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1 1 (October 15, 2018)

handle is hein.crs/govebed0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Taiwan: Select Political and Security Issues Taiwan, which officially calls itself the Republic of China (ROC), is an island democracy of 23 million people located across the Taiwan Strait from mainland China. Since January 1, 1979, U.S.-Taiwan relations have been unofficial, a consequence of the Carter Administration's decision to establish diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China (PRC) and break formal diplomatic ties with self-ruled Taiwan, over which the PRC claims sovereignty. The Taiwan Relations Act (TRA, P.L. 96-8; 22 U.S.C. 3301 et seq.), enacted on April 10, 1979, provides a legal basis for this unofficial bilateral relationship. It also includes commitments related to Taiwan's security. Trump Administration Policy After initially questioning the longstanding U.S. one- China policy, President Donald J. Trump used a February 9, 2017, telephone call with PRC President Xi Jinping to recommit the United States to the policy, under which the United States maintains only unofficial relations with Taiwan, while also upholding the TRA. The Trump Administration's National Security Strategy, released in December 2017, states that the United States will maintain our strong ties with Taiwan in accordance with our 'One China' policy, including our commitments under the Taiwan Relations Act to provide for Taiwan's legitimate defense needs and deter coercion. In 2018, the Administration has taken steps widely seen as supportive to Taiwan. In March 2018, the President signed into law the Taiwan Travel Act (P.L. 115-135), which states that it should be U.S. policy to allow U.S. officials at all levels to visit Taiwan. In May 2018, the White House Press Secretary released a statement dismissing as Orwellian nonsense and political correctness the PRC's demand that foreign airlines refer to Taiwan as part of China on their websites. In June 2018, Assistant Secretary of State for Education and Cultural Affairs Marie Royce led a U.S. delegation to Taiwan for the dedication of a new complex for the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), the entity through which the United States conducts its unofficial relationship with Taiwan. Then-AIT Director Kin Moy presented the $255-million compound as a tangible symbol that the United States is here to stay. In August 2018, the White House criticized both the PRC and El Salvador for the latter's decision to break diplomatic relations with Taiwan and establish relations with the PRC. On October 4, 2018, in a major speech on China policy, Vice President Mike Pence said the recent decisions by the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, and Panama to switch recognition to Beijing threaten the stability of the Taiwan Strait. Pence also stated that while the Trump Administration will continue to respect our One China Policy,... America will always believe Taiwan's embrace of democracy shows a better path for all the Chinese people. Updated October 15, 2018 Taiwan's Modern History China's Qing Dynasty ceded Taiwan to Japan at the end of the First Sino-Japanese War in 1895. Taiwan was a Japanese colony for the next 50 years. The Republic of China, which was founded in 1912 on mainland China and led by the Kuomintang Party (KMT), assumed control of Taiwan in 1945, after Japan's defeat in World War II. In 1949, after losing a civil war on mainland China to the Communist Party of China, the KMT moved the seat of the ROC across Taiwan Strait to Taipei, while the Communists established the PRC on mainland China. As many as two million Chinese fled with the KMT to Taiwan. On Taiwan, the KMT maintained authoritarian one-party rule until 1987, when it began allowing political liberalization. Current President Tsai Ing-wen's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), founded in 1986, claims credit for a major role in toppling the KMT's one-party dictatorship. Taiwan held its first direct parliamentary election in 1992 and its first direct presidential election in 1996. The May 2016 inauguration of President Tsai marked Taiwan's third transfer of political power from one party to another through a peaceful electoral process. In 2016, the DPP also ended the KMT's previously unbroken control of Taiwan's legislature. Taiwan is scheduled to hold local elections on November 24, 2018. Long after the retreat to Taiwan, the KMT continued to assert that the ROC government was the sole legitimate government of all China. In 1971, however, United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2758 recognized the PRC's representatives as the only legitimate representatives of China to the United Nations, and expelled the representatives of Chiang Kai-shek, the ROC's president at the time. Taiwan has remained outside the United Nations ever since. Taiwan today claims effective jurisdiction only over Taiwan, the archipelagos of Penghu, Kinmen, and Matsu, and a number of smaller islands. ROC sovereignty claims also include disputed islands in the East China Sea and South China Sea. U.S. Commitments Related to Taiwan Four documents underpin U.S. policy on Taiwan: three joint communiques concluded with the PRC in 1972, 1978, and 1982, plus the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act. The key commitments the U.S. government made to the PRC in the three joint communiques were that the United States would recognize the PRC as the sole legal government of China; acknowledge, if not endorse, the Chinese position that there is but one China and Taiwan is part of China; and maintain only unofficial relations with Taiwan. The United States considers Taiwan's ultimate status to be unresolved. Passed by Congress in April 1979, after the termination of official relations with Taiwan, the Taiwan Relations Act provides the legal basis for unofficial relations. Key provisions include: ,ittps://crsreports~congress.gov

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