Tag: taiwan

China is furious after a State Department fact sheet on Taiwan has been updated. The new updated version has dropped a line which previously stated “we do not support Taiwan independence.”

The State Department has downplayed it as a “routine” update to its online fact sheet on American relations with Taiwan. The change happened last week, but has now triggered a strong rebuke from Beijing, which fears Washington is changing its official long-running policy of not officially endorsing effots toward Taiwan political independence and sovereignty.

The fact sheet still displays a US commitment to ‘One China’ – but still the Chinese Foreign Ministry has on Monday called on the Trump administration to “immediately correct its mistakes” over the removal of the line.

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When in the 1970s it became increasingly clear Taipei and its allies in the United States were no longer going to be able to postpone Washington’s recognition of the Chinese Communist Party government in Beijing, the longtime dictator of Taiwan, Chiang Kai-shek, grasped for a solution to the problem of how his regime was to survive de-recognition as the official government of China.

The answer? Democratization.

This strategy, which his successors embraced and ultimately fulfilled over the course of the 1980s and 1990s, proved far-sighted.

Taiwan’s democratization process began in the late 1970s, marking a significant shift from decades of authoritarian rule under the Kuomintang (KMT). The death of Chiang Kai-shek in 1975 and the ascension of his son, Chiang Ching-kuo, initiated gradual political liberalization. In the late 1970s, internal and external pressures, including Taiwan’s diplomatic isolation following the United Nations’ recognition of the People’s Republic of China, forced the KMT to consider reforms.

In 1986, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was formed, despite the ongoing martial law. This was a critical moment, as it was the first opposition party allowed in Taiwan since the KMT’s rule began. In 1987, Chiang Ching-kuo lifted martial law, which had been in place since 1949, signaling the beginning of a more open political environment.

Following Chiang Ching-kuo’s death in 1988, his successor, Lee Teng-hui, further advanced democratic reforms. Under Lee’s leadership, Taiwan saw the end of the “Temporary Provisions Effective During the Period of National Mobilization for Suppression of the Communist Rebellion” in 1991, which had allowed the KMT to govern without elections. Lee also oversaw the first direct presidential election in 1996, in which he won, solidifying Taiwan’s transition to a full democracy.

By the late 1990s, Taiwan had established a multi-party system with regular, competitive elections, marking a successful transition from one-party rule to a vibrant democracy.

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Given that official Washington seems increasingly determined to fight Beijing over Taiwan, concerned Americans are right to wonder: how did the question of Taiwan come to be of such purported importance to these global powers?

While several closer islands, such as the Penghu (or the Pescadores as they are now known), were incorporated into the Chinese polity during the period of Ming blue water exploration in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, Formosa (or Taiwan as it came to be known) never was.

After shuttering its large scale naval activities in the mid-fifteenth century, the Ming were thereafter largely content to let the rival trading companies of the Portuguese and Dutch quarrel for influence on Formosa, where trade revolved around tea and camphor.

In an odd bit of history repeating itself, the island first became a central focus of a ruling mainland Chinese regime as a result of a civil war that needed concluding: displaced by the invading Manchurian forces (the eventual Qing), in 1661 what remained of the Han, Ming ruling clique retreated to Formosa. It was following their ultimate defeat in 1683 that Formosa started to become ethically and administratively integrated into China (a process completed around a century later).

Despite its import as a trading hub in the centuries thereafter, when the Japanese took possession of Formosa at the end of the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-95), per the terms of the Treaty Shimonoseki (1885), the island’s new rulers found a society, economy, and polity virtually untouched by modernity.

And while initially brutal, putting down an anti-Japanese insurgency of emigre Han Chinese and native Taiwanese, the Japanese colonial administration of the island, which lasted until the end of World War II, would see the island transformed into an educated, urbanized, and rationalized society with living standards far higher than on the mainland.

Despite the increasing gap, most Taiwanese, whose cultural links with the mainland were still strong, were open to rejoining mainland China when the war finally ended—although it is worth noting that this willingness proved short-lived, the Kuomintang (KMT) regime needing to viciously suppress a mass uprising against its terrible misrule in 1947.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt, at whose feet a great deal of blame for a whole host of problems may be laid, also laid the foundation stone for misadventure in dealing with China, including Taiwan.

Indeed, while there was a reasonable possibility that Taiwan could have been its own independent country at the end of the Second World War, it was FDR and his successor, Harry Truman, who ensured this would not happen.

Ignoring the wisdom of multiple of his predecessors, who had refused to get involved either in internal Chinese squabbles or its feuds with neighboring Japan, FDR began supporting the KMT regime of Chiang Kai-Shek.

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With 5 months remaining until the November elections, candidates Joe Biden and Donald Trump have, over the last few months, staked out positions on key issues on the geopolitical stage. One of the more noteworthy examples was Trump’s acquiescent opinion given to reporters about how Congressional Republicans could get behind the controversial military aid package passed in May.

Another flashpoint was Joe Biden’s recent comments on whether the United States would militarily intervene if China launched an attack against Taiwan.

In an interview with TIME, Biden gave his best shot at “clarifying” his position on the use of American bodies, ships, and planes to defend Taiwan

“It would depend on the circumstances. You know, by the way, I’ve made clear to Xi Jinping that we agree with—we signed on to previous presidents going way back—to the policy of, that, it is we are not seeking independence for Taiwan nor will we, in fact, not defend Taiwan if they if, if China unilaterally tries to change the status. And so we’re continuing to supply capacity. And, and we’ve been in consultation with our allies in the region,” said the President.

When asked to re-clarify if he is not ruling out US troops being deployed, he responded that he was “not ruling out using US military force,” adding that there “is a distinction between deploying on the ground, air power and naval power, etc.”

It’s no secret that Biden has difficulty communicating as exhibited by the constant mistakes and loss of thought train in the TIME interview, but this section underlines the consequences of that as regards a conflict that would take place over 8,000 miles away and 12 hours from Washington.

It’s a conflict where Washington’s opponent sits one-eightieth of that distance away from their target, and where POTUS has moments to decide how to respond to a conflict that’s predicted to be decided itself in just moments.

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