Dec 10, 20226 min read

The History Of Taiwan

What We Should Know About Taiwan

As an active global citizen, you may be familiar with the region Taiwan and have heard about the controversy around it. This article aims to provide a thorough review of what happened in history regarding the issue. While I could not be 100% neutral on this topic as a Chinese citizen myself, I’ve tried to present to you the perspectives from both sides.

The Taiwan region is located near Mainland China to the northwest, Hong Kong to the southwest, the Philippines to the south, and Japan to the northeast. With its central position in Asia, it is aptly nicknamed the “Heart of Asia”. Indeed, just like how a heart is the primary organ of our circulatory system, Taiwan plays a significant role in the world economy. As the world’s largest producer of the processor chips, "Taiwan matters far more to the world economy than its 1% share of global GDP would indicate," Gareth Leather, Senior Economist in the Emerging Asia team at Capital Economics, wrote in a note.

With such economic significance, the controversy around Taiwan’s sovereignty has caught the eye of the world. To make sense of this, we have to understand more about the Chinese Civil War and its historic legacy. Fought between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Kuomintang (ROC), the war started in 1927. The war unofficially stopped from 1937 as the two parties jointly fought the Second World War against Japan, though the inimical relationship remained. After Japan’s surrender in 1945, the CCP gained the upper hand in the war that resumed from 1945 to 1949. Afterwards, the Communists gained control of mainland China and established the People's Republic of China in 1949, forcing the leadership of the Republic of China to retreat to the island of Taiwan. Since then, Taiwan has not truly unified with Mainland China and there has been a particular obdurate dispute over the legitimate government of Taiwan.

Let’s first take a look at the Chinese narrative. The PRC's One-China principle states that Taiwan and mainland China are both part of China, and that the PRC is the only legitimate government of China. Besides the fact that the ROC was defeated in the Chinese Civil War, the main justification behind this narrative is the thousands of years of cultural bond between Mainland China and Taiwan. Since the Three Kingdoms period from 220 to 280 AD, the development of shipbuilding and navigation helped with the establishment of economic and cultural bonds between the two regions. One of the most cited pieces of evidence is the Seaboard Geographic Gazetteer written by Shen Ying roughly in 268-280 being the first book that ever recorded the existence and geographical situation in Taiwan. Throughout the different dynasties, this bond remained through the exchange of culture, religion and medical technologies as well as the administrative power that the emperors had over Taiwan. Most remarkably, the Qing dynasty formally annexed Taiwan in May 1684. This dominion lasted until the Japanese Occupation and is used by the PRC to prove that Taiwan has always been a part of China. This view is further supported by International Law which states that states may acquire new territory through the occupation of terra nullius (Latin: “the land of no one”)—i.e. land not under the sovereignty or control of any other state or socially or politically organised grouping; or by prescription, where a state acquires territory that has experienced a continued period of uncontested sovereignty. With the complex and fluid international political situation, the UN expelled the ROC and transferred China's seat to the PRC in 1971. This, along with the recognition of PRC as the only legitimate Chinese government by many countries, strengthens this narrative and One-China policy remains the core policy on the issue of Taiwan by the Chinese government.

Of course, to justify the PRC’s sovereignty over Taiwan is not that easy. The Republic of China (ROC), commonly known as Taiwan, has full diplomatic relations with 13 of the 193 United Nations member states and with the Holy See (Vatican City). In addition to these relations, the ROC also maintains unofficial relations with 58 UN member states. So why is Taiwan still recognised by some countries, be it officially or unofficially? Actually, the International Law also supports this side of the story by saying that self-determination denotes the legal right of people to decide their own destiny in the international order. After Taiwan’s democratisation in the late 20th century, a referendum was brought to the table. As such, the current Taiwan government consists of democratically elected President and Vice President. Additionally, Taiwan also operates like a state in terms of military power with the Republic of China Armed Forces consisting of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Military Police Force. Undoubtedly, the military has been proven to be the most crucial tool to ensure the sovereignty of a nation-state.

Speaking of Taiwan’s military force, we must also bring in another historical actor – the United States, who is Taiwan’s primary military backer. As a matter of fact, the Taiwan controversy is never just an issue between the aforementioned two parties, and America also plays a significant role in the course of events. In the aftermath of the CCP’s victory in the civil war, three Taiwan Strait Crisis marked the highest points of tensions, and it is not hard to spot the White House’s influences as these crises unfolded. The first Taiwan Strait Crisis took place in 1954, one year after the Korean War. As the threat in the Korean Peninsula was under control, the CCP sought an opportunity to focus on reunification with Taiwan. The Mutual Defense Treaty signed between the US and the ROC came in with the intention to defend the island of Taiwan from invasion by the PRC, which further exacerbated the regional conflict. As the fundamental problem is still there (even till today), military buildups finally led to the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis three years later. In this conflict, the PRC shelled the islands of Kinmen (Quemoy) and the Matsu Islands along the east coast of mainland China (in the Taiwan Strait) to liberate Taiwan from the ROC; and to probe the extent of the United States defence of Taiwan's territory. Unfortunately, this conflict with massive bombings from both sides only came to an end in 1979 when the US officially established diplomatic relations with the PRC, and this also shows the important role that the US as well as the Cold War context played. Yet even with the recognition of diplomatic status of the PRC government, the US Congress agreed to grant the ROC President Lee Teng-hui a visa to attend his university reunion in the US as long as it was handled as a private visit in 1995. Even though it was a so-called private visit, the PRC government took Lee’s demand for a better diplomatic environment for Taiwan in his speech at Cornell University as a signal of his discontentment of the status quo and an attempt to search for independence. Consequently, a series of missile tests conducted by the PRC in the waters surrounding Taiwan went into effect. This incident may remind you of what happened recently – the Nancy Pelosi’s Taiwan visit in 2022. As the highest-ranking US official to visit Taiwan in 25 years, Pelosi’s visit has definitely brought the tension to the next level.

As I recall, many Singaporean students tried to keep abreast of the information pertaining to this unprecedented visit about this unprecedented visit. So what is Singapore’s stance on the whole complicated conflict between the two parties (or maybe three parties)? In 2004, Lee Hsien Loong’s visit to Taiwan was unsurprisingly thwarted by the PRC, a transcript of questions and answers with him recorded that he asserted that “Singapore consistently maintains a ‘One China’ policy and opposes independence for Taiwan” while also explaining that “Singapore's relations with China are based on equality and mutual respect. … But to call off the trip at China's request would have undermined our right to make independent decisions…”. From this we also can see that Singapore undoubtedly adheres to the One-China policy but does not and will never break economic ties with Taiwan just because of the hostility between Mainland China and Taiwan.

John Dingell once said that “War is failure of diplomacy”. Even with all the historical legacy in the Cross-Strait relationship, one thing that we all believe in is the importance of peace, because the ultimate goal of any government shall always be fulfilling people’s yearning for a better life – a life that is certainly not filled with bombings.

Written by: Li Jiahan (22A14)

Edited by: Foo Wei Ting Ember (22A15), Khoo Kia Song Kendrick (22A14)

References:

The History Of Taiwan

Recent Posts

Comments

Reach out to us here!