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President Tsai praises Latin American defense training cooperation

President Tsai Ing-wen said Oct. 18 that a Ministry of National Defense-organized training program...

The Republic of China (Taiwan) is situated in the West Pacific between Japan and the Philippines. Its jurisdiction extends to the archipelagoes of Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu, as well as numerous other islets. The total area of Taiwan proper and its outlying islands is around 36,197 square kilometers. At about the size of the Netherlands, but with a population of some 23 million, Taiwan is more populous than three-quarters of the world’s nations. Taiwan proper has more than its share of natural splendor.

In April 2014, the National Science Council—the government’s dedicated agency charged with advancing national science and technology development, supporting academic research and promoting the nation’s three science parks—was reorganized and renamed as the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST).

The ROC was founded in 1912 in mainland China. At that time, Taiwan was under Japanese colonial rule as a result of the 1895 Treaty of Shimonoseki, by which the Qing ceded Taiwan to Japan. The ROC government began exercising jurisdiction over Taiwan in 1945 after Japan surrendered at the end of World War II.