Is Taiwan a Country or Part of China?

Taiwan's political situation is somewhat intricate. To oversimplify, one could say that Taiwan is either an independent nation or a part of China. However, this oversimplification disregards the fact that Taiwan is not pursuing separation. Taiwan does not aim to secede from China because, in its own perspective, it is part of China, at least constitutionally speaking.

The official name of Taiwan is the Republic of China, while China, commonly referred to as the People's Republic of China, is a separate entity. To gain a comprehensive understanding of the situation, it is necessary to delve into the late 19th century, when the Qing Dynasty was the final imperial dynasty to rule over China.

The Qing Dynasty ruled over present-day China, Taiwan, and Mongolia, along with certain territories of neighboring countries. In 1894, the initial conflict between the Qing Dynasty and the Japanese Empire, known as the first Sino-Japanese war, erupted. This war predominantly occurred in Korea and Taiwan, where Korea was under the governance of the Joseon dynasty, acting as a vassal state to the Qing Dynasty.

The conflict concluded merely a year later, as the Japanese emerged triumphant, leading to the incorporation of Taiwan into the Japanese Empire. Moreover, the war instilled optimism within the Joseon dynasty in Korea, ensuring their full autonomy from China. Eventually, in 1910, Japan officially assimilated the Korean Peninsula.

In 1912, following centuries of imperial governance in China, the monarchy was toppled, and the inaugural Chinese Republic, known as the Republic of China, was founded. Sun Yat-sen assumed the role of interim president due to his leadership of the Beiyang Army, the nation's largest military force. In order to prevent conflict, Sun reluctantly consented to Yuan Shikai's presidency. Unfortunately, Yuan misused his authority, resulting in an unsuccessful revolution that prompted Sun to seek refuge in Japan.

Yuan triumphed, disbanding the Chinese Nationalist Party, and in 1915, proclaimed himself as the emperor of China, aiming to revive the monarchy. His demise 12 months later marked the commencement of the warlord era and the fragmentation of Chinese history, with various factions emerging by 1917.

Sun Yat-sen is generally considered the founder of the Kuomintang. He returned from exile to re-establish the republic. He revived his nationalist party under the name of Kuomintang. The government was established in the south of the country as the north was dominated by warlords and the Imperial Beiyang Army. Sun Yat-sen wanted to unite the country under one government, but he lacked the military power to take on the warlords. After help from the West was refused, assistance came from the Soviet Union. In exchange for their military assistance, they asked the Kuomintang to cooperate and ally with a much smaller Chinese Communist Party.

The warlord era came to an end. The 2-year military campaign called the Northern Expedition began, but before the smells of the campaign were complete, the alliance between the Nationals and the Communists began to fall apart. After the death of Sun Yat-sen in 1925, the Kuomintang Party split into two separate right- and left-leaning factions. The left-leaning faction moved its capital to Wuhan. The original right-leaning Kuomintang party, led by Chiang Kai-shek, took control of Nanjing and declared it their capital.

The China Nationalists sought to purge the Communists among their ranks, and in April of 1927, in what became known as the Shanghai Massacre, thousands of Communists were executed by Nationalist forces. The left-leaning Kuomintang faction that broke away also began executing Communists, and the party ultimately collapsed, leaving the original party as the sole governing government of China. The execution of Communists ended their alliance with the Soviet Union and later became the start of the Chinese civil war between the Nationalists and the Communists.

The war began in August of 1927 with the Nan Chang uprising and the founding of the Red Army. The army of the Communist Party was led by Mao Zedong, the commander-in-chief. Four years later, in 1931, with a civil war still ongoing, the Empire of Japan sought to use the war as an opportunity to expand their sphere of influence by invading China. The Japanese imperial army invaded the east coast of China and occupied Manchuria, as well as other nearby lands. Japan installed their own puppet government, and the faith in it continued, although it didn't escalate into all-out war between the two nations until 1937, when it was declared.

Since the initial invasion back in 1931, the civil war in China has continued, and many nationalists have called for a temporary truce with the Communists to defend China against the Japanese. Chiang Kai-shek, the Kuomintang leader, refused, and he wanted to continue the war against the Communists.

Let's change to 1936, when he was kidnapped by one of his own commanders, who forced him to agree to a military alliance with the Communists. As before, Japan was their common enemy. The second Sino-Japanese war escalated as Japan pushed into the Chinese capital of Nanjing and massacred tens of thousands of civilians and soldiers in 1941, with World War II ongoing. Japan carried out a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. At this point, the United States was not at war with anyone, but the Japanese launched the strike to try and prevent the U.S. from interfering with their wars in the Pacific. The attack caused an immediate declaration of war by the United States, which deepened American involvement in the war and ultimately led to the end of World War II and the Pacific Theater.

In July of 1945, in the Potsdam Declaration, the Allied forces called for Japan's unconditional surrender. In August of 1945, the United States dropped two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Just days later, the Japanese accepted the terms of the surrender. Part of the surrender even included Japan returning sovereignty over all lands that they had gained through warfare. However, this didn't just include territory they had gained during World War II; it also included their annexations, such as Korea and Taiwan, several decades earlier. So, the island of Taiwan, taken from the Qing Dynasty by Japan in 1895, was to be returned to China after the war with Japan was over. The Chinese Civil War started up again in 1946. The Nationalists and the Communists only ever had a very loose alliance against the Japanese, and the alliance never completely stalled the Soviet Union by the Communists while the United States backed the Nationalists in what were the early years of the Cold War. Despite having a superior number of soldiers and equipment, the Chinese Civil War was decisively won by the Communists as they captured more and more land, pushing the Nationalists further and further back until 1949 when the Kuomintang government retreated to the island of Taiwan.

This effectively ended the civil war, although no official peace treaty was ever signed. Later that year, the Communist Party proclaimed the People's Republic of China, meanwhile, the Kuomintang government remained the Republic of China, and thus no internationally recognized government of China was exiled to the island of Taiwan. Over the course of the next few decades, international recognition began to shift from the Republic of China to the People's Republic of China, and in 1971, with UN General Assembly resolution 2758, the People's Republic of China was recognized as the legitimate government of China, although the United States had voted against the resolution.

The U.S. broke off diplomatic ties with the ROC in 1979, the same year the PRC attempted to open up communication with the ROC with a proposal known as the three links. However, this was completely rejected by the ROC, which responded by adopting the three-noes policy: no contact, no compromise, no negotiation. This policy, however, had to be revised in 1986 when a China Airlines 747 aircraft was hijacked by an ROC pilot who changed course to Guangdong and defected to the PRC. This forced the ROC and the PRC to communicate with each other. In 1982, the two governments met and came to an agreement known as the 1992 consensus, the consensus being that both sides adhere to the one-China policy. The one-China policy is the belief that there is only one China and that Taiwan is part of China; however, both sides see themselves as the legitimate government of China. Both sides of the Taiwan Strait agreed that Chinese unification was the eventual goal and that the current situation was only temporary.

Before the 1990s, Taiwan had been a one-party state with the Kuomintang party as the government. In 1986, Taiwan had its first presidential election. Although the Kuomintang stayed in power, in the year 2000, the Democratic Progressive Party was elected into government and today is the more dominant party, having won the 2016 election. The DPP does not agree with the one-China policy and rejects the 1992 consensus. They also do not support Chinese unification and strongly support the idea of a Taiwanese identity. The DPP believes that Taiwan already has its own independent country. The Republic of China has a very ambiguous political status; it's not a member of the United Nations, and very few countries especially recognize them as a country.

That being said, many countries do maintain unofficial representative offices in Taipei, so, officially speaking, Taiwan is not recognized as an independent nation. However, in every practical sense of the word, it functions as one. Taiwan possesses its own government with an elected president who exercises jurisdiction over the entire island. It maintains its own military, issues its own passports, and even participates in international sporting events such as the Olympics and the FIFA World Cup. Nevertheless, it participates under the ambiguous pseudonym of "Chinese Taipei."

Now, you might wonder why Taiwan doesn't simply declare its independence officially, adopting a name like the Republic of Taiwan. The answer lies primarily in the complex issue of international support and the looming influence of China. While many individuals may support Taiwanese independence in principle, in practice, it is a perilous path due to China's strong opposition. The People's Republic of China (PRC) considers Taiwan an integral part of its territory since antiquity and has asserted its readiness to use force to unify China and Taiwan should Taiwan attempt to pursue independence. Therefore, resolving Taiwan's political status presents a formidable challenge, if not an impossibility, in the foreseeable future.

There are essentially two potential resolutions to the dispute: unification with China or full independence. However, both options are improbable because neither side is willing to relinquish its claim as the legitimate government of China, and after decades of separation, the populations and political systems have diverged significantly. The most pragmatic approach to addressing this dispute is the status quo, primarily because of China's hostility to Taiwanese independence and the inherent dangers associated with pursuing full independence in today's geopolitical landscape. The status quo seems to be the only realistic option currently available.

In conclusion, it is evident why I mentioned at the beginning of this discussion that labeling Taiwan as either an independent country or a part of China is an oversimplification. The issue is far more intricate than such labels suggest. Taiwan's complex history has given rise to its current ambiguous political status, which challenges the very definition of what constitutes a "country." Nevertheless, everyday life in Taiwan remains largely unaffected, and it operates like any other independent nation. The majority of its inhabitants identify as Taiwanese, and the global political quagmire has minimal impact on their daily lives. Unfortunately, nearly every other country in the world plays along with the pretense that Taiwan does not exist, preferring to avoid open discussion or debate on the topic due to its controversial and uncomfortable nature.