Updated June 26, 2019

Taiwan: Select Political and Security Issues
Taiwan, which officially calls itself the Republic of China
(ROC), is an island democracy of 23.6 million people
located across the Taiwan Strait from mainland China.
Since January 1, 1979, U.S.-Taiwan relations have been
unofficial, a consequence of the Carter Administration’s
decision to establish diplomatic relations with the People’s
Republic of China (PRC) and break formal diplomatic ties
with self-ruled Taiwan, over which the PRC claims
sovereignty. The Taiwan Relations Act (TRA, P.L. 96-8; 22
U.S.C. 3301 et seq.), enacted on April 10, 1979, provides a
legal basis for this unofficial bilateral relationship. It also
includes commitments related to Taiwan’s security.

Taiwan’s Modern History
China’s Qing Dynasty ceded Taiwan to Japan at the end of
the First Sino-Japanese War in 1895. The Republic of
China, which was founded in 1912 on mainland China and
led by the Kuomintang Party (KMT), assumed control of
Taiwan in 1945, after Japan’s defeat in World War II. In
1949, after losing a civil war to the Communist Party of
China, the KMT moved the seat of the ROC to Taipei, and
the Communists established the PRC on mainland China.
Figure 1. Taiwan

Trump Administration Policy
After initially questioning the long-standing U.S. “oneChina” policy, President Donald J. Trump used a February
2017 telephone call with PRC President Xi Jinping to
recommit the United States to the policy, under which the
United States maintains only unofficial ties with Taiwan,
while upholding the TRA. The Trump Administration’s
December 2017 National Security Strategy states that the
United States “will maintain our strong ties with Taiwan in
accordance with our ‘One China’ policy, including our
commitments under the Taiwan Relations Act to provide
for Taiwan’s legitimate defense needs and deter coercion.”
Trump Administration language on Taiwan has evolved
since 2017. The Department of Defense’s (DOD’s) June
2019 Indo-Pacific Strategy Report discusses Taiwan
without referencing the U.S. “one-China” policy. In a first
for a high-profile U.S. government report in the era of
unofficial relations, it refers to Taiwan as a “country.” The
strategy presents Taiwan, along with Singapore, New
Zealand, and Mongolia, as Indo-Pacific democracies that
are “reliable, capable, and natural partners of the United
States.” The document also asserts that, “The United States
has a vital interest in upholding the rules-based
international order, which includes a strong, prosperous,
and democratic Taiwan.” In line with the strategy, in June
2019, DOD created a new Deputy Assistant Secretary of
Defense (DASD) position focused solely on China, leaving
Taiwan under the DASD for East Asia. With the move,
DOD for the first time assigned responsibility for China and
Taiwan to separate DASDs. In another first, in May 2019,
the United States hosted a meeting between the U.S. and
Taiwan National Security Advisors. On May 30, 2019, a
spokesperson for the PRC’s Ministry of National Defense
accused the United States of “playing with fire” in its
approach to Taiwan.
The United States conducts unofficial relations with Taiwan
through the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), a nonprofit
corporation. A new $255-million AIT complex in Taipei
opened in May 2019. AIT-Taiwan collaborations include
the Global Cooperation and Training Framework and new
Indo-Pacific Democratic Governance Consultations.

Source: Graphic by CRS. Map generated by Hannah Fischer using
data from NGA (2017); DoS (2015); Esri (2014); DeLorme (2014).

Long after the retreat to Taiwan, the KMT continued to
assert that the ROC government was the sole legitimate
government of all China. In 1971, however, United Nations
General Assembly Resolution 2758 recognized the PRC’s
representatives as “the only legitimate representatives of
China to the United Nations,” and expelled “the
representatives of Chiang Kai-shek,” the ROC’s president
at the time. Taiwan has remained outside the United
Nations ever since. Taiwan today claims “effective
jurisdiction” only over Taiwan, the archipelagos of Penghu,
Kinmen, and Matsu, and some smaller islands. The ROC
also claims disputed islands in the East China Sea and
South China Sea.
On Taiwan, the KMT maintained authoritarian one-party
rule until 1987, when it began allowing political
liberalization. Current President Tsai Ing-wen’s Democratic
Progressive Party (DPP), was founded in 1986. Taiwan held
its first direct parliamentary election in 1992 and its first
direct presidential election in 1996. President Tsai’s May
2016 inauguration marked Taiwan’s third peaceful transfer
of political power from one party to another. In 2016, the

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 Taiwan: Select Political and Security Issues

DPP also ended the KMT’s previously unbroken control of
Taiwan’s legislature, the 113-member Legislative Yuan.
The DPP suffered deep losses in November 2018 local
elections. It now controls 6 of Taiwan’s 22 municipalities,
to the KMT’s 15, with one in the hands of an independent.
Taiwan is to hold presidential and legislative elections on
January 11, 2020. President Tsai is running for re-election.

U.S. Commitments Related to Taiwan
Four documents have long underpinned U.S. policy on
Taiwan: the TRA and joint communiqués concluded with
the PRC in 1972, 1978, and 1982. In the communiqués, the
United States said it would recognize the PRC as the “sole
legal government of China”; acknowledge, if not affirm,
“the Chinese position that there is but one China and
Taiwan is part of China”; and maintain only unofficial
relations with Taiwan. The United States does not take a
position on Taiwan’s future status, but insists that it be
resolved peacefully without resort to threats or use of force.
Key provisions of the TRA include:

 Relations with Taiwan shall be carried out through AIT.
(AIT Taipei performs many of the same functions as
U.S. embassies elsewhere and is staffed by U.S.
government personnel assigned or detailed to AIT.)

 It is U.S. policy “to consider any effort to determine the
future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means,
including by boycotts or embargoes, a threat to the
peace and security of the Western Pacific area and of
grave concern to the United States.”

 It is U.S. policy “to maintain the capacity of the United
States to resist any resort to force or other forms of
coercion that would jeopardize the security, or the social
or economic system, of the people on Taiwan.”

 The United States “will make available to Taiwan such
defense articles and defense services in such quantity as
may be necessary to enable Taiwan to maintain a
sufficient self-defense capability.”
The TRA does not require the United States to defend
Taiwan, but states that is U.S. policy to maintain the
capacity to do so, creating “strategic ambiguity” regarding
the U.S. role in the event of a PRC attack on Taiwan.
The Six Assurances
President Ronald Reagan communicated what became
known as the “Six Assurances” to Taiwan before the
announcement of the 1982 U.S.-PRC communiqué. They
include an assurance that in the negotiations with the PRC,
the United States did not agree “to engage in prior
consultations with Beijing on arms sales to Taiwan,” and
did not agree to set a date for ending arms sales to Taiwan.

The PRC, Taiwan, and “One China”
The PRC maintains that mainland China and Taiwan are
parts of “one China” whose sovereignty cannot be divided.
A 2005 PRC Anti-Secession Law commits Beijing to “do
its utmost with maximum sincerity to achieve a peaceful
unification” with Taiwan, but states that in the case of
Taiwan’s “secession” from China, or in a situation in which
the PRC concludes that possibilities for peaceful unification
have been exhausted, “the state shall employ non-peaceful
means and other necessary measures to protect China’s

sovereignty and territorial integrity.” On January 2, 2019,
PRC President Xi recommitted the PRC to peaceful
unification, but reserved the option to use force. He called
for exploring “a Taiwan plan for ‘one country, two
systems,’” a reference to an arrangement under which
mainland China and Taiwan would be parts of one country,
but maintain different political and other systems.
Unlike her KMT predecessor, President Tsai has declined
to endorse the “1992 consensus,” under which both sides of
the Taiwan Strait acknowledged “one China,” but retained
their own interpretations of what it meant. In January 2019,
Tsai charged that “the Beijing authorities’ definition of the
‘1992 consensus’ is ‘one China’ and ‘one country, two
systems.’” The latter approach, she said in March 2019,
“unilaterally undermines the status quo, eliminates the
sovereignty of the Republic of China (Taiwan), and forces
Taiwan to accept unification with China.”
The PRC announced in June 2016 that it had suspended
contacts with Taiwan because of President Tsai’s
unwillingness to endorse the “1992 consensus.” Since
Tsai’s 2016 election, the PRC has increased pressure on
Taiwan in many areas. It has established diplomatic
relations with six countries that previously recognized
Taiwan: the Gambia, Sao Tome and Principe, Panama, the
Dominican Republic, Burkina Faso, and El Salvador.
Taiwan retains diplomatic ties with 17 countries. Militarily,
the PRC has stepped up bomber, fighter, and surveillance
aircraft patrols around Taiwan. Internationally, the PRC has
sought to block Taiwan attendance at international
meetings, including as an observer at annual meetings of
the World Health Assembly (WHA).

Taiwan’s Security
The United States terminated its Mutual Defense Treaty
with Taiwan in 1980. It engages with Taiwan’s military
today through dialogues, training, and arms sales. The
Trump Administration has notified Congress of major
Foreign Military Sales to Taiwan three times, in June 2017
(seven cases valued at $1.36 billion), in September 2018 (a
$330 million case), and in April 2019 (a $500 million case).
In April 2018, the State Department issued licenses to allow
U.S. firms to market technology to Taiwan for its
indigenous submarine program. Taiwan has publicly
confirmed requests to purchase tanks, missiles, and F-16V
fighter jets from the United States. In 2019, the U.S. Navy
has conducted monthly transits of the Taiwan Strait.

Select Legislation in the 116th Congress
In the 116th Congress, H.Res. 273 and S.Con.Res. 13, both
agreed to by their respective chambers, reaffirm the U.S.
commitment to Taiwan and the TRA. House-passed H.R.
353 and S. 249, reported on June 3, 2019, would require
additional information in annual reports on Taiwan and the
WHA. S. 249 would also require briefings on U.S. actions
to strengthen Taiwan’s official and unofficial relations with
other governments. The Taiwan Assurance Act of 2019
(House-passed H.R. 2002 and S. 878) would seek to foster
security in Taiwan.
Susan V. Lawrence,

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IF10275

 Taiwan: Select Political and Security Issues

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