Supporters of presidential candidate Frank Hsieh listen during a campaign rally on March 20, 2008, in Taichung, Taiwan. (David Longstreath/Associated Press)
In Depth
Taiwan
Taiwan's tug of war
Constant tension between 'Beautiful Island' and China
Last Updated March 24, 2008
CBC News
When Portuguese sailors landed on the island of Taiwan in 1517, they named it Ilha Formosa: Beautiful Island.
The natural splendour of the island, about 160 kilometres off the southeast coast of China across the Taiwan Strait, would be one of the few constants over the next five centuries.
The Dutch invaded just over a century later, lost the island briefly to Spain, and then regained and kept it until the 1660s, when they lost it for good to the Ming and Manchu dynasties.
The two dynasties then fought each other for control until the Manchus emerged as victors. The Manchus made Taiwan a county of Fujian province and Chinese immigrants flooded the island.
In 1895, Japan took control of Taiwan after China was defeated in the Sino-Japanese war. But China reclaimed the island after Japan's defeat at the end of the Second World War.
When the Chinese civil war ended in 1949, with Communist forces taking control of China, President Chiang Kai-shek and his Nationalist party, the Kuomintang (KMT), fled to Taiwan.
An estimated 1.5 million to two million Chinese followed Chiang to Taiwan. Today, the leaders of both mainland China and Taiwan claim to be the rightful rulers of China.
Most countries have chosen to side with the larger and more powerful Communist mainland China. Beijing considers Taiwan, now a country of 23 million people, to be a part of its territory waiting to be reunified, by force if necessary.
The road to democracy
In 1975, Chiang died and was replaced by his son Chiang Ching-kuo, sparking criticism among Taiwanese of the one-party system of government.
In 1986, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was formed in opposition and was granted seats in the legislature. When Chiang Ching-kuo died two years later, he was replaced by the first native-born president, Lee Teng-hui.
Taiwan's tense relationship with mainland China worsened when Lee visited the United States in 1995. China responded with military exercises near the Taiwanese coast and the U.S. sent warships to monitor the situation.
In 1996, Lee was returned to office as the island's first popularly elected president. He was replaced in 2000 by the Democratic Progressive party's candidate, Chen Shui-bian, whose election alarmed China because of his party's official stance that Taiwan is not a part of the People's Republic of China.
Chen was narrowly re-elected in 2004, after surviving an attempt on his life in the waning days of the campaign. He survived a bullet wound to the stomach in an assassination attempt just days before the May vote.
Staredown across the strait
Chen's eight-year rule brought more prickly relations between Taiwan and Beijing — and a fair share of headaches for the U.S. government as well. Washington often finds itself caught in the crossfire whenever tensions flare across the Taiwan Strait.
The U.S. doesn't recognize Taiwan as an independent country but it must, by law, supply the island with defensive weapons. Fearing war with China, Washington often tries to discourage the Taiwanese independence that Chen has promoted.
China has threatened a military attack if Taiwan ever does declare formal independence. And to show that's not an idle threat, China has continued a large military buildup across the strait.
A U.S. Defence Department report, tabled in 2008, says that China is adding 100 missiles a year to an estimated 1,000 targeting Taiwan, and hundreds of thousands of soldiers are based opposite the island.8
But while China has continued to flex its military muscle and ramp up its propaganda about "liberating" Taiwan, there are some signs of détente, largely hinged around the results of key 2008 votes.
Watershed elections
The opposition KMT, which favours closer ties with mainland China, won the first round of voting in January, claiming 81 of the legislature's 113 available seats, or 72 per cent. The DPP, Chen's party, won 27 seats, with five going to other parties.
Ma Ying-jeou. (Vincent Yu, Associated Press)
The landslide kicked off the leadup to the March 22 presidential elections, which pitted KMT candidate Ma Ying-jeou against Chen's successor with the DPP, Frank Hsieh. In that contest, the DPP was dealt another blow, as Ma captured the presidency with 58 per cent of the votes to Hsieh's 41.5 per cent.
The 57-year-old Ma has promised to deepen economic links with the mainland and negotiate a new peace treaty.
"Under my presidency, there will be peace and prosperity across the Taiwan Strait instead of confrontation and tension,'' Ma told the Bloomberg news agency in an interview shortly before the election.
