For generations, Taiwan's sovereignty has been a source of contention. Despite the fact that Taiwan considers itself independent, China claims that it is a component of the People's Republic and has not ruled out the possibility of forcefully annexing the island. This might lead to an all-out conflict between the United States and China.
Is Taiwan part of China?
"If countries were people the relationship between China, America and Taiwan would be a love triangle like no other. China claims Taiwan as its own, but with America’s support Taiwan has been able to fend off the mainland’s advances”, says David Rennie, Beijing bureau chief at The Economist (The Economist, 2021).
Taiwan is a small island off the coast of southeast China, around 100 miles away. It is part of the so-called first island chain, which contains a number of US-friendly islands important to US foreign policy. It is an island with a population of less than 24 million people, but its economy is in the top 20 in the world today (BBC, 2022). However, the island's official status is a contentious subject. This wealthy, democratic island is not considered an independent country by Beijing. China has long viewed Taiwan as its lost territory and threatened to unify with it by force. Only 15 countries recognize Taiwan today, down from 23 in 2016, as a result of Beijing's coercion (The Economist, 2020).
The birth of the two Chinas.
The split between the two came about after World War II. The defeated Japanese were forced to relinquish control of Taiwan after 50 years of occupation. Taiwan was returned to the Republic of China, then a military dictatorship led by Chiang Kai-shek’s Chinese Nationalist Party. (Taiwan Government official website, 2022). It was, however, a short-lived union. China's civil war, which had been raging sporadically since 1927, erupted once more within months. By 1949, Mao's Red Army had deposed Chiang Kai-shek’s military rule and forced the former leader and approximately 1.2 million anti-Communist followers to flee to Taiwan (BBC, 2021).
Mao was planning an invasion of Taiwan to finally put down the deposed leader. Then, on the Korean peninsula, war broke out. As the Pacific became the new front in the struggle against Communism, America formed an alliance with Chiang Kai-shek’s leadership, forcing Mao to abandon his aspirations to take over Taiwan. Emboldened by America’s support Chiang Kai-shek declared Taiwan to be the only legitimate Republic of China and promised to return to retake the mainland.
Mao and Chiang Kai-shek were now competing for international recognition and legitimacy, despite no longer fighting face to face. Initially, Chiang Kai-shek’s administration retained China's seat on the UN Security Council and was regarded as the sole Chinese government by many Western countries. During the Cold War, however, as Mao's China grew more strategically important to the US, Chiang Kai-shek’s influence waned.
The One-China principle.
After years of secret talks, Washington moved diplomatic recognition from Taiwan's capital, Taipei, to Beijing in 1971, allowing a UN resolution to recognize Mao's People's Republic as the one and only China. The one-China principle became a cornerstone of the Communist administration, and Chiang Kai-shek’s government was no longer recognized by the majority of the world. Unofficially, though, there was still a lot of sympathy for Taiwan in the West, especially from its former partner, America. However, it was no longer as vociferous about its affection.
Because of America's lack of commitment, Taiwan has to find another method to stand on its own. Taiwan's modest agrarian economy had already experienced rapid industrialization as a result of economic growth. Its exports soared throughout the 1980s. As both sides of the Taiwan Strait's economies grew, Taiwan and China were able to lower their barriers. Initially, Taiwanese businesses benefited greatly by setting up factories on the mainland. But as China's economy improved, policymakers in Beijing realized they had found a method to overcome Taiwan's opposition to joining the mainland. It was the start of a long-term policy to woo Taiwan through economic influence.
“The Chinese government saw that this is a phenomenally useful opportunity to make the two economies so integrated that it will be economically suicidal for any government in Taiwan to try to come into a kind of confrontation with China which would therefore require the government in Taiwan to accept some form of unification with China”, says Professor Steve Tsang - Director, SOAS China Institute, University of London (The Economist, 2021).
But while economic ties tightened cultural divisions between Taiwan and the mainland deepened.
Democracy in Taiwan.
In the 1980s, political reforms gave birth to the Democratic Progressive Party, or DPP, an opposition party that backed Taiwan's independence. Only two years later, progressive Lee Teng-hui, also known as "Mr Democracy," became the island's first Taiwanese-born leader. Taiwan's first truly democratic elections, held in 1991 for the National Assembly, were regarded as a success.
Along with democratisation came an increasing demand for a distinct identity, much to Beijing's chagrin. In 1996, China threatened Taiwan with its military strength.
“And so famously in 1996 they launched these missile tests off the coast of Taiwan to try and frighten the Taiwanese people into not voting for Lee Teng-hui who was, in their view too much of a kind of pro-Taiwanese figure”, says David Rennie, Beijing bureau chief at The Economist (The Economist, 2021).
The United States retaliated with the largest show of military strength in Asia since the Vietnam War. This made China realize how difficult it would be to prevent US forces from aiding Taiwanese forces. China's meddling in Taiwanese affairs, on the other hand, has continued. Despite assertions that it intended a peaceful reunification with Taiwan, China established an anti-secession law in 2005 that allows for the use of force if Taiwan declares independence formally. That was intended to scare Taiwanese people, and it did intimidate some, but it also made the concept of unification with China even more unappealing and strange to younger Taiwanese people (The Economist, 2021).
With the younger generation becoming increasingly estranged from China, recent attempts by Taiwan's administration to create tighter economic connections have been met with hostility. To oppose a free-trade agreement with China, the Sunflower Movement occupied parliament in 2014.
This protest was mostly led by college students who were opposed to free-trade discussions with Beijing. The movement occupied Taiwan's Legislative Yuan for more than three weeks in order to prevent the legislature from studying and voting on the trade agreement. As a result, protesters from the Sunflower Movement effectively halted further economic unification with mainland China (The Diplomat, 2019).
Since the 1990s, a growing number of Taiwanese people identify as Taiwanese rather than Chinese. These ideas helped pro-independence DPP candidate Tsai Ing-wen gain election as President of Taiwan in 2016. Three years later, events 440 miles south-west would bolster support for Taiwanese independence even more. In fact, hundreds of thousands of people marched to the streets of Hong Kong in 2019 to protest against Chinese restrictions on Hong Kong's freedoms, clashing with police. It served as a stern warning to many in Taiwan, including the president.
As consensual unification becomes increasingly improbable, China's only option is to rely on its military force. In the year 2020, the Chinese government published a propaganda video that appeared to show the Chinese armed forces attacking the US military base in Guam. It was a sign that China is considering using force far from home to deter America from assisting Taiwan (NBC News, 2021).
How has Taiwan become the most volatile issue between the world's two greatest powers?
As previously stated, despite assurances of security, the United States severed diplomatic connections with the Republic of China on Taiwan in 1979 and established relations with the People's Republic of China in Beijing. But even after 1979, they've maintained informal relations with Taiwan, continuing to invest, assist the economy, and, most crucially, sell weaponry to the island. And Taiwan is by far the most potential source of direct military conflict between the US and China. China and Taiwan have avoided conflict for nearly seven decades due to the presence of the United States in the middle, but tensions have grown in recent years.
As China has grown into a global giant, it has become increasingly forceful in its claims to Taiwan's sovereignty. While the majority of Taiwanese wish to accept the status quo for the time being, many young people advocate for Taiwan's open independence.
If China and Taiwan do go to war, the cost to human life and industry might be catastrophic. Even if China succeeds, it will have to reconstruct Taiwan for years and absorb a hostile population.
“So, it would be an incredibly dangerous, messy affair. The attempt to invade a fortified island is always going to be an incredibly difficult one. So there's a very good reason they have not attempted to take Taiwan by military force. It’s because they're not sure they can do so. And so it would be a really disastrous event for everybody involved. And there's a very good chance that other democracies in this region, certainly Japan, maybe Australia, would get drawn in as well. Put quite simply, it's in everybody's best interest right now not to force the issue and to push it off for another few years or maybe even a few decades”, says Samson Ellis - Taipei Bureau Chief, Bloomberg News (Bloomberg News, 2021).
However, unification would send a message to the rest of the globe that China, not the US, is the region's new dominating force. “Being able to bring Taiwan into the PRC fold would obviously be a huge achievement for any Chinese leader. And it's largely seen as being as one of his ambitions to achieve before he steps down, whenever that may be”, says again Samson Ellis (Bloomberg News, 2021).
By giving more weapons, sending high-level officials to visit, and amending the law to make exchanges between the two sides much simpler, the Trump administration demonstrated its strong support for Taiwan. A delegation from the United States visited Taipei in June 2021 and announced plans to deliver 750,000 doses of Covid-19 vaccinations to assist alleviate the country's vaccine deficit. Since Biden took office, the people he has appointed have, at the very least, mirrored the Trump administration's position on Taiwan, and have even taken strong statements in support of that policy, ignoring or defying Beijing's concerns.
How will the Ukrainian situation affect the Taiwanese one?
Even before the Ukraine crisis, the broad Russia-China relationship has always been a partnership of common interest and mutual grievances. The relationship's mutual interest aspect is quite evident. China requires oil, gas, wheat, other commodities, and military technology in many forms, all of which Russia possesses. As the current situation in Ukraine demonstrates, Russia need still requires stability on its far eastern border in order to focus on shoring up its western near abroad. Then, of course, they require Chinese cash, especially in the current situation. In terms of their shared complaints, they both despise the US-led international order and believe that the US and its allies should not be able to dictate the governance system that countries might choose for themselves. They also don't like the United States utilizing its domination of the global financial system - which the Chinese refer to as "long arm jurisdiction" - to punish governing systems they don't like.
As Russian soldiers press their assault on Ukraine, Chinese and Taiwanese leaders are keeping a careful eye on the situation and to how Western nations respond. Russia’s military assault has generated enormous sympathy on the self-ruling island, though there are important differences in the threat it faces from Beijing. The Foreign Ministry of Taiwan has stated that it "seriously condemns" Russia's invasion of Ukraine and that it will join international economic penalties. Taiwan, on the other hand, is concerned about its own security, with President Tsai Ing-wen recently stating that the military must increase monitoring (NBC News, 2022).
Experts and Taiwanese officials say fears of a Chinese invasion are unjustified for a variety of reasons. The first is geography: Taiwan is an island separated from mainland China by 100 miles of water, but Ukraine and Russia have a 1,200-mile land border. According to Wen Lii, a DPP member in Matsu, a Taiwanese island roughly 10 miles off the coast of mainland China, any Chinese invasion would be a large-scale, complex operation that the world could see coming far in advance. Taiwan, a significant exporter of electronics and semiconductors, has a much larger economic impact on the world. According to the US Trade Representative, Taiwan is Washington's ninth-largest trading partner, while Ukraine is ranked 67th (Aljazeera News, 2022).
According to Ryan Hass, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, Washington is quite concerned about Taiwan's security. The US would endeavor to "keep peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait," according to the Biden administration's Indo-Pacific plan, which drew condemnation from China. The Taiwan Relations Act also requires the United States to assist Taiwan with defense weapons. According to Hass, Taiwan has higher "symbolic resonance" for Americans than Ukraine, where democracy is less cemented, because it is a successful liberal democracy in a region where autocracy is on the rise (Taipei Times, 2022).
China also sees Taiwan as different from Ukraine, but for a different reason: It is a "inalienable" component of Chinese territory, rather than a sovereign nation, according to government authorities. They accuse Tsai of "taking advantage" of the Ukraine crisis in order to obtain worldwide sympathy for Taiwan (NBC News, 2022).
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