I always hear about the CHicoms claiming that Taiwan is a breakaway province of China, and that someday there will be “reunification”.
Now, all I know about Taiwan is that the Nationalist Chinese fled to the island to escape the Chicoms who were seizing control. I was under the impression that the island was a sovereign nation of sorts. Am I wrong? Was Taiwan or Formosa ever officially a part of China? And I’m not talking about territory that was claimed by China, I mean an official part of China.
It was annexed to China in 1683, but the island had been more-or-less under Chinese control for a few decades before that. In 1895, China ceded it to Japan after a brief war, and in 1945 Japan ceded it back to China after WWII.
There are many different ways to approach this question. One is if whether Taiwan was/is a province of China. It was, officially that is, for less than ten years when the Emperor declared it one – to keep dibs on it from Japan. As mentioned in an above post, that didn’t work.
Last time I went back to Taiwan, I was in Tainan. There’s quite a bit of forts there (mostly from the Dutch). Formosa means “beautiful land” in Portuguese, I believe – although, I think the roots of the word are Latin. During those times (17th century on), China would occasionally send troops to ward off the Dutch etc., but I don’t think a government was really set up (or at the very least, it’s not clear).
It important to note that both the Communist and Nationalist government recognized that Tiawan is an integral part of Tiawan.
The nationalist government was keeping up the premise that they were the real government of China and just based out of Tiawan. And would eventually return to the mainland. So Tiawan was both a province of CHINA and the seat of the Republic of China as a whole.
I don’t know if they still go by this (the Nationalists that is)
Taiwan was generally where government officers were sent to exile. Much like Hainan Island.
Also for the past few centuries the Hakka and Fujian (Fukien) fisherman went across the Taiwan straight and settled in the Taiwan coastal areas on the eastern coast. Interestingly enough, very few of these people have close ties to the Mainland where they came from.
Post WW2, the Allied (of whom China was one) consensus was that Taiwan was part of China.
Since 1949, the government in Taiwan and China have both claimed to be part of China. In fact, up until about a decade ago when Chiang Ching-kuo (Chiang Kai-shek’s son) died, the government in Taiwan claimed to be the legitimate government for all of China and Mongolia. Since Chiang Ching-kuo died, there has been a lot of backpedaling. It has also been the view of the Democratic Progressive Party that Taiwan is a sovereign nation seperate from China and with no claims to legitimacy over China. But this is a relatively “recent” development. Taiwan President and leader of the DPP Chen Shui-bian has been treading a fine line between pushing outright independance and real politik.
Chicom is a disengenious word. Cold war mentality and really inappropriate in this day and age. Zhou Enlai actually was instrumental in getting the wire servies to stop this practice about 30 years ago. I mean, you don’t call it the Republican United States or Tory Great Britan do you?
The Chinese are veeeery patient. They seem content to allow the status quo to continue indefitely. Everone is making money. It is not in anyone’s interest to rock the boat.
I might call them such if being a Democrat in the US or a Laborite in the UK would likely get your skull crushed in an unfortunately fatal fall out of a one-storey building.
