Here are some interesting links on Taiwan :

CIA The World Factbook

The Free Encyclopedia Wikipedia

From Mainland China to Taiwan

The Island of Taiwan is a little more than a hundred kilometres off the coast of Mainland China. In 1590, a crew of Portuguese seamen bedazzled by its natural beauty named it Ilha Formosa, the Beautiful Island. First a protectorate of the Empire of China, and then a Chinese province, the island was ceded to Japan after the Sino-Japanese War (1894-1 895), and its occupation that lasted for 50 years. After the Second World War, China recovered the island and gave it back its Chinese name Taiwan. In 1949, after the Communist Party of Mao Tse-tung won the civil war in Mainland China, Marshall Tchang Kai-shek took refuge in Taiwan with members of his army and of his Nationalist government. He proclaimed Taipei the provisional capital of China. This status remained until the United Nations, in 1971, recognized Peking as the seat of the Chinese government.

Eager to curb the expansion of Communism in Asia in the early 50's, the Western powers used Taiwan as a model to demonstrate the superiority of the Capitalist system. Investors developed an economy based on technological progress and the export of manufactured goods. The natural qualities of patience, dexterity and tenacity of the Chinese people helped Taiwan to achieve economic success and made it a nation whose manpower is the best qualified in the industrialized world. At this period, too, agricultural reform assured the financial viability of the Island's main farming produce.

The island's population of 23 million is, for the most part, of Chinese origin. It also has minority groups of aborigines immigrated a long time ago from Indonesia and Malaysia. Though urbanized and industrialized, Taiwan has preserved natural sites of awesome beauty and temples representing the delicate architecture of ancient China. The world's largest collection of ancient Chinese artefacts, jades, porcelains, bronzes and paintings on silk can be seen in the National Palace Museum of Taipei. Many items in this collection were brought by Tchang Kai-shek at the time of his exile, and came from treasures accumulated by the Chinese emperors in the Forbidden City of Peking.

A Mission of Love and Service

In the years that followed the Communist takeover in Mainland China, the Catholic institutions were confiscated and the missionaries expelled. This is how, in 1953, the last of our Canadian Sisters in this mission left the country. One year later, at the request of the Jesuit Fathers, three of our former missionaries of China came to Taiwan and settled in Kuanshi, a small town of the prefecture of Hsinchu. At the time of their arrival, the city's population numbered 35,000, not a single one of them Catholic. Already familiar with the Mandarin language, our missionaries helped with the running of a kindergarten and engaged in home visitation. In that post-war era, the needs were great. Other Sisters joined the initial group and responded to those needs. Dispensaries and maternity clinics were opened and social projects initiated. Along with the other missionaries who had come from China, our Sisters brought a new breath of life and an era of prosperity for the expansion of Catholicism in Taiwan.

Traditions Dating Back Thousands of Years

Staunch conserver of Chinas art, Taiwan is also the preserver of the oldest religions traditions such as Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism and the worship of the ancestors. These traditions have shaped the life and culture of the people for thousands of years. They provide interpretations of the Absolute, of the human person and its existence, of the evil that exists in the world and of the ways to free oneself from it.

Half a century after the massive arrival in Taiwan of missionaries from China, we find a Church whose membership numbers 8% of the population. Aware of the rich Chinese cultural heritage and of the transformations currently taking place in Taiwanese society, our Sisters state as follows their mission in this Church: To proclaim Jesus Christ to those who do not know Him and to accompany the Christian people in the deepening of their faith that they may bear witness to Jesus Christ and to the Gospel in the midst of this pluralistic society.

Text MIC MISSION NEWS (October-November-December 2002)
Louise Denis, m.i.c.