Taiwan governs itself, and the strait before it is a political border

Taipei administers Taiwan: the main island, the Penghu islands in the strait, Kinmen and Matsu off the mainland coast. The authorities use the name Republic of China. The government in Beijing treats the same territory as part of the People's Republic and has not administered it. The Taiwan Strait between them is water and a political border at once. It does not settle the dispute.

23,317,031 people live on 36,193 square kilometres, with no land neighbours. The capital, Taipei, stands in the north of the main island. The country data list Chinese (Mandarin) as the official language. In daily life, Taiwanese, Hakka and Austronesian languages of the indigenous peoples are spoken as well. Writing uses the traditional characters. The currency is the New Taiwan dollar. All of that is the practical statehood of an island over whose status in international law governments remain in disagreement.

Taipei administers, Beijing claims

In 1949 the government of the Republic of China moved its seat to Taipei after losing the civil war on the mainland. The People's Republic came into being the same year there and has not administered the island since. It claims it. The authorities in Taipei exercise legislation, taxation, conscription and elections on the territory they hold. The government in China calls this territory its own. Both sentences are political positions with power behind them. Neither becomes true by leaving the other unsaid.

Most states keep formal relations with Beijing and practical ones with Taipei. The number of states that diplomatically recognise Taipei is small and it changes. Trade does not follow that number. Describe Taiwan only as a province and you describe Beijing's position, not the administration that collects taxes on the island. Describe it only as a settled state and you describe a recognition that most states do not formally speak. The honest map shows both: a working administration and an unsettled claim.

An island with its own treasury

The New Taiwan dollar is issued by the Central Bank of the Republic of China (Taiwan). It is not the renminbi of the mainland. A currency of its own is not an ornament of sovereignty here. It is daily life: wages, rents, the price of the electronics made on the island. In Hsinchu a contract manufacture of chips ties the island's economy to world industry. How large the share is does not belong here. That the factory stands in a territory over whose status states disagree does belong to the political geography.

Mandarin is the language of school and office. Taiwanese, Hakka and the languages of the indigenous peoples are not folklore at the margin. They are the speech of places older than the administration of 1949. Traditional characters separate a sign in Taipei from a sign on the mainland, even where the spoken standard language is related. The treasury and the script are readable borders. They do not replace the missing agreement on which state this island is in international law.

Taipei collects the taxes and issues the money. Beijing states the claim. The strait between them is not an arbitration award.

— TerraTally · Countries desk

The strait as political distance

The Taiwan Strait separates the main island from the mainland. At Kinmen that separation is especially slight: the islands lie immediately off the mainland coast, while Taipei stands in the north of the large island. Matsu also lies off that coast, Penghu in the strait itself. Taipei's administration is therefore not only the one large island. It is an arc of places whose nearest neighbourhood is the mainland and whose capital is nevertheless called Taipei. A figure in kilometres would not make that arc calmer.

The people on the island vote, pay and produce under an administration that Beijing does not appoint. Beijing does not drop the claim. The states in between trade with both and, formally, usually recognise only one. On the quay at Taipei the New Taiwan dollar holds, and the strait remains the water that the declarations have not bridged.

Taiwan has a capital, a currency and an administration that carries daily life. Beijing has a claim it does not redeem by administering the island. The Taiwan Strait lies between them. It is narrow enough for politics and wide enough that the claim has not become an authority in Taipei.