GEOPOLITICS :

            Hello everybody ! Today I am going to talk about geopolitics in Taiwan. First of all, I will present   the country government. So Taiwan’s government is a multiparty democratic regime headed by popularly-elected president.

            Taiwan’s power is distributed among four large branches of government :

            1. The National Assembly :

            Originally, the National Assembly had the task of electing the R.O.C. President. Under the 1994 amended constitution, however, the President is popularly elected. The National Assembly decided  five important tasks:                                  

           -  help to remove presidential decisions

           - vote amendments of the constitution,

           - to approve or disapprove of the President's nominations of the top officers of the Judicial                 Yuan, the Executive Yuan, the Examination

           - electing a Vice President of the R.O.C. if the office becomes vacant,

           - discussing national affairs and offering counsel on such affairs.

            2. The President’s executive branch which include the Executice yuan, The Examination Yuan and the Control Yuan :

            The Executive Yuan is defined as the highest administrative organ of the state. The Executive Yuan President is desigated by the R.O.C. President. His duty is to enforce the laws passed by the Legislative Yuan.

            The Examination Yuan take care about the difficult system of exams, controll the  access to education, jobs, business licenses and of the civil service and. The Control Yuan is a monitoring agency that tries to keep things honest.

           3. The Legislative Yuan

            The Legislative Yuan is mostly compose of members who are elected from separate voting districts and who serve three-year terms. Their duties are the usual legislative duties of passing laws and overseeing administration. 

           4. The Judicial Yuan

            Judicial Yuan is the hierarchy of national judges who handle criminal and civil cases. There are three levels in the hierarchy: the lower court, the court of appeals, and the court of highest appeal. Judges of the Judicial Yuan are hired for life through a civil service examination.

 

            In addition to that, I am going now to explain you the political orientation of the country. Actually the president of Taiwan is a women called : Tsai Ing-Wen. She is from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Founded in 1986, the DPP is one of the two majors parties in Taiwan. This party convey the image of a real Taiwanese identity, have a strong support for Human rights, want an economic and social liberalism and is anti-communism. In Chinese it is called : Minjindang. Here is the symbol of the DPP party :

            The second major party in Taiwan is called "Kuomintang", it's can be translate by the Chinese Nationalist Party. It was founded in 1919, it is the dominant political party of  the Republic of China (Taiwan) since 1949, led from 1925 to 1975 by Chiang Kai-Shek (CKS). CKS still have an important influence and impact  in Taiwan. Indeed there is a big memorial in honor of CKS. He have raise important debate in particularly about the independence or not of Taiwan. Here is the symbol of the "Kuomintang" party :

 Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall

            Here are other political parties in Taiwan: 

•             People's First Party
•             New Party
•            Taiwan Independence Party
•            Green Party

            Now, I am going to talk Politic conflicts about the Independence of Taiwan. The story begins in 1927, when civil war broke out in China. Years of war between the communist revolutionaries led by Mao Zedong defeating the Nationalist party that had been ruling China until them. CKS as a representative of the Nationalist party has to leave for exil in Taiwan. Since 1949, the status of Taiwan has been the source of constant political tension and potential military conflict between the Republic of China (ROC), which is Taiwan and the People's Republic of China (PRC), which is China. Traditionally, Taiwanese overarching goal is full independence, whereas the goal of China is a peaceful reunification of the two sides for China.  Another important actor is the United States (US), which has played a key role in the historical dispute by first supporting the ROC during the Cold War. US have signe with Taiwan the Taiwan Relation Act (TRA), which mean that US have the right to sell defensive weapons and give is military support to help and protect Taiwan. This Act raised the Hunger of Chinese.

            In an other hand, the economic interdependence (exchanges and cooperation) between Taiwan and China have increased this past few years so it has improve the diplomatic relations.

            To conclude, it's not only a problem between the two sides (China and Taiwan), it's overall development trend will also be decided by the East Asian-Western Pacific region's great power relations and by the geopolitical situation of the region. It's not simple to solve this conflicts and it will be always ups and downs. In any cases, this situation stay sensitive for Taiwanese people. 

            To finish, let's talk about religion in Taiwan. There is a big diversity of religious and practices. The dominant is Buddhism (35%), then Taoism (33%), Christianism (18,7%).  There is no religion conflicts in Taiwan, people are really respectful.

Here is the end of my third article, see you later ! 

Noémie