Weekly Program 10/25/20 – Taiwan 4k. Cities, Sights and People

I hope you enjoy this video, which introduces a few things about my adopted second home of Taiwan. I first came to Taiwan in 1989, and have been living here most of the time since 1994. From 1994-2009 I worked as a research analyst at brokerages in Taiwan. I now work part-time at the Taiwan Tourism Bureau. I’d love to hear about the places where our other members live as well.

I was born in Toledo, Ohio and graduated from Miami University in 1985 and then the MBA program at Indiana University in 1988. It was at Indiana Univ in 1986 that I met a fellow student from Taiwan. She eventually emigrated to Canada with her family, and I ended up in Taiwan.

As the video kind of indicates, Taiwan’s political situation is rather complicated. Taiwan was a Japanese colony from 1895-1945. After World War II, it became a part of Chiang Kai-Shek’s Republic of China. But in 1949 Chiang and his Nationalists lost the Chinese Civil War to the communists. Chiang and many of his forces retreated to Taiwan, and made a base here with an eye to one day returning to mainland China. But they never did. So now the name “Republic of China” refers pretty much just to Taiwan.

The communist People’s Republic of China (PRC) continues to view Taiwan as a renegade province of the PRC. As a result of PRC political pressure, very few countries in the world have diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Taiwan is denied membership in most global organizations, such as the United Nations and the WHO. But Taiwan has strong economic ties with the whole world.

I was in Taiwan in 1996 when the transition from military rule to democracy occurred as Taiwan held its first free elections for President of the country. I also remember clearly everyone being nervous as the PRC fired missiles off our coasts in an attempt to intimidate Taiwan’s citizens. But they voted anyway.

In 2016 China began to try and put economic pressure on Taiwan by banning most visits by its citizens to Taiwan. However, this turned out to be very good for Taiwan. When the COVID virus began to spread in Wuhan, China in late 2019, we didn’t have many Chinese coming to Taiwan. Also, Taiwan had detected the disease early in China, as we have a lot of people operating businesses in China. Taiwan closed its borders to travellers from China on February 7th. Taiwan also warned the WHO, but unfortunately they didn’t take action in response. However, Taiwan has thus been fortunate to have had very few COVID cases and only 7 deaths. The deaths were of citizens who came back ill from abroad.

As you can see, the relationship between Taiwan and the PRC remains complicated, and the divide has grown as China has imposed harsh actions on Hong Kong. Taiwan remains a beacon of democracy in Asia, and it’s a very nice place to live and visit. I hope the video gives you a little flavor of this wonderful island of Taiwan. Of course once the world returns to normal, it would be great if you could visit us in Taiwan!

Best wishes,

Scott