A Primer About Taiwan

choi

Keri Phillips, Student Protests Over Free Trade Deal Shake Taiwan. ABC, Apr 29, 2014.www.abc.net.au/radionational/pro ... nt-movement/5418698

Quote:

“Taiwan (officially the Republic of China) is a little more than half the size of Tasmania, with roughly the same population as Australia.

“The Kuomintang continued to claim sovereignty over all China, while on the mainland the victorious Communists claimed they ruled the only China, including Taiwan.‘The government that moved its central headquarters from mainland China to Taiwan in 1949 imposed what could be best described as a military dictatorship,’ says Denny Roy, the author of Taiwan: A Political History.

“‘The government of Chiang Kai-shek insisted there was only one China,’ says J Bruce Jacobs, emeritus professor of Asian languages and studies at Monash University. * * * ‘So when the governments around in the western world, primarily in early 1970s Canada, Australia, Japan, wanted to recognise China, the Taiwan government broke relations with them. The Japanese actually set up a very interesting precedent where they established relations with China but they had informal officially unofficial relations with Taiwan, and this set the precedent, and the Americans did the same thing, we've done the same thing in Australia. The Americans now have an American Institute in Taiwan, and we have an Australian office.’

“‘The issues that have been raised in Taiwan are “who are we”, for example,’ says Professor Jacobs. ‘This is a big issue in Taiwan, like it was an issue in Australia too. Especially under the Labor governments of Hawke and Keating, there was an emphasis on Australians as being different from Britain. In Taiwan that same sort of a cultural change has taken place, so now more than half the people in Taiwan identify as Taiwanese and not as Chinese, and all the polls show this. There has been this huge change in terms of “who are we” in terms of China.’  The relationship between the People's Republic of China, Taiwanese independence and Chinese reunification dominate Taiwanese politics.

“last year Taiwan's net export in goods is about US$33 billion but the net export in services is only US$9 billion.

My comment:
(a) ABC = Australian Broadcasting Corporation (based in Sydney)
(b) This article is very long. Most content if familiar, though, so there is no need to read the rest.
(c) This is the first time I hear of Denny Roy. Dr Jacobs is known for favoring Taiwan’s self-determination. So you guys do not have to worry too much about the trend in Taiwan; it is not  as if the island would rise up tomorrow, sending KMT to the dustbin of the history.