TAIPEI (Taiwan News) -- Taiwan was ranked as the 14th richest country in the world by Global Finance Magazine based on gross domestic product (GDP) per capita and adjusted for purchasing power.

The governments of the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (ROC) oppose Taiwanese independence since they believe that Taiwan and mainland China comprise two portions of a single country's territory.

The position of the PRC is that the ROC and PRC are two different factions in the Chinese Civil War, which never legally ended. Therefore, the PRC claims that both factions belong to the same sovereign country—China.

The ROC government relocated to Taiwan in 1949 while fighting a civil war with the Chinese Communist Party. Since then, the ROC has continued to exercise effective jurisdiction over the main island of Taiwan and a number of outlying islands, leaving Taiwan and China each under the rule of a different government.