ABSTRACT
The year 2011 is celebrated by the government in Taiwan as entering the one-hundredth anniversary of the founding of the Republic of China (ROC). The Republic was founded by Dr Sun Yat-sen and his followers after overthrowing a corrupt Qing (Manchu) dynasty rendered impotent by decades of domestic strife and foreign aggression. To facilitate the revolutionary efforts, Dr Sun organized a Xing Zhong Hui (Revive China Society) in Honolulu in 1894. This organization later joined forces with other revolutionary groups to form a Tong Meng Hui (Revolutionary Alliance) in Tokyo in 1905. The Alliance became the basis of the Nationalist Party (Kuomintang or KMT hereafter) when it was established in 1912 by Dr Sun in Beijing to contest the first national elections. The KMT, after being defeated by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) at the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949, retreated to Taiwan, where it remained the dominant party until 2000, and regained control of the presidency in 2008. Because of this convoluted history originating from overseas, and to put the Taiwan perspective in the proper context, this chapter will attempt to capture a century of political development in ROC (Taiwan) and its changing policy toward constituents abroad, with a special focus on their rights to participate in homeland politics.
