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1 1 (October 7, 2022)

handle is hein.crs/govejed0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Congressional Research Service infwrring the iegislative debate since 1914 Taiwan: Political and Security Issues Taiwan, which officially calls itself the Republic of China (ROC), is a self-governing democracy of 23 million people located across the Taiwan Strait from mainland China. Its government claims effective jurisdiction over the island of Taiwan, the archipelagos of Penghu, Kinmen, and Matsu, and other outlying islands. Taiwan also claims disputed geographic features in the East and South China Seas. Competing interests among the United States, Taiwan, and the People's Republic of China (PRC or China)-namely the PRC's determination to unify with Taiwan, official and popular Taiwan resistance to absorption by the PRC, and U.S. security commitments related to Taiwan-mean that the United States and China could someday be drawn into armed conflict over Taiwan's fate. U.S.-Taiwan relations have been unofficial since January 1, 1979, when the United States established diplomatic relations with the PRC and broke them with Taiwan, over which the PRC claims sovereignty. The 1979 Taiwan Relations Act (TRA, P.L. 96-8; 22 U.S.C. §§3301 et seq.) provides a legal basis for unofficial relations. See also CRS In Focus IF10256, U.S.-Taiwan Trade Relations. Figure I. Taiwan Sources: Graphic by CRS. Map generated by Hannah Fischer using data from NGA (2017); DoS (2015); Esri (2014); DeLorme (2014). Modern History and Current Events In 1949, at the end of a civil war on mainland China against the Communist Party of China (CPC), the ROC's then- ruling party, the Kuomintang (KMT), moved the ROC government to Taiwan. Until 1991, the KMT continued to assert that the ROC government on Taiwan 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 Updated October 7, 2022 China to the United Nations, and expelled the representatives of Chiang Kai-shek, the ROC's then- leader. Taiwan remains outside the U.N. today. The KMT maintained authoritarian one-party rule on Taiwan until 1987, when it yielded to public pressure for political liberalization. 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. Tsai won a second four-year term in 2020, and her party retained its majority in Taiwan's parliament, the Legislative Yuan. Taiwan is scheduled to hold local elections on November 26, 2022, and presidential and legislative elections in 2024. On August 2-3, 2022, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi became the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit Taiwan since then-Speaker Newt Gingrich in 1997. She was accompanied by five other Members of Congress. PRC State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi condemned the Speaker's trip as a reckless move that seriously undermined China's sovereignty. The PRC's People's Liberation Army (PLA) responded to the visit by conducting exercises in six locations around Taiwan. PRC state media portrayed the activities as intended to demonstrate how the PLA could isolate and attack Taiwan, including by blockading ports, attacking military bases on Taiwan's east coast, and controlling access to the Bashi Channel in the Luzon Strait between Taiwan and the Philippines. The exercises, which included missile test- launches over Taiwan, were unprecedented in scale and established a new normal in which PLA ships and aircraft now operate closer to Taiwan and with more regularity. The PRC also announced unspecified sanctions against the Speaker and her immediate family, cancelled U.S.-PRC military dialogues, and suspended cooperation with the United States in five areas, including counternarcotics. U.S. Policy Toward Taiwan Since 1979, the United States has maintained a one-China policy, which it currently describes as being guided by the Taiwan Relations Act; U.S.-PRC joint communiquds concluded in 1972, 1978, and 1982; and Six Assurances that President Ronald Reagan communicated to Taiwan's government in 1982. Under the one-China policy, the United States maintains official relations with the PRC and unofficial relations with Taiwan, sells defensive arms to Taiwan, supports peaceful resolution of cross-Strait differences, opposes any unilateral changes to the status quo (without explicitly defining the status quo), and states that it does not support independence for Taiwan. The U.S. one-China policy is distinct from the PRC's one China principle, which defines Taiwan as part of China. In the U.S.-China joint communiques, the U.S. government recognized the PRC government as the sole legal government of China, and acknowledged, but did not

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