TIMELINE: Taiwan's road to democracy

(Reuters) - Taiwan voters pick a new president on March 22, choosing between Frank Hsieh of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party and Ma Ying-jeou of the Nationalist Party

(KMT).

The vote is only the fourth contested presidential poll since the island of 23 million people embraced democracy in the mid-1980s.

Here are some milestones in the self-ruled island's path to democratization.

* February 1947: A Taipei street dispute over the state cigarette monopoly flares into a chain of protests against Nationalist Party rule from China.

* 1949: Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek flees to Taiwan with about 2 million supporters to escape the advancing Communist army in China. Washington continues to recognize Chiang's Republic of China government in Taipei, not the Beijing-based People's Republic of China.

* 1972: U.S. President Richard Nixon signs the Shanghai Joint Communique with the People's Republic of China, declaring that there is only one China and that Taiwan is part of it.

* 1978: Chiang Kai-shek's son, Chiang Ching-kuo, is chosen to be president three years after his father's death in 1975.

* 1979: Beijing and Washington establish diplomatic relations. Later that year, President Jimmy Carter signs the Taiwan Relations Act, allowing informal relations to continue between the United States and Taiwan.

* 1984: Chiang Ching-kuo is re-elected and begins democratization of the political system.

* 1986: Dissidents form the Democratic Progressive Party.

* 1987: Chiang Ching-kuo lifts martial law after 38 years, the world's longest period of continuous military rule.

* 1988: Chiang Ching-kuo dies. His designated successor, Lee Teng-hui, is sworn in as president in May 1990.

* 1994: First direct elections for governor of Taiwan province and mayors of Taipei and Kaohsiung cities.

* 1996: Lee wins more than 50 percent of the votes in Taiwan's first direct presidential election.

* 2000: More than 50 years of Nationalist Party rule end as the DPP's Chen Shui-bian is elected president. The DPP adopts a hard line against China, advocating formal independence.