How does China's claim over Taiwan currently manifest itself?

Factual Questions
1

The US claims many states and territories as its own. This manifests in many ways, including but not limited to:

  • some level of federal authority over what sorts of state/territorial laws can or cannot be enacted
  • federal laws being enforced in those states/territories
  • tax money flowing from those state/territories to the federal budget
  • federal expenditures to those states/territories for things like infrastructure and disaster assistance
  • a federally funded and managed military to provide for defense of those states/territories against attack by other nations

China claims Taiwan as its own. Other than getting upset when foreign governments and corporations refer to China and Taiwan as being separate in any way, In what ways does that claim of sovereignty manifest?

2

In practical terms, very little. The main thing is that China prevents Taiwan from competing under the name “Taiwan” in international sports, or participating in many international organizations at all.

Taiwan pays no taxes to China, no laws of China are enforced within Taiwan itself.

3

China is also opposed to other countries maintaining diplomatic relations with Taiwan in a way that implies Taiwan’s existence as an independent country, using the “Republic of China” name that Taiwan claims for itself. The vast majority of countries in the world therefore maintain diplomatic relations only with the People’s Republic of China, while relations with Taiwan are legally of a different nature (though in practice very, very similar to diplomatic relations). Hence the practice of calling Taiwanese embassies “Taipei representative offices” or the like. There’s only a handful of countries around the world which maintain formal diplomatic relations with the “Republic of China”.

4

I wonder how analogous the PRC/ROC situation is to the United States’ position during the Civil War. Specifically that while the USA claimed sovereignty over the CSA territory, it also knew that it had no de facto control over the CSA (collect taxes, enforce laws, etc.) while they were still in rebellion.

5

The last time I caught a plane out of Shanghai, the departures section was divided into three zones, Domestic, International, and “Special”.

The “Special” zone included Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.

Other than that, as was said above, not much.

6

The US government surely did enforce its laws in those parts of the Confederate states that were under its control during the war. For instance, the South’s most important port, New Orleans, was occupied by federal troops from 1862 onwards. By contrast, there are no parts of Taiwan under PRC control (other than those parts of the PRC which Taiwan nominally claims, of course), for the obvious reason that there are no actual hostilities going on between PRC and ROC.

Also, the ROC is not a breakaway republic that seceded from the PRC; it is the remaining territory still under the control of the old government of all of China when that government was, on the mainland, overthrown by the PLA, forcing it to relocate to the island of Taiwan as its last stronghold.

So I’d say the analogy is not a very strong one.

7

I understand the point you’re making but it’s covering over a lot.

People forget that Taiwan officially doesn’t see itself as a separate country. The official stance in both Beijing and Taipei is that China is a single country with both government claiming, on paper, to be the sole legitimate government of that country.

So from that legal viewpoint, the government in Beijing is exercising legal control over the vast majority of the Republic of China; it’s only on the island of Taiwan that they aren’t.

An analogy would be the competing claims over who won the 2020 election in the United States. While Biden is widely seen as having legally been elected President, there are people who claim that Trump won and is the real President. But nobody is saying that Biden and Trump both won and each of them is President of half the country. You either think Biden is the President of the whole country or you think that Trump is President of the whole country.

8

That is all true, but it doesn’t invalidate my point. The PRC makes no attempt in practice to enforce its laws on Taiwan, however strong the claim that it lays to Taiwan on paper. Conversely, the ROC makes no attempt to enforce its laws on the mainland. It even semi-officially accepted that its territory is limited to the island of Taiwan (and some minor other islands) by dissolving the government of the province of Taiwan which previously existed alongside the national government, and by dissolving its all-Chinese National Assembly which for a long time co-existed with a Taiwan-only parliament.

9

Yes but I think a lot of people miss this point. Taiwan is not simply a country that seceded from China (and the People’s Republic is not simply a country that seceded from the Republic of China). So other countries can’t just recognize Taiwan as an independent nation. If you recognize the Republic of China as a legitimate country, you’re also declaring that you don’t recognize the People’s Republic of China as a legitimate nation.

That said, my understanding is that the majority of people in Taiwan are willing to give up the legal fiction that they’re the sole government of all of China. They would be willing to renounce all claims to the mainland and recognize the People’s Republic as the legitimate government of the mainland. As part of this, they would declare Taiwan to officially be an independent nation separate from the rest of China.

The People’s Republic strongly opposes this. They don’t want Taiwan to declare its independence. They have, in fact, stated that if Taiwan tried to do this, they would invade Taiwan.

Which brings us back to the OP. The government in Beijing has no official authority over Taiwan. But mainland China is far larger than Taiwan. So Beijing can use its greater size to intimidate Taiwan into doing what Beijing wants - for example, by threatening Taiwan if it declared its independence. This unofficial coercion is how China currently manifests its claim over Taiwan.

10

This seems similar to the political science concept of Finlandization

11

A lot of nuances. First, it is the People’s Republic of China (mainland China) that has thrown down the gauntlet that a country can recognize the PRC or the ROC but not both.

Second, the Republic of China (in Taiwan) may have had this policy of you can only recognize one legitimate government but not for decades. For example, the ROC left the UN when the PRC entered the body. Boy, does the ROC regret that move these days.

Thrid, the ROC gave up the fiction of retaking the mainland when Chiang Ching-Kuo died in 1988. It may still be on the books but no one on either side of the Taiwan straights believes that this is remotely feasible or any kind of real policy. I’m not sure if the ROC still keeps the fiction that also includes Mongolia, parts of India, etc. Regardless, no one in Taiwan even entertains this fantasy. Furthermore, no one in China believes that the ROC has a “mandate of heaven” to govern all of China. That said, this may still be the official policy stance by both governments, but literally no one believes this.

Fourth, all the Legislative Yuan members (kinda equivalent to the US Senate) that were “elected” before 1949 in the mainland are dead (There may be a couple of centenarians still alive but I doubt it). These guys used to be literally wheeled out on their death bed to rubber stamp votes on stuff. Whilst still alive, these members were part of the fiction of ligitimacy to claim to rule China.

12

PRC does accept deported taiwanese persons from third countries… Spain and Kenya apparently send any Taiwanese person they deport to China… So China is acting for Taiwanese citizens as if they are PRC citizens.

13

The logic as I understand it is this:

The long (!) history of China was that when the central government is strong, it expands and controls all the adjacent territory to put it under control of the central government. In times of weak central government, outside forces come in and take part of the territory or conquer the whole, and upstart local warlords hive off their own lands to be independent.

Most recently, the last 2 centuries have made the central government to be weak - being forced to allow westerners to essentially be a drug cartel, taking territories like Hong Kong, Macau and the Shanghai zone - not to mention the Japanese Manchurian encroachment ending in a vicious occupation, and the long civil war.

The current government essentially does not want to appear weak. Hence, its strong response to any territories that were once part of China - it wants to assert sovereignty. Tibet is a good example - at various times it has been part of China, a vassal state, or independent. PRC also does not tolerate independence movements, since they are basically an insult implying the government is weak. By asserting its extended claim to the South China Sea, it presents itself as stronger than all previous Chinese governments.

By this logic, Taiwan - another on again, off again Chinese territory - is implying by its simple existence that the the PRC is not as strong as it should be. Hence the PRC refusal to accept any compromise on the nominal claim that it is a separate country.

As I understand, some Taiwanese politicians want to give up the pretense of being “China” and declare they are what they de facto are, a separate country. However, making this formal declaration would be seen by Beijing as an extreme further insult and deliberate provocation. Why poke the panda - it does have claws.

The most obvious manifestation of PRC’s claim for the average tourist, is that customs will confiscate any materials - maps, travel books - that hint at Taiwan (or Tibet) being separate countries - even if it’s just different colours on a map.

14

Someone should ask PRC officials what are the pros and cons of recognizing an independent Taiwan. The current one-China position can’t be advantageous to either country except for domestic political reasons,

15

To my knowledge, ROC never left the UN of its own volition. “China” is a founding member of the UN (with a permanent seat on the Security Council), and until the 1970s the prevailing interpretation was that “China” meant the ROC. So it was effectively Taiwan that held the UN membership. Then, as part of the rapprochement between Beijing and the West, the interpretation was changed such that “China” meant PRC. So ROC was bumped out, PRC took over, and the UN still maintains the view that no country ever left the UN or was expelled from it because “China” has held membership all along.

16

Fighting ignorance from a Taiwan gov website: On Oct. 25, the United Nations General Assembly passes U.N. Resolution 2758 recognizing the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the only legitimate representative of China to the global body. The ROC withdraws from the U.N.

You can’t fire me, I quit!

Second, Wikipedia states that the ROC was a founding member of the UN, and NOT the PRC.

17

Let’s look at what the UN has to say about that, shall we.

First, it lists “China” as a member since 1945, with the PRC flag. That already indicates that from the UN’s perspective, there has been an uninterrupted Chinese membership since 1945.

Second, the Charter itself lists “China”. Not PRC, not ROC, but “China”.

Third, academic scholarship in public international law only ever talks of one country purporting to withdraw from the UN, Indonesia in 1965, and even that precedent is usually ignored because Indonesia itself chose to undo it.

Such sources beat Wikipedia any time in my book. I know you’re trying to sound casual with your “Boy, does Taiwan regret withdrawing from the UN”, but trust me, it didn’t have a choice. It was swapped for PRC against its will in what “China” is.

18

Dude, not to get in a pissing contest, but the ROC was what was globally recognized as “China” in 1945. The PRC was not founded until 1949, so it is not possible that the PRC was “China” and the founding member of the UN in 1945.

The fact that a UN website lists “China” and has the PRC flag means jack as to the PRC being a founding member of the UN.

I did cite you a ROC government website that states that the ROC left when the PRC entered the UN.

19

The country of China was the founding member of the UN. The world determines which competing government which claims to be the government of a country wit a series of convoluted decisions, but sooner or later the de facto government of most of the region, not under military challenge, is the government of the country. These change. The west, led by ROC’s friend the USA, stuck its fingers in its ears and chanted “la-la-la-la” to avoid admitting that PRC had replaced ROC as the de facto government of the majority of China - but that didn’t change reality. Eventually even the USA had to admit the change had happened. The PRC had defeated the Nationalists and taken control of the country, along with the trapping of being “China”. Nixon and Kissinger were smart enough to see this, and to see that denying reality was not a productive path.

Now, as to what Taiwan should be - again, we have another situation, like earlier with the USA, where a 500-lb gorilla refuses to see reality because it offends their pride. Ironically, it’s the other way around now.

Essentially Taiwan continued at the time to claim it was “China” and the UN members did not accept that. What would have happened if they’d applied as “Taiwan” back then, who knows? But at the time, the mainland nationalists were still calling the shots and their pride refused to allow them to do so.

There are plenty of situations where assorted areas’ ownership, situation and/or independence is in dispute by some or all - Palestine, South Sudan, Western Sahara, East Timor, the Donbas, Transdniestria, Tibet. What the eventual outcome of these will be - who knows?

I suppose South Sudan is the poster child - once the country you separate from accepts the fact, it’s a fairly certain thing.

20

Yes, that’s my whole point. And because of that, ROC did not withdraw from the UN when the PRC joined, because the PRC never joined. The UN’s view is that the membership was “China”’s all along, and they replaced the Taipei regime with the Beijing regime in what “China” is. Taipei didn’t have a choice. It’s not as if the PRC joined, and then ROC said “We don’t want to be part of this club anymore”, as your statement about ROC regrets implies.