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1 1 (December 31, 2020)

handle is hein.crs/govebeb0001 and id is 1 raw text is: &Congressional Research Servic Taiwan: Political and Security Is Taiwan, which officially calls itself the Republic of China (ROC), is an island democracy of 23.6 million people located across the Taiwan Strait from mainland China. U.S.-Taiwan relations have been unofficial since January 1, 1979, when the Carter Administration established diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China (PRC) and broke 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. For discussion of economic issues, see CRS In Focus IF10256, U.S.- Taiwan Trade Relations, by Karen M. Sutter. Taiwan's Modern History In 1949, after losing a civil war on mainland China to the Communist Party of China, the ROC's ruling party, the Kuomintang (KMT), moved the ROC seat of government to Taiwan. The KMT continued to assert that the ROC was the sole legitimate government of all China. In 1971, however, U.N. 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 then-leader. Taiwan remains outside the United Nations. It today claims effective jurisdiction over Taiwan, the archipelagos of Penghu, Kinmen, and Matsu, and some smaller islands. It also claims disputed islands in the East and South China Seas. Figure 1. Taiwan Sources: Graphic by CRS. Map generated by Hannah Fischer using data from NGA (2017); DoS (2015); Esri (2014); DeLorme (2014). Updated December 31, 2020 The KMT maintained authoritarian one-party rule on Taiwan until 1987, when popular pressure forced it to allow political liberalization. Taiwan held its first direct parliamentary election in 1992 and its first direct presidential election in 1996. The May 2016 inauguration of current President Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) marked Taiwan's third peaceful transfer of political power from one party to another. In January 2020 elections held against the backdrop of protests in Hong Kong over erosions of the city's promised high degree of autonomy from the PRC, voters elected President Tsai to a second four-year term with 57.1% of the vote. The DPP lost 7 seats in the 113-seat legislature, but retained its majority, with 61 seats. The KMT now controls 38 seats, a gain of 3. The results empowered Tsai to move forward with an agenda that includes demanding respect from China for what she calls Taiwan's separate identity. Tsai has since won plaudits from Taiwan's public for her government's response to the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. She has also angered some at home with moves to ease restrictions on imports of U.S. pork and beef, and with her administration's closure of a leading cable news station accused of pro-China bias and spreading disinformation. U.S. Commitments Related to Taiwan The PRC seeks to enforce a one China principle, under which other countries affirm that Taiwan is part of China. The United States adheres to its own one-China policy, which the Trump Administration presented as based on U.S.-PRC joint communiques concluded in 1972, 1978, and 1982; the TRA; and Six Assurances that President Ronald Reagan communicated to Taiwan in 1982, shortly before the release of the third U.S.-PRC joint communiqud. In the communiques, the United States recognized the PRC as the sole legal government of China; acknowledged, but did not affirm, the Chinese position that there is but one China and Taiwan is part of China; and pledged to maintain only unofficial relations with Taiwan. In the 1982 communique, the United States stated that it intends gradually to reduce its sale of arms to Taiwan. Key provisions of the TRA include the following: * Relations with Taiwan shall be carried out through the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), a private corporation. (AIT Taipei performs many of the same functions as U.S. embassies elsewhere and is staffed by U.S. government personnel assigned or detailed to AIT.) * It is U.S. policy to maintain the capacity of the United States to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security, or the social or economic system, of the people on Taiwan. * The United States will make available to Taiwan such defense articles and defense services in such quantity as ittps://crsreports.congress.gov

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