Yearbook 2019
Taiwan. At the beginning of the year, Chinese President
Xi Jinping gave a speech in which he described it as
inevitable for Taiwan to reunite with Mainland China.
According to Xi, Taiwan should be included in China under
the principle of "one country, two systems", similar to Hong
Kong, and China is willing to use any means to achieve this
goal. Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen appealed a few days
later to the outside world for support for the country's
sovereignty. An opinion poll presented a week later showed
that over 80% of Taiwan's population is negative about a
reunification with China.
In January, the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)
elected a new party leader. According to
CountryAAH, President Tsai resigned from
this post after DPP backed heavily in the local elections in
the fall of 2018. New party leader became Cho Jung-tai. In
the same month, the Prime Minister's post also changed. Lai
Ching-te had already stated that he would resign as a
consequence of the 2018 election results. However, Tsai
Ingwen herself did not give up, but announced in March that
she intends to run for re-election in the 2020 presidential
election. located in the southern part of the country. He
won the Nationalist Party's primary election in July and
thus became its presidential candidate. He Kuo-yu is
described as populist, with improved relations to Beijing as
one of his promises. An October poll showed that support for
Tsai Ing-wen had increased and was at 50% compared to 38%
for Han Kuo-yu. It was considered that the ongoing protests
in Hong Kong favored the incumbent president and her
attitude in relation to mainland China.
In May, Parliament voted in favor of a law that makes
same-sex relationships legally recognized. Gay couples
should now be able to apply for marriage registration.
Taiwan thus became the first country in Asia to allow
same-sex marriage. As recently as November, a referendum was
held in which a majority said no to marriage between people
of the same sex. However, in 2017 the country's
constitutional court ruled that same-sex marriage must be
approved and the government now solved the issue by
proposing a special law in this area.
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