In another thread over in GQ, I described the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan as two separate countries. I’m aware that both Beijing and Taipei claim on paper to be the rightful government of the whole shooting match, but for all practical purposes, China and Taiwan are two distinct nation-states with some unsettled business between them.
What am I missing? What claim does Taiwan have to the PRC, or vice-versa, in 2015?
Taiwan claims to still be the Republic of China, the entity that replaced the Chinese Empire. Mainland China’s government claims to be the People’s Republic of China, the entity that represents the people of China and which overthrew the corrupt Republic of China government. Basically, it depends on your viewpoint which claim is legitimate.
To further complicate matters, both the PRC and the ROC essentially treat each other as foreign countries, but with certain differences in the way that they treat other countries regarding diplomacy, including treaties and travel between the two Chinese governments.
Neither side wants the PRC to go “ballistic” (term used advisedly) and that’s why the ROC side does not press the issue of claiming independence.
Ever since Taiwan’s Mr. Democracy, Lee Teng-hui, became president in 1988, that claim is no longer made by Taiwan, either openly or in the hearts of the people. Irridentism now only comes from the Chinese side.
Taiwan is de facto independent, but its thermonuclear neighbor credibly threatens war should it declare de jure independence. Therefore, Taiwanese politicians are forced to lie about the obvious fact of the nation’s independence. Much of the debating between the two main Taiwanese political parties concern what is the safest way to tell the lie.
It is impossible to tell the amazing story of Taiwan’s twentieth century history in a post. First Japanese, then Chinese, now Taiwanese is the six word summary.
For more, this book (and this newspaper web site) is where to start:
Pretty much what Monty said. But if you feel like spending 5 minutes on a YouTube video (it’s actually pretty good), this one explains it as well.
They are forced to make that claim.
One political party does it a lot more willingly – the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). That’s because, historically, the KMT and the Republic of China are synonymous. The other major party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), uses the Republic of China phrase only grudgingly. The DPP – the major party everyone knows wants formal independence the most, but can’t say it – is now out of office. But the DPP is overwhelmingly ahead in polls for the presidential and legislative elections scheduled for January 16, 2016.
Here’s one indication of how superficial and forced is the Republic of China/KMT party line: After KMT party leader, and President, Lee Teng-hui, who served from 1988 to 2000, left office, he no longer felt a need to maintain the Republic of China facade. So he promptly joined the openly pro-Independence Taiwan Solidarity Union party. Hardly anyone votes for that party – for fear of what China would do if it won.
One way to think about this is to look at the differences and similarities between the situations of Israel and Taiwan. Both face international legitimacy issues resulting in few or no embassies in their capital. Both were invaded by neighboring armies in the late 1940’s. The Israelis won what we now call the Israeli War of Independence. Big difference: The Taiwanese lost in their uprising against Chinese invaders, a short sharp war now generally given the inglorious title 228 Incident.
During the decades that followed, the local Taiwanese gradually co-opted the invaders, partly through wide-spread intermarriage. Because there are big cultural similarities between Taiwan and China, and because of widespread intermarriage between mainlander and local families, Taiwan has no internal ethnic conflict anywhere near as fraught as that in Israel between Jew and Israeli Arabs. But both face serious threats from one or more bigger neighbors – threats they counter with modernized armies based on, to a greater or lesser extent, American weapons technology.
One Israel/Taiwan difference is that Taiwan doesn’t face anything like the West Bank or Gaza. But even there, a slight parallel exists with Taiwan’s control of Kinmen and Matsu Islands, traditionally real parts of China.
Would Taiwanese want to because one with China if China became democratic? Not likely. Here I would think about Canada and the United States. Both have a lot of cultural similarities. And America’s president is roughly twice as popular as Canada’s prime minister – in Canada. This creates no groundswell of Canadians wanting to merge with the US. The US permanently lost any chance for that when it invaded Canada in 1812-13, just as China did when it invaded Taiwan in 1947-49.
Can there be three? Or more? Let 1,000 Chinas bloom!
:eek: THERE CAN BE ONLY ONNNNEEEEEEE!!!
They tried that in the fourth century BC. It didn’t work out so well.
Taiwanese businesses also play along. China Airlines (which is the flag carrier of the Republic of China) had to remove the Republic of China flag from its planes in order to be allowed to land in mainland China, Hong Kong or Macau. Also PRC does not recognise ROC passports, instead ROC Citizens are issued a “Mainland travel permit”. Flights between PRC and ROC are counted as domestic flights, not international ones.
Taiwan may never “want” to become unified with mainland China, but IMO that is still the most likely outcome long term. It might take another 50 years but ROC is never going to accept Taiwan being independent and the richer and more developed mainland China gets the more advantages there will be to a “one China, Two Systems” unification.
Pro-independence sentiment is rising in Taiwan and the DPP (the pro-independence party) candidate is holding a huge lead in the polls. The election’s less than 4 months away.
The DPP party was in power from 2000-2008 and they did not declare independence. Their current policy seems to be “we don’t need to declare independence because we already are de facto independent”. In other words they will continue the status quo indefinitely.
The ROC has almost nothing to gain by declaring independence, they effectively already have diplomatic relations with many countries, they’re just called “economic and cultural offices” instead of Embassies. ROC Passports are accepted almost everywhere. In short as long as they play along with the fiction that they’re not really a country they get almost all the benefits of independence, including easy access to the mainland China market and permission to reside in mainland China and start businesses there. Even without a war, mainland China could cripple ROC with economic sanctions, denying all overflight rights, withdrawing Chinese investment in ROC etc etc.
No matter who wins the elections the status quo will continue, its just a difference over one side thinking they should eventually unify and one side wanting to maintain the current status forever.
They effectively have diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China. They just don’t call the people involved diplomats.
The PRC issues a special card to the Taiwan “resident” (citizen), said card basically being a passport for travel to the PRC.
From time to time, that threat rears its head, but it won’t come to fruition for a very good reason: it will also kill the PRC economy.
Basically, the people who count on both sides of the straight realize that the status quo is in their best interests and in the best interests of both the mainland and Taiwan.
I think the British Commonwealth model is more in the interests of both sides. If the PRC offered such true free association, with dedication to human rights as well as economic ones, and without infringement of sovereignty, Taiwan would be foolish to humiliate a newly democratic mainland by turning it down.
Would Tibet, and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, then want free association? Maybe. Let them vote on it, as Scotland did last year.
I am several Chinas myself.
I see what you did there.
I don’t see the ROC unifying with mainland China under the tender auspices of ‘one China, Two Systems’ since that doesn’t seem to be working out all that well for Hong Kong, which the Taiwanese are watching carefully to see a model for their own potential future.
No frigging kidding. I don’t see how anyone could think that’s likely as long as the U.S. is still onside with Taiwan.
First of all, I wouldn’t describe the US as onside with Taiwan. No diplomatic recognition and support for, at best, second class membership in international organizations doesn’t sound like onside to me. Arms sales? The US government blocks a large portion of purchases that Taiwan would make at full price. True in the last administration, and true in this one:
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/national/national-news/2015/01/08/425974/Taiwan-seeks.htm
Are you suggesting that Hong Kong can’t have democratic local elections because the US doesn’t, as Beijing requests, slap an undeserved full arms embargo on peaceful Taiwan? Probably that’s not what you mean, but what do you mean?
[QUOTE=PhillyGuy]
First of all, I wouldn’t describe the US as onside with Taiwan. No diplomatic recognition and support for, at best, second class membership in international organizations doesn’t sound like onside to me. Arms sales? The US government blocks a large portion of purchases that Taiwan would make at full price. True in the last administration, and true in this one:
[/QUOTE]
No one, including China, thinks the US will leave Taiwan out to dry if it comes to a conflict with China. Basically, the US policy towards Taiwan is deliberately vague and nebulous. That doesn’t mean we wouldn’t support them in a conflict, however.
Huh? I mean that the main land China has been doing some evil shit wrt Hong Kong despite the supposed ‘one China, Two Systems’ policy. In effect, main land China has been crushing any sort of democracy in Hong Kong and bringing them in line with the rest of the country (here are a couple more videos I’m sure no one will ever watch), despite the fact that they agreed to allow Hong Kong a large amount of self determination and autonomy under the Chinese system when it was turned over to them. This fact is not lost on the Taiwanese who would have to figure that if it’s happening in Hong Kong it’s going to happen to them as well if they were ever stupid enough to decide to be under China’s less than tender mercies.
What are you getting at? The US has just about zero to do with democratic local elections in Hong Kong, embargo or no embargo (or really anything else).
I agree with that. My question was for CarnalK, not yourself.
This is about right.
The US would be under a lot pressure from internal public opinion to do more than sanctions. It might not lead to US military involvement right away, but could set that up for the next increment of PRC expansion. This, of course, relates to the recent Graham Allinson/war with China thread.