FAST FACTS
Area: 36,000 sq km
Population: 21,304,000
Capital (population): Taipei (2,718,000)
Government: Multiparty republic
Ethnic groups: Han Chinese 98%
Minority groups 2%
Languages: Mandarin Chinese (official)
Other Chinese dialects, especially Hokkien
Religions: Traditional Chinese mix of Buddhist, Daoist,
Confucian and ancestor worship cults and Christian
Currency: New Taiwan dollar = 100 cents
GDP per capita: US$11,869
Taiwan, once known as the Island of Formosa, has historically
belonged to China, despite a long period of Japanese
occupation this century. Located off the south-east
of China, it became a protectorate, then a province
of imperial China. The split with China came when the
Nationalist party was forced out of the mainland by
the Communists at the end of the civil war in 1948.
Since that time, the Republic of China on Taiwan has
been at loggerheads with its political counterpart on
the mainland. Always afraid of communist invasion, military
service is still compulsory, and martial law was only
lifted in the mid 1980s, having remained virtually in
a state of war with China since 1948.
Now, the younger generations of Taiwanese, although
still ethnically Chinese, are considering the possibilities
of Taiwanese independence from China, and an ending
of claims that the Nationalist government, which remains
in power, even after democratic elections recently,
is the lawful ruling party of the whole of China.
The wealth that Taiwan has amassed since breaking with
the mainland, having chosen capitalism over communism
(with some guidance from the USA), is phenomenal. By
1990, Taiwan had the third largest reserve of foreign
currency reserves in the world, only after Japan and
the USA. Much of this wealth was based on heavy industries
first, steel and shipping being key, then developing
into consumer goods production and hi-tech industries.
The wealth that exists in Taiwan now means that consumers
have a level of spending power only rivalled by the
Japanese. The consumer market in Taiwan is as sophisticated
as it is in Japan, that country having left strong influences
on its former occupied territory. Taiwan is therefore
a model of development for Chinese peoples in the rest
of Asia, perhaps more so than Japan, and on a par with
the frenetic economy of Hong Kong.
This is especially so for the Chinese of the mainland,
who are now having their first taste of real capitalism.
The old enemy of the mainland has therefore become an
aspirational model for the eager masses, which still
consider Taiwan, and the Taiwanese, as part of them.
TAIWAN LINKS
http://www.chinatimes.com.tw
http://tradepoint.anjes.com.tw
