Taiwan: About Taiwan
From ExecutivePlanet.com
About Taiwan
Geography
Many westerners not familiar with this country’s geography often mistake Thailand for Taiwan, or vice versa. In fact, Taiwan is located in the southeastern coast of mainland China with the Taiwan Strait in between. To the north of Taiwan lies Japan, while to the south is the Philippines. Taiwan was a very important strategic link to the Asia Pacific Rim during the WWII and the cold war afterward. The land of Taiwan is shaped like a long sweet potato. The total land area is about 36 thousand square Km, about the size of New England (Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Connecticut put together) in the U.S.
History & Government
Taiwan was nicknamed by the 16 century Portuguese sailors “Formosa”, which means beautiful island, when they first encountered and settled it as a colony. Later, Taiwan was taken back by the Cheng Chen-Kung and later by the last Ching Dynasty. In the late 19 Century, it was given to the Japanese Empire as a colony again for 50 years until the end of WWII returned it to Chinese sovereignty again. In 1949, Mao’s communist China defeated Chiang Kai-Shek’s army of the Republic of China, and took over mainland China. The fleeing regime escaped to Taiwan, waiting for an opportunity to return to mainland China. Since then, the two sides have been in a continuous state of war. Today, Taiwan is becoming a prosperous modern democratic country of the 21st Century. The government system changed from one political party to multi-party in the early ’80s. Recently, in the 2008 Presidential election, people have been successfully using the ballot to change the ruling party of its government peacefully. Democracy has truly taken root in Taiwan.
Economy
Taiwan is economically minor compared to other nations, but within the past 50 years, Taiwan has created an economic miracle, and its manufacturing products have been marketed and shipped to the entire world. Taiwan has become ranked at number 16 of the major trade nations as well as becoming an important venture capital resource of mainland China and southeastern Asia. Over the past 20 years, Taiwan has become the world’s fourth largest ICT (Information and Communication Technology) hardware producer and holds #1 ranking WW ICT product market share with more than 10 particular products (e.g. Notebook PC, Desktop PC, Computer Motherboard, Computer Server, CDT monitor, LCD monitor, Optical Disk Drive, Digital Still Camera, WLAN, Mobile Phone, and PDA etc.) By estimation, 75% of PCs installed in the world with Windows OS are produced by Taiwanese IT companies. Today, the entire production base has mostly migrated to mainland China due to low cost in labor and land factors. However, the Taiwanese entrepreneurs are dominating at least 75% of the ICT hardware production value produced in the PRC (People’s Republic of China). Impressively, Taiwan is also the fourth largest semiconductor industry in the world. Naturally, Taiwan is a major procurement center (One-Stop-Shopping) for global ICT companies.
Today, while having moved the manufacturing production base to Mainland China, the industry remaining in Taiwan has shifted its focus to research and development, and other innovative, creative industries such as value-added service products, design, and the Digital Content Industry.
Climate and Weather
The climate of Taiwan includes mainly subtropical and tropical weather. Broadly, Taiwan only has two obvious seasons, and that is winter and summer. The average temperature in winter time is around 5-20 degrees Celsius and 25-38 during the summer. The two-thirds of land area on the eastern side are mostly rugged mountains, while the land is flat to gently rolling on the western coast. Occasionally, snow will fall on the high mountain area. Typhoon season generally starts from June to August which brings a lot of rain water needed for agriculture and industrial use during the summer time. Typhoons are common and regularly occur around 20 times a year from the southern Pacific, and cool off much of the summer heat. The destructive power of typhoons often breaks down once they touch the center part of the Taiwan mountains. People coming from cold weather areas during the winter time will find the weather in Taiwan is comfortable, but very humid in summer. However, air conditioning in the office and inside the buildings is common during the summer time.
Religion
The majority of the religion sectors are a mixture of Taoist and Buddhist with only around 5-8% of the population practicing Christianity. The Muslim religion is also represented in this country. Taiwan is a democratic country enjoying freedom of religion and freedom of speech just like in the United States.
Legislation
It is wise to check with the travel agency or your foreign business representative for the necessary visa or other documents pertaining to where you are going before you set out on your travels.
