Taiwan's new President Lai Ching-te's inauguration ceremony at the Presidential office building in Taipei

Taiwan President Lai Ching-te took office on Monday, having won election in January.

Following are key facts on relations between Taiwan and China:

POLITICS

- China has claimed Taiwan through its "one China" policy since the Chinese civil war forced the defeated Kuomintang (KMT), or Nationalists, to flee to the island with their Republic of China government in 1949, and has vowed to bring it under Beijing's rule, by force if necessary.

- Taiwan's government says they are already a sovereign country called the Republic of China, though more often styled these days as the Republic of China, Taiwan.

- Ties were badly strained when Chen Shui-bian from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was president of Taiwan from 2000-2008 because of his independence rhetoric, even as he tried to maintain positive relations with Beijing.

- Relations warmed considerably after Ma Ying-jeou, from the KMT, which favours closer ties to China, took office as president in 2008 and won re-election in 2012. Ma held a landmark meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Singapore in late 2015.

• In 2014, hundreds of students occupied Taiwan's parliament for weeks in protests nicknamed the Sunflower Movement. They demanded more transparency in trade pacts with China, in the largest display of anti-China sentiment the island had seen in years.

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- Since the DPP's Tsai Ing-wen became president in 2016 and won re-election in 2020, Taiwan-China ties have soured, with China cutting off a formal dialogue mechanism, flying fighter jets around Taiwan, forcing foreign firms to refer to Taiwan as part of China on their websites, and whittling away at Taiwan's diplomatic allies.

- Beijing believes Lai, like Tsai, wants to push for Taiwan's formal independence, a red line for China.

Lai has said he will uphold the status quo with China, which in practice means declaring neither Taiwan's formal independence nor seeking to join with China.

- China has rebuffed repeated offers by Lai of talks.

TRADE

- China is Taiwan's top trading partner, with trade totalling $224 billion in 2023. Taiwan runs a large trade surplus with China.

- China, with its 1.3 billion people and much cheaper costs, is also Taiwan's favourite investment destination, with Taiwan companies investing over $100 billion there, private estimates show.

- Taiwan has been encouraging Taiwanese businesses to shift investment to other countries such as Vietnam and India to reduce the reliance on China.

MILITARY

- China and Taiwan have nearly gone to war several times since 1949, and in August of 2022 and April of 2023 China staged large-scale war games around the island in protest at stepped up U.S. engagement with Taiwan.

- Taiwanese officials say they are on alert for further Chinese military manoeuvres around the presidential inauguration, or following it.

- Taiwan's armed forces are dwarfed by those of China's, but some consider them considered better trained. But China is developing sophisticated new weapons. On May 1, China launched sea trials for the Fujian, its third and most advanced aircraft carrier.

- The United States, which has no formal diplomatic relations with Taipei, is obliged to help Taiwan with the means to defend itself under the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act. China always reacts angrily to U.S. arms sales to Taiwan and has demanded they stop.

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Hundreds protest Taiwan's ruling party on eve of inauguration

People hold up guavas as they take part in a protest ahead of the inauguration ceremony of Taiwan's president-elect Lai Ching-te

Hundreds of opposition supporters rallied in Taipei to protest four more years of Democratic Progressive Party rule on Sunday, the day before Taiwan inaugurates president-elect Lai Ching-te.

Lai will take the helm as Taiwan faces increasing diplomatic and military pressures from neighbouring China -- which claims the self-ruled island as part of its territory.

But his administration will also have to work with a fractious parliament after voters in January revoked his party's majority.

Taiwan's biggest opposition group, the Kuomintang (KMT) -- which has historically been regarded as friendlier to China -- received one more seat than the DPP, while the upstart Taiwan People's Party (TPP) gained the role of kingmaker with eight seats.

Outside the DPP's headquarters on Sunday, supporters of the TPP held up guavas, called "ba le" in Chinese -- which is also used to describe bad cheques.

The fruit symbolised the "empty promises" of the DPP, explained TPP leader Ko Wen-je.

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"The DPP's empty promises have shown us their arrogance," he told supporters, calling the ruling party "scammers".

"We are taking to the street today because we feel so helpless with all the empty promises over the past eight years."

Protester Samuel Chuang, 35, said a lot of young people voted for DPP candidate Tsai Ing-wen back in 2016.

"But after eight years, when we see what has actually been done, we feel like there hasn't been much change," the engineer said.

"DPP betrayed us. It is not us that betrayed them."

In the January election, the TPP won a quarter of the votes, appealing to Taiwanese by focusing on domestic issues like unemployment, soaring housing prices and electricity rates, and wage stagnation.

Leader Ko had also proposed his party as a "middle" path between the DPP -- which staunchly defends Taiwan's sovereignty against China -- and KMT, regarded by younger Taiwanese to be overly cozy with Beijing.

The TPP rally comes two days after a brawl broke out in Taiwan's parliament, as DPP lawmakers tried to stop the opposition parties from proposing reform bills that would effectively expand the powers of the legislature.

Opposition groups say such reforms were needed to enable more scrutiny of the government, but the DPP said the bills were rushed through without a proper consultation process.

Hundreds of DPP supporters gathered outside the legislature on Friday evening to protest the bills and the violence, after local media reported that both DPP and KMT lawmakers suffered injuries from the fight.

Some rallygoers Sunday expressed dismay at the chaos in the legislature, but Ensen Wang, 32, appeared unfazed as he walked by where TPP supporters gathered.

"That happens with democracy," Wang said.

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