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1 1 (June 13, 2023)

handle is hein.crs/govelyk0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Congressional Research Service inftrning the iegislative debate since 1914 Taiwan: Political and Security Issues Updated June 13, 2023 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. U.S.-Taiwan relations have been unofficial since January 1, 1979, when the United States established diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China (PRC) and broke them with the ROC. As a condition for diplomatic relations with the PRC, the U.S. government agreed to withdraw U.S. military personnel from Taiwan within four months and to terminate the U.S.-ROC Mutual Defense Treaty effective January 1, 1980. 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; CRS In Focus IF 11665, President Reagan 's Six Assurances to Taiwan; and CRS In Focus IF12371, Taiwan Presidents' U.S. Transit Visits. The PRC's stated determination to unify with Taiwan; resistance to that prospect in Taiwan; and U.S. security interests and commitments related to Taiwan have led some U.S. policymakers, including some Members of Congress, to expand efforts to deter armed conflict over Taiwan. Figure I. Taiwan Sources: Graphic by CRS. Map generated by Hannah Fischer using data from NGA (2017); DoS (2015); Esri (2014); DeLorme (2014). Modern H istory Taiwan was a colony of Japan from 1895 to 1945. The ROC, then based on mainland China, assumed control of Taiwan in 1945, after Japan's defeat in World War II. Four years later, after losing a civil war to the Communist Party of China (CPC), the ROC's then-ruling party, the Kuomintang (KMT), moved the ROC government from mainland China 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 (UNGA) 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 U.N. 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 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 113-member Legislative Yuan. Taiwan is to hold presidential and legislative elections on January 13, 2024. After two consecutive terms as President, Tsai is ineligible to run again. Vice President Lai Ching-te (William Lai) is the DPP nominee to succeed her. He has sought to present his party as the stronger defender of democracy. New Taipei City Mayor Hou Yu-Ih is the candidate of the KMT, now Taiwan's main opposition party, which portrays itself as better positioned to lower tensions with the PRC. Ko Wen-je, the candidate of the Taiwan People's Party, is a former Taipei mayor who is seeking to draw voters from both the DPP and KMT. President Tsai transited through the United States on her way to and from Central America in March and April 2023. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy met with her in California on April 5, making him the highest-ranking U.S. official to meet with a Taiwan President on U.S. soil in the era of unofficial relations. The PRC condemned the meeting. The PRC's response included three days of joint military exercises around Taiwan. US. Policy Toward Taiwan Since 1979, the United States has maintained a one-China policy, which it currently describes as being guided by the TRA; 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. Key provisions of the TRA include the following: * U.S. relations with Taiwan shall be carried out through the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), a private

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