Taiwan was classified as a free nation by U.S.-based Freedom House in its 2017 Freedom in the World report released Jan. 31, achieving perfect scores in the survey’s two categories of political rights and civil liberties for the first time in 11 years.

In the 2017 edition, Taiwan retained a top rating of 1 in political rights while improving from 2 to 1 in civil liberties. For the annual report, nations are ranked on a scale of 1 to 7 in the two categories, with 1 being the freest and 7 the least free.

“Taiwan’s civil liberties rating improved from 2 to 1 due to demonstrations of media independence and academic freedom in recent years, including in media coverage of the 2016 elections,” the report said.

Of the 195 countries and territories assessed in the 2017 report, 45 percent, including Taiwan, were rated as free, while 30 percent were classified as partly free and the remainder as not free.

According to Freedom House, Taiwan’s aggregate score in the global rankings has increased steadily over the past years, from 88 out of 100 in the 2015 survey to 89 in 2016 and 91 this year. In the latest report, the nation ranked 26th globally and second in Asia, behind only Japan’s score of 96.

A country or territory’s aggregate rating is calculated from its performance across 25 indicators such as electoral process, functioning of government and rule of law. Taiwan’s score of 91 placed it ahead of France, the U.S. and Italy in 27th, 28th and 29th places, respectively, as well as South Korea in 42nd. Mainland China was classified as not free, while Hong Kong and Singapore were rated as partly free.

Founded in 1941, Freedom House is a U.S.-based nongovernmental organization that conducts research on democracy, political freedom and human rights around the world. The first edition of the Freedom in the World report was published in 1973. (KWS-E)

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