The following is the May 23, 2024, Congressional Research Service In Focus report, Taiwan: Background and U.S. Relations.
From the report
Taiwan, which also calls itself the Republic of China (ROC), is a self-governing democracy of 23.4 million people located across the Taiwan Strait from mainland China. The United States terminated diplomatic relations with the ROC on January 1, 1979, in order to establish diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC), which claims sovereignty over Taiwan. At that time, the U.S. government also agreed to withdraw U.S. military personnel from Taiwan and terminate a U.S.-ROC Mutual Defense Treaty, and stated that it would henceforth maintain “cultural, commercial, and other unofficial relations with the people of Taiwan.” The 1979 Taiwan Relations Act (TRA, P.L. 96-8; 22 U.S.C. §§3301 et seq.) provides a legal basis for unofficial relations.
In its most recent fact sheet on U.S. relations with Taiwan, issued in May 2022, the U.S. State Department refers to the United States and Taiwan as enjoying “a robust unofficial relationship.” The fact sheet describes Taiwan as “a key U.S. partner in the Indo-Pacific,” and states that the United States and Taiwan “share similar values, deep commercial and economic links, and strong people-to-people ties.”
Modern History
Taiwan was a colony of Japan from 1895 to 1945. The government of the ROC, then based on mainland China, assumed control of Taiwan in 1945, after Japan’s defeat in World War II. In 1949, after the forces of the Communist Party of China (CPC) wrested control of mainland China from ROC forces in a civil war, the Kuomintang (KMT)-led ROC government retreated to Taiwan, and the CPC established the PRC on mainland China. The United States continued to recognize the ROC government on Taiwan as the government of all China. In 1971, U.N. General Assembly Resolution 2758 recognized representatives of the PRC as “the only legitimate representatives of China to the [U.N.],” and expelled “the representatives of Chiang Kai-shek,” the ROC’s then-leader. In a December 15, 1978 U.S.-PRC communiqué, the United States recognized the PRC government as “the sole legal Government of China.”
The KMT enforced martial law on Taiwan from 1949 to 1987, when the party yielded to public pressure for political liberalization. Taiwan held its first direct election for the legislature, the Legislative Yuan (LY), in 1992, and its first direct election for president in 1996.
2024 Political Transition
Taiwan held presidential and legislative elections in January 2024. Lai Ching-te (William Lai) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) won the presidency with 40.05% of the vote in a three-way race. He and Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim, a former unofficial Taiwan representative to the United States, were inaugurated on May 20, 2024. The DPP is the first party in Taiwan’s history to win a third consecutive presidential term by direct election. Lai’s predecessor, Tsai Ing-wen of the DPP, served the maximum two four-year terms allowed, from 2016 to 2024.
The elections produced divided government. The DPP lost its majority in the 113-seat LY, and no party won a majority, the first such outcome since 2004. The KMT, now Taiwan’s leading opposition party and supportive of greater engagement with the PRC, won 52 seats, to the DPP’s 51. KMT-aligned independents won 2 seats. The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), founded in 2019 with the goal of challenging the dominance of the DPP and KMT, won 8 seats. In the days before and after Lai’s inauguration, the KMT and TPP caucuses attempted to leverage their combined LY majority to advance legal amendments intended to expand the power of the legislature relative to the executive. The effort sparked a brawl in the LY and drew thousands of protestors onto the streets.
On the campaign trail, Lai pledged continuity with Tsai’s policies. His cabinet includes figures from her administration in national security roles. Lin Chia-lung is foreign minister, succeeding Joseph Wu (Wu Jaushieh), who now leads the National Security Council, replacing Wellington Koo (Koo Li-hsiung), now defense minister.
In his inauguration speech, Lai echoed Tsai in stating, as she first did in 2021, that, “The Republic of China and the People’s Republic of China are not subordinate to each other.” Lai added, “All of the people of Taiwan must come together to safeguard our nation; all our political parties ought to oppose annexation and protect sovereignty; and no one should entertain the idea of giving up our national sovereignty in exchange for political power.”
Download the document here.
