Understand China Taiwan Conflict

A recent visit of the US top official Nancy Pelosi sends shock waves throughout mainland China, and in response to the visit, Chinese President Xi Jinping lambasts the US for interfering in the China-Taiwan matter. Soon after the visit, China launched its military exercises in the Taiwanese strait. Consequently, Taiwan also answered aggressively to Chinese intrusion.

So what are the reasons behind the tension between China and Taiwan, and why China doesn’t want any state to interfere in that matter?

Pre Sino-Japanese war, the Island named Taiwan was ruled by the Qing Dynasty along with mainland China. When the war with Japan broke out in 1895 over the territorial issue of the Korean peninsula, the Japanese army took complete control of Taiwan. The huge defeat of the Qing Dynasty by Japan, jolted the local public to turn against the long rule of the Qing Dynasty. Moreover, the public was demanding for long modernization and reforms in China. However, the conservatives in the Qing dynasty remained against western type modernization.

The year 1911, local uprisings were unleashed fiercely and turned into a massive-scale revolt known as the “Xinhai Revolution.” The revolution is marked as one of the most important events in the history of China. A new government was formed on the promises of modernization, and China was named the Republic of China (ROC). However, after a decade, new kinds of revolutionary uprisings were started in 1927, which were demanding communist ways of governing. The protagonist of the communist revolution was Mao Zedong. Now the situation was at its odds because on one side there was a strong voice of communism, and on the other hand, many people were anti-communist and favored the established rule.

The opposite sides fueled the environment of civil war in China, which started in 1927, and reached its end in 1947 when finally, Mao Zedong brought communism to the whole of mainland China. As above mentioned that Taiwan was under the control of Japan, but when the Allied power won the theater of world war 2, the island of Taiwan was returned to the Chinese. However, the proponents of the PRC had witnessed their defeat by the communist Chinese. Resultantly, they escaped to Taiwan and established their rule there.

The victors of world war 2 secured the Veto power in the security council. Along with the USA, France, Britain, and Russia, the Republic of China (Taiwan) was also enjoying the veto power status because they were considered the sole proprietor of Chinese identity. On the other hand, mainland China, where the communist rule was going on, and the state was named as People’s republic of china (PRC) was not granted official recognition globally. Till the 1970s, PRC was taken as part of Taiwanese China. However, at the start of the 1970s, things started changing when mainland China (where the majority of Chinese were residing) was recognized as the representative of Chinese identity. For this reason, a resolution was passed in the United Nation and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was granted official recognition of China. In this way, the veto power status was also transferred to (PRC).

However, the dilemma was still in existence whether China and Taiwan are single unified states or Taiwan is a separate independent nation based on the concept of self-determinism. In the current scenario, China maintains its sharp rhetoric of one-china policy and asks for peaceful unification of the whole of China. On the other hand, the Taiwanese want to enjoy their complete independent status and are unwilling to any kind of unification process.