TAIWAN STRAIT - GEOGRAPHY
News:
China launches three days of military drills in Taiwan Strait
What's in the news?
● China
launched military drills around Taiwan, in what it called a "stern
warning" to the self-ruled island's government following a meeting between
its President and the U.S. House Speaker.
Key takeaways:
● After
completing its three days of large-scale combat exercises (Joint Sword Drill) around Taiwan, China’s military announced that
it is “ready to fight” any attempts to achieve Taiwan’s ‘independence’ or any
interference by foreign forces, Associated Press reported.
● The
exercises simulating the “seal off” of the island, were seen as China’s response
to the recent visit of Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen to the United States.
Taiwan Strait:
● The
Taiwan Strait is a 180-kilometer-wide strait separating the island of Taiwan and continental Asia.
● The
strait is part of the South China Sea and connects
to the East China Sea to the north.
● It
is also called the Formosa Strait.
Go back to basics:
Other Important Straits of Asia:
● Malacca Strait
- Andaman Sea & South China Sea (Separates Indonesia - Malaysia)
● Palk Strait - Palk
Bay & Bay of Bengal (Separates India - Sri Lanka)
● Korea Strait
- East China sea and Sea of Japan (Separates Japan - South Korea)
● Hormuz Strait
- Gulf of Oman and Persian Gulf (Separates Oman - Iran)
● Bab-el-Mandeb Strait
- Red Sea and Gulf of Aden (Separates Yemen (Arabian Peninsula) and Djibouti,
Eritrea of Somali Peninsula)
● Sunda Strait
- Java Sea & Indian Ocean (Separates Indonesia - Sumatra and Java)
● Bering Strait
- Bering Sea & Chukchi Sea (Separates Alaska - Russia)
Taiwan:
● Taiwan,
earlier known as Formosa, a tiny island
off the east coast of China, is where Chinese republicans of the Kuomintang
government retreated after the 1949 victory of the communists and it has since
continued as the Republic of China.
● The
island is located in the East China Sea, to the northeast of Hong Kong, north
of the Philippines and south of South Korea, and southwest of Japan. What
happens in and around Taiwan is of deep concern to all of East Asia.
● Taiwan observes October
10 - “double 10” - as its national day;
it was on this day in 1911 that sections of the Manchu army rose in rebellion,
leading ultimately to the overthrow of the Qing dynasty and the end of 4,000
years of the monarchy.
● The
RoC was declared on December 29, 1911, and it found its feet in the 1920s under
the leadership of Dr Sun Yat-sen,
founder of the Kuomintang (KMT) Party. Sun was succeeded by General Chiang
Kai-shek, whose actions against the Chinese communists, who were part of an
alliance with the KMT, triggered the civil war that ended in victory for the
communists and the retreat of Chiang and the KMT to Taiwan.
● Since
its founding in 1949, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has believed that
Taiwan must be reunified with the mainland, while the RoC has held out as an
“independent” country.
● The
RoC became the non-communist frontier against China during the Cold War, and
was the only ‘China’ recognized at the
UN until 1971. That was when the US inaugurated ties with China through the
secret diplomacy of Henry Kissinger, national security adviser to President
Richard Nixon.
● The US backs Taiwan’s
independence, maintains ties with Taipei, and sells weapons to it - but
officially subscribes to PRC’s “One China Policy”, which means there is only
one legitimate Chinese government.
● Just 14, mostly very
small, countries recognize Taiwan.