Yearbook 2004
Taiwan. The total population in Taiwan is 23,816,786 people in 2020. The March election to the presidential post was bordered by drama. Shortly before Election Day, incumbent President Chen Shuibian and his Vice President Annette Lu were shot in the open street in the city of Tainan by unknown perpetrators. Both suffered minor injuries. Speculation about who was behind the murder trials came to an end; a rumor said that Chen’s own staff had staged attacks to increase the president’s popularity.
Population
According to 1997 estimates, the population amounted to 21. 616. 000 residents, And was made up of indigenous elements and, for 85 %, the descendants of the 2 million mainland Chinese who arrived in 1947. Relations between the natives and the Continentals have never been good, also due to the claim of the Continentals to consider Taiwan as a territory of China: since 1947a series of measures has effectively erased the historical and cultural identity of Taiwan, imposing on the whole island the culture and customs typical of mainland China. The official language is Mandarin Chinese, but the natives still retain the min-nan hua language, native to the island, banned by the government after 1947. The most widespread religions are Buddhism and Confucianism.
The capital is Taipei, on the north coast, with 6 million residents. in its urban district (almost a third of the entire population of the state); the metropolitan area is characterized by the presence of numerous industries, chaotic traffic and pollution that has begun to pose serious problems.
Chen won the election, but by a very small margin (one-quarter percent), over Lien Chan from the Nationalist Party (Guomindang). The opposition made allegations of electoral fraud and demanded recalculation. The Election Commission ruled that Chen had won, but in April a court ruled that the votes would be recalculated. When Chen was declared a winner for the second time, the conversion was not yet complete.
In his inaugural speech, Chen downplayed his ambitions for an independent Taiwan and promised not to go ahead with his plans for a referendum to change the constitution so that Taiwan could become independent. The translation in May showed the same result as before. Despite this, there was widespread doubt among residents that Chen was the country’s legitimate president.
This was reflected in the parliamentary elections in December, when an opposition alliance with the Nationalist Party prevailed. The alliance received 114 of the 225 seats, while President Chen’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), along with the Brotherhood Party of Taiwan’s Solidarity Union (TSU), won 101 seats. The remaining ten seats went to independent candidates or smaller parties. The Nationalist Party protects good relations with China and opposes claims for Taiwanese independence. The election result meant that President Chen is likely to find it difficult to push through disputed projects, e.g. large arms purchases from the USA. After the election defeat, Chen resigned as party leader for DPP.
TAIWAN – Republic of China
When the People’s Republic of China was founded in mainland China under Mao’s leadership in 1949, the Kuomintang, led by Chiang Kai-shek, defeated by the Civil War Communists, fled to Taiwan to continue the existence of the Republic of China. Along with Chiang, a couple of million Chinese ended up in Taiwan, e.g. soldiers, artists and intellectuals, as well as vast art treasures and the gold reserves of almost the entire Chinese state.
Beautiful island in the Kravu turning circle
In 1517, Portuguese explorers, who at the time were the only Europeans familiar with the sea route to China, arrived on an island a few hundred kilometers off the southeast coast of China. They admired the lush forests and jagged mountains of the magnificent island in a scenic way and named it, quite aptly, Ilha Formosa, or beautiful island.
More than half of Taiwan’s land area is covered by forest. On the south coast you can see mangrove groves, higher up acacia and laurel groves, which gradually give way to the coniferous forest until, at an altitude of about 3,000 meters, lush alpine meadows spread out among the mountain peaks. The northern lowlands are covered with tropical vegetation with palm trees and bamboo.
Taiwan has a subtropical monsoon climate. Winters are mostly mild and relatively dry. In summer, the humid airflow brings the southeast monsoon with heavy rainfall, and from July to September there are typhoons on the island that sometimes cause even great damage. In spring and autumn, the weather is warm and relatively rainy.