And so right now, the Taiwanese elections are going on. In case you do not know about Taiwan/Chinese politics, the two countries maintain a very delicate status with each other. Taiwan sort of hangs around and hides behind the USA fleet and ignores China, while China continually says it owns Taiwan but NEVER actually makes good on that statement. They do however point a ton of missiles in the island's general direction. So basically what everyone argues about is who gets bragging rights, i.e. what the official status is. For all intents and purposes, Taiwan's already independant. Just if it SAYS it is independant, China gets all surly, abusive parent style.
History wise, it's the leftovers of an elaborate tango with Japan. Japan in WW2 went basically apeshit on its area of Asia, and so after it withdrew, it "forgot" to say "We return Taiwan to China." More like they let the island's citizens sort of decide for themselves. This is why Taiwan's status is not recognized, cause China keeps whining about their former property.
Anyway, the current president of Taiwan, Chen Shui-Bian, is getting all combative and bringing up the topic of independance again, while the opposition party is basically going the appeasement route. He and the VP were also shot. Now the interesting thing to me is how the investigation could have so quickly ruled out China's involvement OR political motive in the shooting. They don't have the shooters, how could they know!
*Footnotes*
From what I gather, Taiwanese view the Japanese occupation as actually MORE tolerable than when the Chinese held the island, which is why there is a marked LACK of anti Japanese feeling. You will not find this in Korea, who seems to be still bitter about their occupation, or China, considering Japan FUCKED up China really badly. (The rape of Nanking is all you need to read about.)