Officially, Taiwan is called Republic of China (ROC).
Doing some research, I realized that politics in Taiwan was quite complex.
Actually, all countries in the world do not recognize the Republic of China. There are only 22 States to recognize it as a real and independent country. The others see it as a province of China. They give it this status because China claims this island as its own when it's been about 50 years since Taiwan declared its autonomy.
So we will see that because of that, international relations between China, the rest of the world and the Republic of China can sometimes be quite tense.
First of all, we have to know that Taiwan’s government is a parliamentary democracy with a semi-presidential form. Every 4 years, a new President is elected, and each elector submits a ballot for his district and one for the general seats.
TSAI Ing-Wen is the actual President of the ROC since May 20, 2016. She is also the first woman to perform this function in this country.
She represents the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which is the second most important party of Taiwan.
The head of the Government since September 8, 2017 is CHING-TE William Lai, he is not attached to any political party. Therefore, he is considered as independent. I already talked about him in my article on Taiwan’s « Local news : China-USA trade war impacts on Taiwan ».
Here is a graphic representation that I made of the parties present in the Republic of China. I hope that this will help you to understand the different political parties present.
To understand well the geopolitical context in Taiwan, its history is really important.
You probably know that at the beginning, the ROC was a province of China. So until the communist revolution of 1949, Taiwan was under communist domination, and the Kuomingtan ruled by Tchang Kai-shek was the main party.
Furthermore, in 1895, Taiwan passed under the Japanese aegis because of the Treaty of Shimonoseki after the first Sino-Japanese War.
But at the end of the Second World War, because of the Japanese’s defeat, the ROC became a Chinese province again.
So after the revolution in 1949, hundreds of thousands of Chinese exile in Taiwan, including General Tchang Kai-shek.
Nowadays, Taiwan has the best scores of rankings in the field of human rights and public liberties. The internal politics of the Republic of China is therefore based on individual freedoms.
About the external politics and conflicts that the ROC faces, “clashes” with China are the most important issues.
Indeed, China, considering that Taiwan is part of its territory, is putting a lot of pressure on countries all over the world so that no one would recognize it as a country in its own right.
That is why in 1971, with the support of the Communist Party of the USSR, and China, the ROC is excluded from the council of the ONU and replaced by the communist China. However, Taiwan is a member of OMC and CIO.
Furthermore, nowadays, these tensions between China and Taiwan create problems with an important commercial ally of the ROC, the USA.
To learn more about this, check out my previous article « Local news : China-USA trade war impacts on Taiwan ».