Home › Political & Historical › Unrecognized & Partly Recognized States
Taiwan
A self-governing island of 23 million whose status two governments read differently
Taiwan runs its own elections, army, currency, passports, and courts, and it builds most of the world's advanced semiconductors, yet only 12 countries maintain formal diplomatic relations with the government in Taipei. That government calls itself the Republic of China, the state founded on the mainland in 1912. Across the Taiwan Strait, the People's Republic of China regards Taiwan as one of its provinces and has said it seeks unification, preferably peacefully but without ruling out force. Most of the world handles the question with deliberate ambiguity: governments recognize Beijing, keep unofficial offices in Taipei, and trade heavily with both. Few places of this size and wealth sit in such an unsettled corner of the international system.
The main island, about 394 kilometers long, lies roughly 130 kilometers off the coast of China's Fujian province. A spine of steep, forested ranges runs down its eastern two-thirds, rising to Yushan (Jade Mountain) at 3,952 meters, and more than 200 summits top 3,000 meters. The population is packed onto the western plains, in a corridor of cities from Taipei and New Taipei through Taichung and Tainan to Kaohsiung. The government in Taipei also administers the Penghu archipelago in the strait, the Kinmen and Matsu island groups hugging the Fujian coast, and outposts in the South China Sea. The climate is subtropical in the north and tropical in the south, with typhoons each summer.
After losing the Chinese civil war in 1949, the Nationalist government of the Republic of China withdrew to Taiwan, which Japan had ruled from 1895 to 1945. Both governments long claimed to represent all of China. In 1971 United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2758 transferred China's seat to the People's Republic, and Beijing and Taipei still dispute whether that resolution settled Taiwan's status. Martial law ended in 1987, and Taiwan became a multiparty democracy, with its parties now differing over how closely to engage Beijing. The United States recognizes the People's Republic, acknowledges its position on Taiwan, and maintains unofficial ties and arms sales under the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act. Stability across the strait matters well beyond the region because of the island's place in global chip supply chains.