Hello everyone, welcome back to another episode of Military TV.
In today’s session, we are going to discuss the conflict between China and Taiwan and try
to see it from a historic perspective. If you are curious on this topic, do not go anywhere,
stay tuned only at this channel! Taiwan marks its national holiday on October 10,
2021, commemorating the special day with flags and parade. Among the festivity is a
bold statement by the Taiwanese President saying that the country will not ‘bow down’ to China,
and will not comply with any military advances recently made by the People’s Republic of China
(PRC) to warn Taiwan. This came as a response to Beijing’s reportedly aggressive incursion
into the air defense zone of Taiwan, an alarming message that could be understood as the PRC’s
determination to not rule out the possibility of using force in their reunification plan.
The conflict subsequently heightened by the statement made by U.S. President Joe Biden
stating that they will defend Taiwan in the event of China’s attack, inciting another response from
Beijing to ask the United States to be careful with what they say. Given the complexities of
the region and increasing tension between china and taiwan, we might ask why are china and taiwan
in conflict? How did this conflict come about? To understand the conflict between the two states,
we need to trace back the historic records as to what events severely divided the two important
entities that are known to be the communist China and democratically governed Taiwan.
Historically, Taiwan was under the Japanese rule after the conclusion of
1895 Treaty of Shimonoseki, by which Japan triumphed in the first Sino-Japanese war.
Consequently Taiwan, or officially The Republic of China (ROC) was founded in
1912 following the Xinhai revolution which ended the Qing dynasty and the imperial rule in China.
During the World War II, ROC was under the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek, the chairman
of Kuomintang who formally met with other leaders as the representative of ‘China’. In this period,
China was under the control of the nationalist Kuomintang with an authoritarian one-party state.
However, after the end of World War II, the Chinese Civil War which had begun in 1920s resumed
with the Chinese Nationalist (Kuomintang) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as
the main two belligerents. Throughout 1949, a series of Communist offensives was launched and
eventually lead to the capture of the capital city Nanjing on 23 April. The subsequent fall
of the Nationalist troops in the mainland lead to the establishment of the PRC on the 1st of
October 1949 under the leadership of Mao Zedong. Following this, on December 7, 1949 after the
loss of total four capitals, Chiang Kai-shek, the leader of the nationalist evacuated the Kuomintang
from mainland China to the tiny island of Taiwan and set Taipei to become its temporary capital,
while establishing a new government there. Among the migrants were soldiers, intellectuals and
business elites. The ROC also brought substantial amounts of national treasures and much of China’s
gold reserves and foreign currency reserves. At first, the exodus of the Kuomintang
to the Taiwan was not planned as long-term solution, as they still yearned to reunite with
mainland China and desire to unify the China with Taiwan as well as with other small territories.
This plan, however, has yet to be accomplished. Contrarily, the Communist PRC proclaimed
themselves to be the sole legitimate government of China, assuming the ROC had been long defeated.
In the period parallel to this event, the United Nations was established. China was
one of the original 51 member states of United Nations, which was created in 1945. At that time,
the internationally recognized government of China was the Chinese Nationalist under Kuomintang.
However, the ensuing Chinese Civil War has changed the political status quo within China’s territory.
As the ROC forcefully retreated to Taiwan, the control of mainland China after the year
1950 was solely owned by the communist party, just like how they proclaimed themselves to be.
Though both sides claimed to be the only legitimate Chinese government,
the physically bigger communist party quickly dominated the power over the dispute.
The issue of China then became a hot contestation in the United Nations in 1971.
On 25 October 1971, UN General Assembly passed Resolution 2758 regarding the China
issue. From this resolution, the People’s Republic of China (PRC)
officially acknowledged as the only legitimate representative of China to the United Nations
and the representative of Chiang Kai-shek was removed from the United Nations. Following this,
both China and Taiwan followed the so-called ‘One China policy’, meaning that that diplomatic
relations with China by third parties could only be established with one of the two governments.
But of course, the PRC have more diplomatic relations with countries around the world, with
its economic supremacy, contrasted with Taiwan who only has 15 countries who recognized them
as the legitimate China’s government. However, many of the countries who has sided with the
PRC would still maintain informal relations with Taiwan through representative offices.
Up until now, Taiwan who is internationally has a debatable status as a country is still trying
to participate in the UN, especially with the endorsement from the US. This effort,
nonetheless, would usually be stopped by China, as a powerful security council member.
With the intensifying tension between two Chinas, the PRC under Xi Jinping
expressed his intention on the unification and that they will not hesitate to resort to the
military in their attempt to reunite with Taiwan. Cited from various sources, Xi also stated anyone
advocating for Taiwan's independence would be "condemned to history," while reiterating calls
for peaceful unification of Taiwan with China. On the other side, President Joe Biden said in
his recent statement that they are willing to help Taiwan in the event of China attacks, implying the
end of the long-held ‘strategic ambiguity’ on the China issue. However, this statement was quickly
clarified by the White House, affirming that the US’ policy on China remains unchanged. So far,
the US relations with Taiwan has been largely guided by the Taiwan Relations Act, which
allows U.S. to funnel military support to Taiwan without sacrificing its relations with the PRC.
Taiwan President Tsai-Ing Wen has called for allies to support Taiwan.
“They should remember that if Taiwan were to fall, the consequences would be catastrophic
for regional peace and the democratic alliance system,” she said in October 2021.
But the Taiwanese government has maintained an ambiguous position on its international
status to keep the peace. The government has preferred to defend the status quo,
which means it operates separately from China, and this stance by the president of Taiwan is
arguably due to the fact that they don’t want to incite a real military confrontation with
China and because she knows such decision will give birth to a series of complicated
situation that will not only endanger China and Taiwan but also the region.
However, looking at China’s aggressive advances towards Taiwan and a record number of war planes
being sent into Taiwan air defense area, it seems like China do not want to keep the status quo for
a longer period of time. What do you think? Don’t forget to drop your comment below.
That’s all for today, thank you for watching! References: