Taiwan and Korea: I. Land and People

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I. Land and PeopleTaiwan

• Land. Taiwan is an island off the southern coast
  China, just 90 miles away. Its total land area is
  about 22,320 square miles, with rugged mountains
  in east and rolling plains in west as
  geographical features and tropical and marine as
  climate features. map

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• People. Taiwan has a population of 22 million.
  The majority of Taiwan's inhabitants are
  descendants of Chinese who migrated from the
  southern coast of China in the eighteenth and
  nineteenth centuries. They claimed themselves as
  Taiwanese which constitute 84 of population.
  In 1949, when the Communists came to power in
  mainland China, many Chinese followed the
  Nationalist government to Taiwan. They are called
  mainlanders and constitute 14 of population. A
  small group of native inhabitants, which lives in
  the mountains in central Taiwan, is most likely
  of Malay-Polynesian origin, constitute 2.

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Geographical Features of the Taiwan Strait

• There is a Taiwan Strait located between Fujian
  Province and Taiwan Province of China and
  constituted as a critical corridor connecting the
  East China Sea to the South China Sea. Actually
  the Strait itself is regarded as part of the East
  China Sea. map

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Geographical Features

• The breadth of the northern end is about 93
  nautical miles (nm) and that of the southernmost
  end 116 nm. It is more than 170 nm long and about
  60 meters in average depth.

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Geographical Features

• The Taiwan Strait is one of the important fishing
  grounds in China, and there are about 700 fish
  species, among which 100 species are economic.
• The coastal areas of the Taiwan Strait deposit
  rich sand reserves. Recently, oil and gas has
  been discovered around the Taiwan Strait.
• In addition, the Taiwan Strait is traditionally
  used as an important navigational waterway both
  for China and for the rest of the world. For
  China, it is a critical sea route from north to
  south, and also between Taiwan and Fujian
  Provinces.

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Historical and political implications

• Historically, the Taiwan Strait was used to be a
  battlefield. For example, during the year of
  1661, Zheng Chenggong led his army across the
  Strait to recover the Taiwan Islands from the
  Dutch colonists.
• In 1949, the Nationalist government retreated to
  Taiwan from this strait. The year of 1949 was
  critical in Chinese history because from this
  year on, China was divided and two governments
  have appeared since then. Due to such division,
  there are two de facto jurisdictions existing
  within the Strait. The divided status of China
  has also made the situation in the Taiwan Strait
  complex and uncertain.

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Historical and political implications

• During the 1950s, the situation in the Taiwan
  Strait was rather intense. The communist regime
  in the mainland pledged to liberate Taiwan. In
  order to deter the expansion of communism from
  mainland China to Taiwan and Southeast Asia, the
  United States was determined to protect Taiwan
  and sent Fleet 7 to the Taiwan Strait to
  neutralize the Strait. Further, the United
  States singed a mutual defense treaty with the
  Nationalist government in Taiwan.
• In 1972, the United States changed its policy
  toward China and normalized its relations with
  mainland China and declared One China policy
  and peaceful resolution of cross Taiwan Strait
  confrontation.

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Historical and political implications

• Taiwan strait could be the most dangerous war
  zone in East Asia that could bring the United
  States into it.
• In case of armed conflict, Beijing would define a
  war zone in the Taiwan Strait and direct
  neutral shipping in order to protect its right of
  innocent passage.

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South Korea

• Land. South Koreas total land area is about
  38,013 square miles. The land is mostly hilly and
  mountainous, but it has wide coastal plains in
  west and south. The climate features rainfall
  heaviest in summer. South Korea has a population
  of 46.9 million.
• People. Korea was first populated by a people or
  peoples who migrated to the peninsula from the
  northwestern regions of Asia, some of whom were
  from parts of northeast China (Manchuria).
  Koreans are racially and linguistically
  homogeneous, with no sizable minorities, except
  for some Chinese (approximately 20,000).

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 Geopolitics of the Korean Peninsula

• Question
• Why is Korean peninsula considered to be
  strategic location in East Asia?

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Geopolitics

• The Korean Peninsula, which is in the center of
  Northeast Asia, had been throughout its history a
  strategic geopolitical location in which
  contending powers, China, Japan, and Russia, and
  other Western powers fought to control. China, as
  the largest and most technologically and
  culturally advanced society in East Asia, exerted
  the most important outside influence on Korea
  until modern times.
• In the latter half of the 19th century, as the
  Chinese empire declined and Western powers began
  to vie for domination in East Asia. Britain,
  France, and the United States each attempted to
  open up Korea to trade and diplomatic relations
  in the 1860s, but the Korean kingdom steadfastly
  resisted. After defeating China and Russia in
  wars between 1895 and 1905, Japan became the
  predominant power on the Korean peninsula.

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Geopolitics

• In 1910 Japan made Korea as its colony, and for
  the next 35 years, the Japanese authorities tried
  to transform Koreas cultural identity and make
  Koreans culturally Japanese, going so far in 1939
  as to compel Koreans to change their names to
  Japanese ones.
• However, Japan also brought the beginnings of
  industrial development to Korea. Modern
  industries such as steel, cement, and chemical
  plants were set up in Korea during the 1920s and
  1930s, especially in the northern part of the
  peninsula where coal and hydroelectric power
  resources were abundant. By the time Japanese
  colonial rule ended in August 1945, Korea was the
  second most industrialized country in Asia after
  Japan itself.

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Geopolitics

• In post-WWII, South Korea was separated from
  North Korea by the United States and the Soviet
  Union upon the surrender of Japan into two zones
  of temporary occupation, for the purpose of
  overseeing the orderly dismantling of Japanese
  rule and establishing a new Korean government.
  The United States was to occupy Korea south of
  the 38th Parallel of latitude (a demarcation
  running east and west across the peninsula) while
  the Soviet Union was to occupy Korea north of
  that line.

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Geopolitics

• In the early 1950s, the United States engaged in
  a full scale of military confrontation with the
  Chinese military on the Korean peninsula and it
  became the major war zone after WWII, which ended
  with maintaining the division between the north
  and the south on the 38th Parallel of latitude.
   
• During the Cold War, the Korean Peninsula became
  the strategic area for the United States to
  establish a security blanket against the Soviet
  Union along the Pacific Rim. After the Cold war,
  the peninsula has been plagued by the nuclear
  crisis for a decade without a feasible solution.