China's Taiwan Policy: History, Legal Status, and Future

Introduction

China — the most populous country in the world — has exhibited remarkably high levels of sustained economic growth in the two decades since it reformed its economy following the death of Mao Zedong in 1976. According to some analysts, the country is poised to become the number one economy in the world sometime in the mid-twenty-first century. There are, however, certain political issues that may affect China's rightful role in future world affairs. One of them is the "Taiwan affair" — a problem that has defied a satisfactory resolution ever since the Communist forces defeated the Kuomintang (KMT) in the Chinese Civil War in 1949 and Chiang Kai-shek retreated to Taiwan along with two million of his supporters from mainland China. The political status of Taiwan — or the Republic of China (ROC) — has, since that time, been a source of concern for China as well as the rest of the world.

This research paper takes a detailed look at the Taiwan issue by tracing its background and history, outlining the legal position of Taiwan, examining the changes in China's Taiwan policy over the years, the strategy adopted by Taiwan in dealing with its larger neighbor, and how the rest of the world views the issue. It also analyzes how far the issue is likely to affect China's future role in world affairs.

To understand Communist China's policy toward Taiwan, it is necessary to examine the legal status of Taiwan and its recent history.

Recent History and Legal Status of Taiwan

Taiwan was a province of China under the Qing Dynasty but was permanently ceded to Japan in 1895 under the Treaty of Shimonoseki at the end of the First Sino-Japanese War. Not long thereafter, the Republic of China succeeded the Qing Dynasty in 1912 after almost 2,000 years of imperial rule. Its rule in mainland China, however, remained unsettled as a number of warlords seized control of much of northern China; a civil war was fought between the Communists and the Nationalists from 1926 to 1949, and the Japanese invaded China in 1937, resulting in the Second Sino-Japanese War. At the start of that war, the ROC declared the Treaty of Shimonoseki "null and void." The Sino-Japanese War merged into the Second World War, and at the Cairo Conference held in 1943 by the Allied powers, it was decided that Taiwan would be returned to China at the end of the war (Pannell).

When Japan surrendered unconditionally, Japanese troops in Taiwan handed over its administration to ROC military forces as per the terms of the Potsdam Declaration. The Chinese KMT administration was perceived as repressive, which led to friction between the Chinese mainlanders and the local Taiwanese and an uprising in February 1947 known as the 228 Incident. Some Taiwanese who wanted Taiwan to remain independent appealed to the United States and the United Nations to intervene, arguing that Japan had not formally transferred sovereignty over the island and that it was still legally part of Japan, which was then occupied by Allied forces. The proposed intervention was rejected by the United States, and the ROC administration was able to crush the rebellion by force (Ibid.).

In the meantime, the Chinese Civil War on the mainland ended with the defeat of the Kuomintang Nationalists by the Communists, and the ROC government led by Chiang Kai-shek fled to the island of Taiwan in December 1949, where it established its provisional capital in Taipei. The ROC government continued to regard itself as the sole legitimate government of China, while the Communists proclaimed the People's Republic of China (PRC) and claimed to be the successor state of the ROC over all of China. The PRC condemned the Nationalist government in Taiwan as illegitimate and planned to invade the island. Communist plans were, however, frustrated by the United States, which sent naval forces to defend the island in 1950.

When Japan regained sovereignty in 1952, it renounced all claims over Taiwan and the Pescadores. Both the ROC and the PRC — the two major claimants of Taiwan — were not invited to the peace conference that determined the terms of Japan's sovereignty. The de facto rule of the ROC over Taiwan continued, and subsequently the ROC and Japan signed the Treaty of Taipei in 1952, reaffirming the terms of the Treaty of San Francisco. The ROC and the United States also signed a mutual defense treaty in 1954, in which the United States agreed to defend Taiwan militarily if the Communist regime on mainland China attacked. The legal position of Taiwan therefore remained unclear — as it does to this day — with the PRC, the ROC, and the Taiwanese independence movement each holding their own interpretation of Taiwan's legal status (Lee 84).

Chiang Kai-shek cleverly exploited the Cold War preoccupations of the Western powers, who wanted to block the spread of Communism at all costs, and strengthened Taiwan's economy and military with the help of massive aid from the United States. As a result, industrial production in Taiwan rose by 300% in the first decade of its existence; exports tripled and imports doubled. The island became a model of modern economic development, with a growth rate far above that of most other Asian economies, and was showcased as an example of the superiority of capitalism over communism by the Western powers (Pannell).

Until the mid-1960s, Taiwan enjoyed wide diplomatic recognition throughout the world and a booming economy. More governments around the world — including the United Nations — recognized the ROC as the legitimate government of China rather than the PRC. Such international support, along with a thriving economy, allowed Chiang Kai-shek to consolidate his political power, and he continued to head a one-party authoritarian government in Taiwan.

Gradually, however, more and more countries began to form diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China. Since the PRC would not maintain formal ties with any country that recognized the ROC, Taiwan began to lose international support.

In the early 1970s, the United States decided to seek closer ties with Communist China, and the People's Republic was given China's seat in the United Nations after Taiwan's expulsion from the world body. Several other nations followed the lead of the United States and the UN, shifting their diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to the mainland Communist government. The Communist government in Beijing followed a hard-line policy on Taiwan and would not maintain diplomatic relations with any country that recognized Taiwan or had diplomatic ties with its government. Hence, when the United States formalized its diplomatic relations with mainland China in 1979, it had to cut off its diplomatic ties with Taiwan. Despite the ending of formal diplomatic relations, trade relations between the two countries continued unabated, and Taiwan's economy thrived, becoming one of the "Asian tiger" economies in the 1990s. In 1980, the United States–Taiwan defense treaty of 1954 lapsed, and only a handful of nations — mostly African and South American countries — continued to maintain diplomatic relations with Taiwan thereafter.

China's Three-Pronged Policy Toward Taiwan

When the Communists defeated the Nationalists in the Chinese Civil War, they proclaimed the establishment of the People's Republic of China and claimed to be the successor state of the ROC over all of China, including Taiwan. Since the Communist government was prevented from invading Taiwan and forcibly ejecting the ROC government from the island by U.S. intervention, the PRC has followed a three-pronged policy toward Taiwan while consistently proclaiming that Taiwan was an integral part of China. In order to achieve its objective of reunification, it has pursued a policy of military offense, diplomatic offense, and peaceful offense.

The PRC first contemplated the use of military force for "reunifying" China and Taiwan in 1950. Its plans for invading Taiwan by launching an amphibious operation across the Taiwan Strait were frustrated by the outbreak of the Korean War and a subsequent change in the United States' "hands-off" policy on Taiwan. President Truman's deployment of the Seventh Fleet to prevent a Communist Chinese attack on Taipei effectively precluded the option of a military offensive for some time (Lee 1). The signing of the Mutual Defense Treaty in December 1954 between Washington and Taipei further demonstrated to the PRC that the United States was serious about preventing a military attack on Taiwan.

The inability of the PRC to exercise the military option forced it to seek other policy alternatives for the reunification of China.

After realizing that the military offensive was not viable, the People's Republic of China launched an all-out diplomatic offensive. This included an intensive use of propaganda broadcasts, infiltration of agents, and mobilization of support among overseas Chinese against the ROC. More importantly, the PRC conducted an effective diplomatic campaign to gain admission to the United Nations and to unseat Taiwan from that body. For some time, the United States prevented this from materializing by using the Korean War as an excuse and depicting China as an aggressive nation. China, too, became bogged down in its internal affairs and the pursuit of radical reforms such as the Cultural Revolution and a period of self-imposed isolation.

Eventually, after the election of Richard Nixon as President of the United States, relations between China and the United States began to improve. China remained steadfast in its position regarding Taiwan, and the United States conceded by diluting its all-out support for the ROC. President Nixon's withdrawal of the Seventh Fleet from the Taiwan Strait and his declaration in July 1971 that he would visit Communist China the following year were decisive signals that the United States was no longer opposed to China's admission to the United Nations at Taiwan's expense. As a result, when the United Nations General Assembly met in October 1971 to debate the question of China's admission, the outcome was a foregone conclusion. Previously, the PRC had successfully established diplomatic relations with France in 1964 and with Canada in 1970, but its admission to the UN in 1971 opened the floodgates of diplomatic recognition by a number of countries.

Having achieved a major success in its diplomatic offensive by being recognized as the "sole legitimate government" of China, the PRC could now afford to pursue a peace offensive (Lee 3–5).

China's Premier Zhou Enlai had indicated as early as 1955 at the Bandung Conference that his country was willing to take the "peaceful" option in "liberating" Taiwan. Mao also mentioned China's interest in "a third CCP-KMT alliance" during the Eighth Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in April 1957. The "peaceful" Chinese proposals did not make much headway with Taiwan, however, as China's other moves during the 1950s and 1960s — such as its military offensive during the second Taiwan Strait crisis of 1958 and the internal upheavals of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution — did not match its declared peaceful intentions. Furthermore, Taiwan considered itself to be in a strong position as long as it enjoyed U.S. support and felt no real need to respond to China's peaceful overtures.

Only after the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, the purging of the "Gang of Four," and the rehabilitation of Deng Xiaoping did China resume its peace offensive on Taiwan. Significantly, China now replaced the phrase peaceful "liberation" with peaceful "reunification." Deng, while speaking to a foreign correspondent in November 1978, conceded: "after a peaceful reunification of the country is achieved, Taiwan may still retain non-socialist economic and social systems" (quoted in Lee 6). This was a major departure from the hard-line stance of the Mao era, when the primary aim of the Chinese Communist regime was to spread the revolution.

Since that time, China has pursued the "peaceful reunification" policy by putting forward the concept of "one country, two systems." In its White Paper on the Taiwan Issue, issued in January 2001, the PRC government asserted repeatedly that it is willing to take all necessary steps for the peaceful reunification of China, as long as Taiwan agreed with the concept of "one China." It declared: "the Chinese Government remains firm in adhering to 'peaceful reunification' and 'one country, two systems' ... and [is] doing its utmost to achieve the objective of peaceful reunification." However, China was extremely suspicious of the separatist movement in Taiwan that was being actively promoted by President Chen Shui-bian, so the official White Paper warned:

...if a grave turn of events occurs leading to the separation of Taiwan from China in any name, or if Taiwan is invaded ... or if the Taiwan authorities refuse, sine die, the peaceful settlement of cross-Straits reunification ... then the Chinese Government will only be forced to adopt all drastic measures possible, including the use of force ... ("The One-China Principle and the Taiwan Issue")

Conclusion

Yu, Peter Kien-Hong. "Taiwan and Mainland China." Contemporary Review. June 2001: 321.