Taiwan Province, People's Republic of China

Taiwan Province 台湾省
Claimed Province
Name transcription(s)
• Chinese	台湾省 (Táiwān shěng)
• Abbreviation	TW / 台 (pinyin: Tái)
• Minnan	Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Tâi-oân-séng
• Hakka Romanization	Thòi-vàn-sén
Map showing the location of Taiwan Province
Coordinates: 23°42′N 121°00′E / 23.7°N 121.0°E / 23.7; 121.0Coordinates: 23°42′N 121°00′E / 23.7°N 121.0°E / 23.7; 121.0
Named for	See Taiwan
Capital (and largest city)	Taipei
Divisions	n/a prefectures, n/a counties, n/a townships
Government
• Secretary	See Representation
• Governor	See Representation
Area
• Total	35,581 km2 (13,738 sq mi)
Area rank	28th
Population (n/a)
• Total	n/a
• Rank	n/a
• Density rank	n/a
Demographics
• Ethnic composition	Han - 98% Gaoshan (Aborigines) - 2%
ISO 3166 code	CN-TW
GDP (n/a)	CNY — (n/a)
• per capita	CNY — (n/a)
HDI (n/a)	n/a (n/a) (—)

The People's Republic of China (PRC) claims the island of Taiwan to be part its territory under its Constitution as the Taiwan Province. It is usually referred to by mainland media as the Taiwan Region or Taiwan Area.

The PRC has never administered Taiwan: the Taiwan Area, including all of the contemporary Taiwan Province, is currently administered by the government of the Republic of China (ROC). Maps published by the PRC (and other sources that adopt the PRC's views) show Taiwan Province in accordance with its pre-1949 boundaries as a part of China.

While the PRC claims Taiwan to be its rightful territory, it recognises that Taiwan is outside its actual territory and does not maintain a shadow government or government-in-exile of Taiwan Province. However, its parliament includes legislators to represent Taiwan, most of whom are mainland people of Taiwanese descent. However, one member of the National CPC's Congress (Lu Li'an) was born and grew up in Taiwan (in response the Taiwanese government revoked her citizenship). In deference to the PRC's claim, the United Nations for official purposes calls the Taiwan Area "Taiwan, Province of China".

Overview

The People's Republic of China was founded in 1949. While by 1950 it had obtained control over most of the territories previously administered by the ROC, it never gained control of an area made up of Taiwan Province and some other islands (together called the "Taiwan Area"). Instead, the Taiwan Area had been administered by the ROC (now commonly known as "Taiwan") since the end of World War II in 1945, continuing through the Chinese Civil War and past the foundation of the People's Republic of China in 1949.

Despite the PRC's claim over Taiwan, the PRC has no provisional or shadow provincial government or provincial governor for Taiwan. The Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council of the People's Republic of China is the part of the PRC government that has responsibility over Taiwan-related matters, but it is neither tasked with, nor presented as, a shadow administration for Taiwan. Instead, the ROC government, which actually controls Taiwan Province, is referred to by the PRC as the "Taiwan authorities".^[1]

The political status of Taiwan is complex. The PRC considers itself the successor state of the pre-1949 ROC and the sole legitimate government of "China" since its founding on 1 October 1949, and regards Taiwan as a part of an "indivisible China". The ROC government disputes this claim, and is currently recognised by 17 UN member states and the Holy See as the government of "China",^[2] although since 1971 it is no longer a member of the United Nations or its suborganisations.^[3] Most other countries retain unofficial relations with Taiwan.

Boundary changes since 1949

Until recently, the ROC adopted an analogous practice of depicting mainland administrative boundaries in maps the way they were in 1949, to demonstrate that the ROC did not recognise the PRC government - or any boundary changes enacted by them since 1949 - as legitimate.

In 2017 Xinhua News Agency issued guidelines mandating no scare quotes for all members of local governments of Taiwan authorities (except Fujian and Lianjiang).^[4] Even before this the practice of not recognizing any boundary changes made to Taiwan is ended. For example, New Taipei is accepted instead of Taipei County, and the merging of Kaohsiung City and Kaohsiung County is accepted at all maps published by PRC entities. Maps published in PRC does not treat borders between Taiwan Province (Republic of China) and Special Municipalities as provincial borders, but county borders, and often does not mandate a capital for Taiwan at all. The borders between Kinmen and Matsu and rest of Fujian Province is never denoted as provincial borders let alone international.

The official databases of PRC does not show any internal divisions of Taiwan, all of them showing "data not yet available" (this no longer applies to Hong Kong and Macau).

As of 2018 PRC official map service Tianditu treats all six special municipalities as prefecture-level cities, all three provincial cities as county-level cities directly administered by the province, and all 14 county-administered cities as subdistricts under each individual county's jurisdiction.

Other territories administered by the ROC

Taiwan Province (whether disregarding the ROC's post-1949 boundary changes or not) does not include all the territory under the Republic of China's administration. PRC maps show the islands of Kinmen and Wuqiu, and the Matsu Islands as part of Fujian Province; the Pratas Islands as part of Guangdong Province, and Taiping Island as part of Hainan province. The ROC administers Kinmen, Wuqiu and the Matsu Islands as part of its alternative Fujian Province, and Pratas Islands and Taiping Island under Kaohsiung municipality.

Legislative representation in PRC

Although Taiwan Province is not under PRC control, thirteen delegates are elected to represent Taiwan Province to the National People's Congress.

The election of these delegates for Taiwan Province is done in accordance with the Decision (from time to time made) of the relevant Session of relevant National People's Congress of the PRC on the number of deputies to the National People's Congress and the election of the deputies.^[5] For example, in 2002 that Decision was as follows:^[5]

"For the time being, 13 deputies representing Taiwan Province shall be elected from among people of Taiwan origin in the other provinces, the autonomous regions, and the municipalities directly under the Central Government, and the Chinese People's Liberation Army."

Having regard to the relevant Decision, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress adopts a "Plan for the Consultative Election of Deputies of Taiwan Province to the National People's Congress". The Plan typically provides that "the deputies will be elected in Beijing through consultation from among representatives sent by Taiwan compatriots in these provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the Central Government and in the Chinese People's Liberation Army."^[5]

In the case of the 2002 election, the Standing Committee noted that there were more than 36,000 "Taiwan compatriots" in the 31 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the Central Government and the central Party, government and army institutions. It was decided that 122 representatives would participate in the conference for election through consultation. The number of representatives was allocated on the basis of the geographic distribution of Taiwan compatriots on the mainland and the standing committees of the people's congresses of the provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the Central Government were responsible for making arrangements for the election of the representatives through consultation. The Standing Committee's Plan also provided that the election should be "conducted in a democratic manner".^[5]

After the latest election at the 13th National People's Congress, 13 of the Taiwan representatives for the National People's Congress are:^[6]

• Cai Peihui (蔡培輝)
• Ceng Liqun (曾力群)
• Chen Jun (陳軍), Amis
• Chen Yunying (陳雲英), born in Taipei
• Fu Zhiguan (符之冠)
• Huang Zhixian (黃志賢), born in Mainland China to a mother from Tainan
• Liang Zhiqiang (梁志強), born in Mainland China to parents from Miaoli County
• Liao Haiying (廖海鷹)
• Lin Qing (林青), born in Taipei
• Xu Pei (許沛)
• Zhang Xiaodong (張曉東)
• Zhang Xiong (張雄)
• Zou Zhenqiu (鄒振球)

Names used for ROC government, officials, and institutions

Since the PRC does not recognise the ROC as legitimate, PRC government and media refers to some ROC government offices and institutions using generic description which does not imply endorsement of the ROC's claim to be a legitimate government of either Taiwan or China. The precise replacements used are not officially designated, so the politically-designated names for Taiwan have small variations across different source from within the PRC.

For some cases, where the name does not significantly imply sovereignty, the name remains the same, such as for the Mainland Affairs Council,^[7][8] County^[9] and Mayor.^[10]

Proposal under hypothetical reunification

The PRC's current policy proposal for a potential future reunification with Taiwan includes a proposal for Taiwan to become a Special Administrative Region (analogous to Hong Kong and Macau today), rather than a province.

"Taiwan, Province of China" or "Taiwan, China"

In deference to the PRC's position, the United Nations officially refers to the Taiwan Area as "Taiwan, Province of China". This has also meant that "Taiwan, Province of China" appears in the list of ISO 3166-1 country codes. A variant of this name is "Taiwan, China", which is also often seen in other contexts.

Demographic data

While demographic data for Taiwan Province published by the PRC government respects the census figures published by the ROC government for the territory, the PRC government does not recognise the ethnic classifications of Taiwanese Aborigines adopted by the ROC. Instead, the PRC government classifies all Taiwanese Aboriginese as Gaoshan people, one of the 56 recognized ethnicities of China.

Naming disputes

In July 2017, Taiwanese crew members of the Malaysian airline AirAsia X were required to change their nationality from Taiwan (TWN) to China (CHN) for any flight flying to and from Mainland China.^[30]

Name change

In 2017 Xinhua News Agency issued guidelines abolishing the term Taiwan Province, People's Republic of China. Although Taiwan is a traditional province of China, considering the circumenstances, Taiwan Area is used instead. This apparently does not include Kinmen and Matsu, which are expressly forbidden to denote as part of Taiwan as being simply incorrect.^[4]

See also

• Leader of the Taiwan Area
• Free area of the Republic of China
• Taiwan Affairs Office
• Political status of Taiwan

References

Further reading

• Bush, R. & O'Hanlon, M. (2007). A War Like No Other: The Truth About China's Challenge to America. Wiley. ISBN 0-471-98677-1
• Bush, R. (2006). Untying the Knot: Making Peace in the Taiwan Strait. Brookings Institution Press. ISBN 0-8157-1290-1
• Carpenter, T. (2006). America's Coming War with China: A Collision Course over Taiwan. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 1-4039-6841-1
• Cole, B. (2006). Taiwan's Security: History and Prospects. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-36581-3
• Copper, J. (2006). Playing with Fire: The Looming War with China over Taiwan. Praeger Security International General Interest. ISBN 0-275-98888-0
• Federation of American Scientists et al. (2006). Chinese Nuclear Forces and U.S. Nuclear War Planning
• Gill, B. (2007). Rising Star: China's New Security Diplomacy. Brookings Institution Press. ISBN 0-8157-3146-9
• Shirk, S. (2007). China: Fragile Superpower: How China's Internal Politics Could Derail Its Peaceful Rise. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-530609-0
• Tsang, S. (2006). If China Attacks Taiwan: Military Strategy, Politics and Economics. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-40785-0
• Tucker, N.B. (2005). Dangerous Strait: the U.S.-Taiwan-China Crisis. Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-13564-5

External links

• Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council
• Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council (in Chinese)