Does anyone understand why the government of the PRC is so, um, up in arms about the Taiwan referendum?
For those not following the situation, the PRC is complaining that the USA is not doing enough, political pressure-wise, to prevent a referendum that will let the Taiwanese people choose to apply for UN membership under the name “Taiwan” instead of the country’s current name of “Republic of China.”
This is seen by the PRC as a move towards independence. The PRC considers Taiwan to be part of China–when on the mainland, BTW, never refer to Republic of China, always speak of “the province of Taiwan”–unless you’re looking for trouble. “China, which regards Taiwan as part of its territory, has vowed to use force if necessary to block any move toward formal independence.”
In reality, Taiwan has been independent since 1949, so what’s the big deal?
That’s the jist right there. No nation wants to see itself split up by any means, usually. The PRC views Taiwan as a part of China, and wants to see it brought back into the family. If I recall correctly, they view Taiwan as currently in a state of rebellion against the state, and have stated very clearly that any attempts to actually declare themselves an independant nation will be dealt with harshly.
There are elements in Taiwan (though I don’t know how much these days… paging China Guy and our other Sino-Dopers) that continue to claim to be the only rightful government of China.
The only reason the PRC has not asserted their claims militarily is 1- a lack of ability to do so, previously, not having a lot of ambhibious assault capability and 2- the US.
I’m sure problem 1 is probably close to solved these days. This leaves them with problem 2, which is a whole other thread.
And now, to get some coffee. It’s to dang early for realpolitik.
What makes you say this? I call bullshit. I’ve referred to Taiwan under it’s formal ROC name in China hundreds of times starting more than 20 years ago and have never had a problem, or even a raised eyebrow. Most of the time, mainlanders just say “Taiwan” and not “Taiwan Province”.
I believe if you go to source quotes by Mainland Chinese Leaders, you will find that the phrase is along the lines of “China *reserves * the right to use force to prevent splitting the country.” sure this may be semantics, but what the leader ship says publicly is not “china will invade if Taiwan declares independance.” Come on, Chinese are masters of subtlety and always leaving an escape clause.
NoCoolUserName: the big deal is the difference between de facto independance (which Taiwan currently enjoys) and de jeure independance (formal legal recognition as an independant country by world bodies and the countries that matter in international relations).
Finally, IMHO Taiwan and China’s economic integration will drive some sort of formalized federation within 10 years and probably within 5. (Yes, I said the same thing previously on these boards a few years ago.) I mean, if france and germany can join the EU and give up their currency, China and Taiwan should be able to figure something out. Keep in mind approximately 10% of the taiwanese population lives and works in China at any given moment. The Taiwanese manufacturing base has all but disappeared, and even the hightech sector are making massive new investments in chip foundries in China and not in Taiwan.
Want to take bets on how fast direct flights between China and Taiwan initiate after Chen Shui-bian leaves office?
As far as the PRC and most of the rest of the world is concerned, the Republic of China is kind of a national unperson (or “unnation” if you like) ever since United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2758 which assigned the government of the PRC China’s seat in the UN, and essentially removed the ROC from the roll of recognized nations. This bit of realpolitik occurred largely because[list=a][li]the PRC was supported by the bulk of Non-Aligned Nations, which hoped for reciprical (and mostly unreceived) support,[]it eased tensions between China and the West, and was perceived to create a rift in Sino-Soviet Communist relations (though in fact this had occurred a decade before), and[]because the KMT government of the ROC was widely regarded as being a puppet of the United States, which is if a bit hyperbolic wasn’t especially distant from the truth.[/list]This was a de facto ejection of the ROC from the UN, although technically the UN claims that the PRC is merely the successor state, giving at least the patina of legitimacy for the PRC to claim that Taiwan is a wayward province, and leaving the ROC in the same place as State of Palestine (although since the Partition Agreement was never adopted, technically Palestine never legally existed as a nation). [/li]
In reality, there are two Chinese states, regardless of what the PRC says. (The ROC has essentially accepted the loss of mainland China from its domains since the 'Seventies and doesn’t call for reunification.) It’s tempting to view the PRC as an illegitimate, criminal government (both from the way they “transitioned” to power and for the acts committed by all of the regimes that have run it) but one can hardly hold Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang government as a model of lawful order. Anyway, the U.S., and by extension most NATO allies, at least tacitly regard Taiwan as an independent nation, while the PRC, the former Non-Aligned Nations, and some others regard Taiwan is a rogue province. Since Taiwan is really important only to U.S. and Chinese strategic interests, nobody else really much cares about arguing the point.
Pretty good summary but the timing is off. Publicly not until the Nineties after butthead kicked the bucket.
Also, ROC also declared that if the PRC entered the UN the ROC would leave. I’m about 99% sure there was the option at that time for ROC to give up the fiction of retaking China and being recognized by the UN as an independant country encompassing Taiwan and a few dinky islands. This move of course has bit ROC in the ass ever since as is used as part of the “legal” arguement why Taiwan is an integral part of China.
Re: Always say “The Province of Taiwan” when on the mainland.
Your experience is, of course, greater than mine. I’ve heard this from multiple sources, and when I was working (for a short while) in Beijing, one of my Chinese co-workers came to me with a map that was included in our software product. It was a map of “China” with a thick black line around the mainland. He informed me that this map was a BIG problem. When I asked why, he said it was because the thick black line was not also around Taiwan.
I told him it was a JPG and he could edit it to match local requirements–we had licensed the maps and did not create them.
So I know it’s a serious consideration at least in some government agencies.
yes, absolutely correct, for government agencies or any formal/official type thing the proper usage is to spell it out correctly or draw the map including taiwan.
but in any instance less formal than that, saying taiwan is used 99% of the time by mainlanders. saying ROC wouldn’t result in a comment or dirty look, but I can’t think of when i’ve heard a mainlander say ROC.
[anyone know if the official ROC map still includes outer mongolia?]
The thing is that officially both the Republic of China and the People’s Republic of China are saying that all of China is one country and so it can have only one legitimate government. The question is which government you think is the legitimate one; if you recognize one, you’re automatically saying the other one isn’t.
It would have been like if George Bush and Al Gore had both taken the oath of office as President in 2001. You couldn’t say there were two United States as a result. Everyone would have had to pick one of them and said “He’s the President of the United States and the other guy isn’t.”
As for the idea of the Republic of China just unilaterally declaring that it was renouncing all claims to the rest of the mainland, this wouldn’t mean that the People’s Republic would have to return the favor and renounce all claims to Taiwan in turn. From a legal standpoint this would be a declaration of secession. And the United States has its own precedent on that subject.
My understanding is that it does (along with a bunch of other territory that is actually owned by other countries). But Taipei is not actually attempting to claim these regions. Apparently there’s some diplomatic mumbo-jumbo involved that prevents the Republic of China from formally renouncing these claims; if it renounced these claims it would legally be the equivalent of declaring its independance.
OK, it’s the “diplomatic mumbo-jumbo” that I’m trying to understand. Apparently, as long as there is no official notice that PRC and ROC are separate, no action must be taken, but if the ROC actually claims to be separate from the PRC, then we have to go to war over it?
<sigh> Can we send away for a case of sanity and donate it to everyone involved?
Can someone help me understand why this makes sense? If it does? That’s what I was trying to ask in the OP.
re: “the United States has its own precedent on that subject”–That doesn’t make any sense to me, either.
The People’s Republic of China has long held the position that it would oppose any declaration of independance by the Republic of China. The only realistic way it could prevent such a declaration if the ROC was determined enough would be to send troops into Taiwan to occupy the island. The United States has long declared that it would consider such a military occupation unacceptable and would use American forces to oppose it. So if Taiwan declares its independance it could easily end up in a war between the United States and China.
Obviously, the United States could back down at the last minute and not send any troops and allow the Chinese occupation of Taiwan. We’d avoid a war that way. But we’ve been a Taiwanese ally for decades and have said we would defend them. If we don’t do so, we’re admitting any alliance agreement with the United States is worthless. Other countries that are allied with us will see this and will realize they are as vulnerable to betrayal as Taiwan. They’ll tear up their alliances with us and make deals with other countries.
I was pointing out that a Taiwanese declaration of independance would be pretty much the same as what South Carolina and the other southern states did back in 1860. They declared that they were no longer part of the United States and tried to form an independant country. The United States disagreed and sent troops in to bring the seceding regions back into the country. This is what China has said it would do if Taiwan declares independance.
Little Nemo is pretty spot on. Of course its the ambiguous “reserve the right to prevent splitting the motherland by any means required” not not 100% clear it would mean an invasion.
Also keep in mind, I strongly suspect that Taiwan has nukes and has a MAD strategy. It’s denied of course, but Taiwan has the expertise and a big neighbor that can be belligerent.
China years ago could have invaded Little Matsu island. It’s a stone’s throw off the Fujian coast. That would really have set up some brinkmanship.
I understand that the ROC dropping its claims to mainland China would amount to a declaration of independence, but what I don’t understand is why the same is true with the ROC claims to territory that isn’t administered by either the ROC or the PRC, and in many cases not even claimed by the PRC. Can someone explain?
Is this really true? The US can set conditions for alliance. If the US warns Taiwan not to declare independence, and that doing so would void the alliance, and Taiwan goes ahead and does it anyway, would anyone fault the US for not sending troops?
I don’t get this either. How on earth can the Republic of China claim parts of India, Afghanistan, Burma, and most of freaking Mongolia? Do they actually and honestly believe that anyone (besides themselves, and maybe not even then) takes these claims seriously?
Besides, Wikipedia tells me that Mongolia is a parliamentary republic; what’s stopping the Kuomintang from running in elections there and declaring the country to be part of the Republic of China if they win?
And on a related note, what would happen if Russia or someone said “OK, we didn’t want this obscure and patch of tundra/desert/inhospitable jungle anyway, we recognise the RoC’s claim to the territory and turn it over to them”? I’m guessing that it would either be a good time to invest in Vault-Tec, or else nothing would happen except a few pedantic cartographers would need adjust some lines a millimetre or two on a map and maybe add a dab of paint…
My guess would be that those are the territorial claims of the old chinese republic. If they drop those, then why not drop the claim to the mainland while they are at it, since it’s no more ridiculous to claim Mongolia than it is to claim mainland China? In that case it would be a very short and slippery slope from amending their claims to recognise reality, to recognising reality by declaring independence. Followed by BOOM BOOM BOOM.
Utterly, utterly wrong. Taiwan has never been a part of the People’s Republic of China. The island’s people never agreed to any kind of union with the mainland government (either one of them, for that matter).
As usual, I did not make myself clear. My lack of understanding was not of your remark, which was perfectly clear (both the remark and my understanding), but of the reasons that the Northern US used force to make the Confederate States re-join the Union. I suppose I’m just a laissez-faire liberal who thinks people should be allowed to do what they want. There are limits, of course, but starting a war to make a region remain a part of a country when they (the residents of said region) don’t want to be a part of it seems over the line to me.
What I meant was that the reasoning that the North used (for the Civil War/War Between the States) and the reasoning that the PRC is currently using are both obscure to me. I’ve got that the PRC believes that Taiwan must remain a part of “China” and that they have made public statements to that effect. I’ve got that the US has backed the ROC government since before 1949 and that military action by the PRC against the ROC in Taiwan would cause international tensions to say the least.
What I ain’t got is WHY. What does the PRC goverment gain by claiming that Taiwan is still a part of China? By threatening military action if the ROC actually declares that they are not?
I think it comes down to the Beijing government’s insecurity vis-a-vis its own legitimacy. If Taiwan is historically part of the Chinese empire but now can go its own way, who’s to say that Tibet can’t do the same? And Xingjiang? And Inner Mongolia? And Hainan? And Guangzhou . . .
Thats why Beijing would much prefer to deal with the pathetic remnant of a rival pretender government (“Nationalist” China) than with an officially independent Republic of Taiwan. The former prospect no longer poses any kind of serious threat to Beijing’s legitimacy; the latter, very much so.
Unfortunately, I can’t despite having been the person who mentioned it. I read it a brief article about the claims. The author said that Taiwan couldn’t renounce these claims for diplomatic reasons but didn’t explain what the actual laws involved were.