The Taiwan Question
“If we can’t reunify China right away, we will do it in a century; if not in a century, then in a millennium.”
There is a growing sense of confidence in China, bordering on hubris. By any measure, a high degree of confidence is merited. In the last 40 years China has lifted nearly 800 million people out of poverty,1 a significant achievement for humanity.
A China skeptic can make the case against the flimsy rule of law by a single-party government (and Westerners often do), but having lived on the mainland during most of 2015, I have come to conclude that, by and large, the Chinese are satisfied with their political reality. Even more, many are endeared with it.
Simply put, politics does not consume daily life in China the way it does in the United States. The Chinese have come a long way since Mao Zedong, and they are proud of their economic accomplishments. Their country has developed into a moderately prosperous society and, accordingly, their list of grievances has shortened— unlike in the United States, where grievances have ballooned.
The Chinese Communist party has sustained high growth rates ever since Deng Xiaoping began to liberalize the economy in 1979. Citizens have reaped dividends which materially improved the general welfare: first-world infrastructure, education investments, and most importantly, the satiation of hunger pangs in people who, not very long ago, commonly endured them.
For many in China, the upheavals of the Mao era are not so much history as they are lived experiences. Grandparents are still alive to reinforce the narrative that things are better now than a generation ago. This appreciation manifests itself in the culture in a myriad of ways, such as the social taboo against food waste.
Of course, many of the positive developments in China are a result of globalization, a two-way street which has proved a boon to the East, but has precipitated domestic backlash in the West. In the West, where one finds cultural critique and resentment against economic inequality, in the East one finds monocultural pride, social gratitude, and an expanding middle-class.
All of this is to say, the Communist party has established a high trust relationship with many of the 1.4 billion people who abide by their decisions. I have kept in contact with a handful of these people since my stay there, and I check in every now and then. What I hear is a shared perception that, under Xi Jinping’s leadership, China is master of its destiny. That all it must do is turn the page on history and seize the reins of its future. Nowhere is this seizing of destiny more apparent than in the common refrain that there is only one China.
The One China principle dates back to the Chinese Civil War. The People’s Republic of China (the Communists) and the Republic of China (the Nationalists) each claimed sovereignty over the whole of China. There was no dispute that “Taiwan and the mainland were part of the same political entity. The disagreement was about which Chinese government was the rightful ruler.”3
Ultimately, the Nationalists failed to defeat the Communists on the mainland. But they succeeded in fleeing to the periphery of China— the island of Taiwan— establishing a distinct political identity which, over time, was molded into a functioning democracy.
In effect the Communists consider Taiwan a “renegade province,” unfinished business from the civil war— itself an inherently internal conflict in which no other country has the right to interfere.5 Securing a final victory over Taiwan would fulfill a national dream of reunification and conclude a chapter of history that the sons and daughters of China are eager to move beyond.
For its part, the United States has recognized the People’s Republic of China as the sole legal government of China. This was established in the second of 3 joint communiqués which together, along with the Taiwan Relations Act, form the foundation of Sino-US relations. It was adopted in January 1979 and established diplomatic relations between the People's Republic and ended formal relations with the Republic of China (Taiwan).
The first communiqué, dubbed the Shanghai communiqué, was adopted at the conclusion of Richard Nixon's first trip to China in February 1972. In it, the United States “acknowledged” that “all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is part of China.”3
Lastly, the third communiqué— adopted in August 1982— specified that the United States had “no intention of infringing on Chinese sovereignty and territorial integrity,... or pursuing a policy of ‘two Chinas’ or ‘one China and one Taiwan.’”4
Taken together, these joint communiqués speak clearly that the outcome of the Taiwan question is a vital component of the Sino-US bilateral relationship, and that Beijing seeks to resolve the question by bringing the territory into its political orbit.
Today the United States is trying to drive a wedge into the One China principle. On three occasions Biden has said the US would intervene militarily to defend Taiwan from a mainland assault. These “gaffes” are an attempt to move the goalposts on historic commitments, a grave mistake which should be walked back. Americans must understand that China will not yield its ultimate will to force a successful outcome, where Beijing qualifies success as nothing less than total control over Taiwan.
I asked some mainland Chinese people how they felt about the Taiwan question, and how it might be resolved.
A male university professor in Hunan province asserted “the status quo is to be maintained, neither unification nor independence.” When asked about what he saw in Taiwan's future, he imagined a fate like Hong Kong's— “the mainland tries to persuade Taiwan to talk about unification under One Country, Two systems”.
A thirty-one year-old female from Guilin expressed confidence in her government’s judgment. “I believe China can deal with it very well. We think Xi is a very good President. He makes China strong. A lot of our government leaders are [very good].”
The two youngest which I polled, only a few years out of high school, simply told me— “there is only one China.”