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The Pan-Blue Coalition, composed of the pro-unification Kuomintang, People First Party (PFP) and New Party generally support the spirit of the 1992 Consensus, where the KMT declared that there is one China, but that the ROC and PRC have different interpretations of what "China" means. They favour eventual re-unification of China. 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. President Ma Ying-jeou stated that there will be no unification nor declaration of independence during his presidency. , Pan-Blue members usually seek to improve relationships with mainland China, with a current focus on improving economic ties.
===National identity===
Results from an identity survey conducted each year from 1992 to 2020 by the Election Study Center, National Chengchi University. Responses are Taiwanese (green), Chinese (red) or Both Taiwanese and Chinese (hatched). No response is shown as grey.
Roughly 84 per cent of Taiwan's population are descendants of Han Chinese immigrants from Qing China between 1683 and 1895. Another significant fraction descends from Han Chinese who immigrated from mainland China in the late 1940s and early 1950s. 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 democratic reforms 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. The Pan-Green camp supports a predominantly Taiwanese identity (although "Chinese" may be viewed as cultural heritage), while the Pan-Blue camp supports a predominantly Chinese identity (with "Taiwanese" as a regional/diasporic Chinese identity). The KMT has downplayed this stance in the recent years and now supports a Taiwanese identity as part of a Chinese identity.
In annual polls conducted by National Chengchi University, Taiwanese identification has increased substantially since the early 1990s, while Chinese identification has fallen to a low level, and identification as both has also seen a reduction. In 1992, 17.6 percent of respondents identified as Taiwanese, 25.5 percent as Chinese, 46.4 percent as both, and 10.5 percent non-response. In June 2021, 63.3 percent identified as Taiwanese, 2.6 percent as Chinese, 31.4 percent as both, and 2.7 percent non-response. A survey conducted in Taiwan by Global Views Survey Research Center in July 2009 showed that 82.8 percent of respondents consider the ROC and the PRC as two separate countries with each developing on its own but 80.2 percent think they are members of the Chinese.
===Administrative divisions===
Taiwan is, in practice, divided into 22 subnational divisions, each with a self-governing body led by an elected leader and a legislative body with elected members. Duties of local governments include social services, education, urban planning, public construction, water management, environmental protection, transport, public safety, and more.
There are three types of subnational divisions: special municipalities, counties, and cities. Special municipalities and cities are further divided into districts for local administration. Counties are further divided into townships and county-administered cities which have elected mayors and councils, and share duties with the county. Some divisions are indigenous divisions which have different degrees of autonomy to standard ones. In addition, districts, cities and townships are further divided into villages and neighbourhoods.
==Military==
Republic of China Army Thunderbolt-2000
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.
The ROC and the United States signed the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty in 1954, and established the United States Taiwan Defense Command. About 30,000 US troops were stationed in Taiwan, until the United States established diplomatic relations with the PRC in 1979.
Today, Taiwan maintains a large and technologically advanced military, mainly as a defence to the constant threat of invasion by the People's Liberation Army using the Anti-Secession Law of the People's Republic of China as a pretext. This law authorizes the use of military force when certain conditions are met, such as a danger to mainlanders.
From 1949 to the 1970s, the primary mission of the Taiwanese military was to "retake mainland China" through Project National Glory. As this mission has transitioned away from attack because the relative strength of the PRC has massively increased, the ROC military has begun to shift emphasis from the traditionally dominant Army to the air force and navy.
Republic of China Air Force indigenously produced fighter airplane in Ching Chuan Kang Air Base
alt=A light fighter aircraft on the ground with two men who are maintaining it.
Control of the armed forces has also passed into the hands of the civilian government. 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.
The ROC began a force reduction plan, ''Jingshi An'' (translated to streamlining program), to scale down its military from a level of 450,000 in 1997 to 380,000 in 2001. , the armed forces of the ROC number approximately 300,000, with nominal reserves totalling 3.6 million . 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 arms related industries. Current plans call for a transition to a predominantly professional army over the next decade. Conscription periods are planned to decrease from 14 months to 12. In the last months of the Bush administration, Taipei took the decision to reverse the trend of declining military spending, at a time when most Asian countries kept on reducing their military expenditures. It also decided to strengthen both defensive and offensive capabilities. Taipei still keeps a large military apparatus relative to the island's population: military expenditures for 2008 were NTD 334 billion (approximately US $10.5 billion), which accounted for 2.94 per cent of GDP.
C-130H in Songshan AFB
The armed forces' primary concern at this time, according to the ''National Defense Report'', is the possibility of an invasion by the PRC, consisting of a naval blockade, airborne assault or missile bombardment. Four upgraded ''Kidd''-class destroyers were purchased from the United States, and commissioned into the Republic of China Navy in 2005–2006, significantly upgrading Taiwan's protection from aerial attack and submarine hunting abilities. 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 military package was stalled from 2001 to 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 systems, AH-64D Apache Attack helicopters and other arms and parts. A significant amount of military hardware has been bought from the United States, and, , continues to be legally guaranteed by the Taiwan Relations Act. 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.
The first line of protection 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. 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. 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. The Australia, New Zealand, United States Security Treaty (ANZUS Treaty) may mean that other US allies, such as Australia, could theoretically be involved. While this would risk damaging economic ties with China, a conflict over Taiwan could lead to an economic blockade of China by a greater coalition.
==Economy==
alt=Photo of Taipei 101 tower against a blue sky.
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 residents of Taiwan. 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 began a price stabilization programme. These efforts significantly slowed inflation.
When the KMT government fled to Taiwan it brought millions of taels (where 1 tael = 37.5 g or ~1.2 ozt) of gold and the foreign currency reserve of mainland China, which, according to the KMT, stabilized prices and reduced hyperinflation. Perhaps more importantly, as part of its retreat to Taiwan, the KMT brought 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.
In 1950, with the outbreak of the Korean War, the United States began an aid programme which resulted in fully stabilized prices by 1952. Economic development was encouraged by American economic aid and programmes such as the Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction, which turned the agricultural sector into the basis for later growth. Under the combined stimulus of the land reform and the agricultural development programmes, agricultural production increased at an average annual rate of 4 per cent from 1952 to 1959, which was greater than the population growth, 3.6 per cent.
In 1962, Taiwan had a (nominal) per-capita gross national product (GNP) of $170, placing its economy on a par with those of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. On a purchasing power parity (PPP) basis, its GDP per capita in the early 1960s was $1,353 (in 1990 prices). By 2011 per-capita GNP, adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPP), had risen to $37,000, contributing to a Human Development Index (HDI) equivalent to that of other developed countries. In 2019, the HDI calculated by Taiwan's government was the seventh-highest in the Asia-Pacific region.
Neihu Technology Park in Taipei
In 1974, Chiang Ching-kuo implemented the Ten Major Construction Projects, the beginning foundations that helped Taiwan transform into its current export driven economy. Since the 1990s, a number of Taiwan-based technology firms have expanded their reach around the world. Well-known international technology companies headquartered in Taiwan include personal computer manufacturers Acer Inc. and Asus, mobile phone maker HTC, as well as electronics manufacturing giant Foxconn, which makes products for Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft. Computex Taipei is a major computer expo, held since 1981.
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 8 per cent 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. The currency of Taiwan is the New Taiwan dollar.
Since the beginning of the 1990s, the economic ties between Taiwan and the People's Republic of China have been very prolific. , more than US$150 billion have been invested in the PRC by Taiwanese companies. 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." 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.
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, totalling US$274.64 billion and US$251.4 billion, respectively.
Yilan County
In 2001, agriculture constituted only 2 per cent of GDP, down from 35 per cent in 1952. Traditional labour-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.
Because of its conservative financial approach and its entrepreneurial strengths, Taiwan suffered little compared with many of its neighbours in the 1997 Asian financial crisis. Unlike its neighbours, 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 co-ordination 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 labour-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 per cent in the 2002–2006 period and the unemployment rate fell below 4 per cent.
The ROC often joins international organizations (especially ones that also include the People's Republic of China) under a politically neutral name. The ROC has been 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.
==Transport==
China Airlines aircraft line-up at Taoyuan International Airport
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications of the Republic of China is the cabinet-level governing body of the transport network in Taiwan.
Civilian transport in Taiwan is characterised by extensive use of scooters. In March 2019, 13.86 million were registered, twice that of cars.
Both highways and railways are concentrated near the coasts, where the majority of the population resides, with of motorway.
Railways in Taiwan are primarily used for passenger services, with Taiwan Railway Administration (TRA) operating a circular route and Taiwan High Speed Rail (THSR) running high speed services on the west coast. Urban transit systems include Taipei Metro, Kaohsiung Rapid Transit, Taoyuan Metro and New Taipei Metro.
Major airports include Taiwan Taoyuan, Kaohsiung, Taipei Songshan and Taichung. There are currently seven airlines in Taiwan, the largest ones being China Airlines and EVA Air.
There are four international seaports: Keelung, Kaohsiung, Taichung, and Hualien.
==Education==
Taiwan's higher education system was established by Japan during the colonial period. However, after the Republic of China took over in 1945, the system was promptly replaced by the same system as in mainland China which mixed features of the Chinese and American educational systems.
Children at a Taiwanese school
Taiwan is well known for adhering to the Confucian paradigm of valuing education as a means to improve one's socioeconomic position in society. Heavy investment and a cultural valuing of education has catapulted the resource-poor nation consistently to the top of global education rankings. Taiwan is one of the top-performing countries in reading literacy, mathematics and sciences. In 2015, Taiwanese students achieved one of the world's best results in mathematics, science and literacy, as tested by the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), with the average student scoring 519, compared with the OECD average of 493, placing it seventh in the world.
The Taiwanese education system has been praised for various reasons, including its comparatively high test results and its major role in promoting Taiwan's economic development while creating one of the world's most highly educated workforces. Taiwan has also been praised for its high university entrance rate where the university acceptance rate has increased from around 20 per cent before the 1980s to 49 per cent in 1996 and over 95 per cent since 2008, among the highest in Asia. The nation's high university entrance rate has created a highly skilled workforce making Taiwan one of the most highly educated countries in the world with 68.5 per cent of Taiwanese high school students going on to attend university. Taiwan has a high percentage of its citizens holding a tertiary education degree where 45 per cent of Taiwanese aged 25–64 hold a bachelor's degree or higher compared with the average of 33 per cent among member countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).