country.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>But Taiwan&#8217;s leaders argue that it is a sovereign state. Taiwan continues to participate in international events and dialogues separately.<\/li>\n<li>It has its own constitution, democratically-elected leaders, and about 300,000 active troops in its armed forces.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Who recognises Taiwan?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Initially, Chiang Kai-shek&#8217;s Republic of China (ROC) government held China&#8217;s seat on the United Nations Security Council.\n<ul>\n<li>In the Cold War, the Taiwanese government in Taipei emerged as a crucial ally of the United States and took over China\u2019s seat on the UN Security Council.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>However, all that changed in 1979 when the US, as part of its efforts to normalise ties with mainland China, moved its recognition from Taipei to Beijing.\n<ul>\n<li>Officially, the US recognises Beijing\u2019s belief that Taiwan is a part of China under the \u2018one China\u2019 theory.<\/li>\n<li>However, it maintains close connections with Taiwan.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Since then, the number of countries that recognise the ROC government diplomatically has fallen drastically to about 15.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>India-Taiwan relations<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>India <u>does not have formal diplomatic ties<\/u> with Taiwan. Like most countries, it maintains commercial ties with Taiwan.<\/li>\n<li>In 1995, New Delhi set up the India-Taipei Association (ITA) in Taipei to promote interactions between the two sides.\n<ul>\n<li>The aim of ITA was to facilitate business, tourism, and cultural exchanges.<\/li>\n<li>ITA has also been authorized to provide all consular and passport services.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>In the same year, Taiwan too established the <u>Taipei Economic and Cultural Centre<\/u> in Delhi.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>News Summary: China \u2013 Taiwan Relation<\/h2>\n<h2>Taiwan\u2019s transition to democracy<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>From 1949 to 1996, Kai-shek\u2019s KMT ruled Taiwan under a de facto dictatorship but in <u>1996, the country held its first direct presidential election<\/u>.<\/li>\n<li>Since then, it has undergone three peaceful transfers of power in 2000, 2008, and 2016.<\/li>\n<li>Taiwan\u2019s current President, Tsai Ing-wen, made history in 2016 by becoming the first woman to be elected to the top office.\n<ul>\n<li>She is constitutionally barred from running again.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>China \u2013 Taiwan Relation: Current Status<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Commercial ties\n<ul>\n<li>Despite the tensions, China is Taiwan\u2019s largest commercial partner. A large number of Taiwanese have familial and commercial ties across the strait.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Concerns of Beijing remain\n<ul>\n<li>Beijing remained concerned by different demographic factors.<\/li>\n<li>Over 60% of the island\u2019s population now identifies exclusively as Taiwanese, with 30% identifying as both Taiwanese and Chinese, and only 2.5 % as Chinese.<\/li>\n<li>For the first time ever, all of the presidential contenders are native Taiwanese, which means their ancestors immigrated to the island nation prior to the Chinese Civil War.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>Q1)\u00a0Who was Chiang Kai-shek?<\/h3>\n<p>Chiang Kai-shek (1887 &#8211; 1975) was a Chinese politician, revolutionary, and military leader. He was the leader of the Republic of China (ROC) and the Generalissimo of the National Revolutionary Army.\u00a0<\/p>\n<h3>Q2)\u00a0What is India-Taipei Association (ITA)?<\/h3>\n<p>The India-Taipei Association (ITA) was established in 1995 to promote non-governmental interactions between India and Taiwan. The ITA&#8217;s goals include facilitating business, tourism, scientific, cultural, and people-to-people exchanges.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Source:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/explained\/explained-global\/taiwan-january-13-elections-primer-china-9105601\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>Taiwan votes on January 13: Amid tensions with China, why these polls are significant<\/u><\/a><u> | <\/u><a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/explained\/everyday-explainers\/us-one-china-policy-taiwan-dispute-explained-7932395\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>Indian Express<\/u><\/a><u> | <\/u><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2022\/5\/23\/biden-says-us-would-defend-taiwan-if-attacked-by-china\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>Al Jazeera<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Taiwan is located north of the Philippines and the South China Sea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":39062,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-39061","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39061\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}