CONCEPT – ONE CHINA POLICY

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 CONCEPT – ONE CHINA POLICY

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• The story of an island called Taiwan
• China has always viewed Taiwan as a rogue province run by nationalists who never accepted losing the Chinese Civil War in 1949, when Mao Zedong’s Communists rose to power. 
• Taiwan views itself as a free and democratic country that stands apart from the controlling Communist Party. However, it has avoided declaring its full independence from China for fear of military attack
• "One China policy" states that there is only one country of China, despite the fact that there are two governments, the  PRC – People's Republic of China (China) and the ROC – Republic of China  (Taiwan).
• Many countries follow a one China policy, but the meanings are not exactly the same. 
• The PRC exclusively uses the term "One China Principle" in its official communications.
• Before the early 1600s, Taiwan was inhabited mainly by Taiwanese aborigines, but then Han Chinese migration started. 
• Taiwan was first brought under the control of Zheng Chenggong (Koxinga), a Ming-loyalist, in 1662 as the Kingdom of Tungning, before being incorporated by the Qing dynasty in 1683.
• It was also briefly ruled by Dutch (1624–1662) and the Spanish (1626–1642, northern Taiwan only). The Japanese ruled Taiwan for half a century (1895–1945), while France briefly held sway over northern Taiwan in 1884–85.
• It was an outlying prefecture of Fujian Province under the Manchu Qing government of China from 1683 until 1887, when it was officially made a separate Fujian-Taiwan Province. Taiwan remained a province for eight years until it was ceded to Japan under the Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895.
• In 1894, Japan and China engaged in the Sino-Japanese War in which Japan defeated China. As a result, in 1895 the Ch'ing Govt. of China signed a peace treaty known as the Treaty of Shimonoseki with Japan.
• In this Treaty, China ceded the islands of Formosa and the Pescadores Group (together called Formosa or the island of Taiwan) “in perpetuity to Japan”.
• In Sept. 1931, Japan began its expansion in Asia and sent its troops into northern China.
• By 1939, the Japanese armed forces had occupied a vast area of central and eastern China.
• In December 1941, the R.O.C. government declared war against Japan, and at the same time issued a proclamation  abrogating all treaties with Japan, including the Treaty of Shimonoseki as it was "unequal.
• The Treaty is a territorial treaty, and a unilateral proclamation to abrogate a treaty by a party to the treaty may be valid with respect to a treaty of executory nature, but cannot abrogate a territorial treaty. 
• In 1945, immediately after Japan surrendered to the Allied Powers, the R.O.C. government sitting in Chungking City, proclaimed that Taiwan was a province of China. 
• Following the October 1945 Japanese surrender ceremonies in Taipei, the Republic of China, under the Kuomintang (KMT) became the governing polity on Taiwan during the period of military occupation.
• In 1949, after losing control of mainland China following the Chinese Civil War, and before the post-war peace treaties had come into effect, the ROC government under the KMT withdrew to occupied Taiwan (which was still Japanese territory), thus becoming a government in exile.
• Chiang Kai-shek declared martial law. Japan formally renounced all territorial rights to Taiwan in 1952 in the San Francisco Peace Treaty, but territorial sovereignty was vague
• The ROC government governs Taiwan, but became a democracy in the 1990s following decades of martial law.
• In Taiwan, the one-China formula is rooted in the fiction that the island’s first president, Chiang Kai-shek, would one day recapture the whole of China
• Latest China Stand

1. First, Taiwan’s stand : The Kuomintang holds the "One China Principle" and maintains its claim that under the ROC Constitution, the ROC has sovereignty over most of China (including mainland China and Taiwan). 
2. After the Communist Party of China expelled the ROC in the Chinese Civil War from most of Chinese territory in 1949 and founded the PRC, the ROC's Chinese Nationalist government, which still held Taiwan, continued to claim legitimacy as the government of all of China. 
3. Under former President Lee Teng-hui, additional articles were appended to the ROC constitution in 1991 so that it applied effectively only to the Taiwan Area. 
4. The Kuomintang proclaims a modified form of the "One China" principle known as the “1992 Consensus” – both governments "agree" that there is only one single sovereign state (but who controls what?)
5. The Democratic Progressive Party does not agree with the "One China principle" as defined by the KMT or Two Chinas. 
6. It believes "China" refers only to People's Republic of China and states that Taiwan and China are two separate countries, therefore there is One Country on Each Side and "one China, one Taiwan". 
7. The DPP's position is that the people of Taiwan have the right to self-determination without outside coercion.
8. President Tsai Ing-wen refuses to affirm the 1992 consensus.
9. The PRC's One-China principle faces opposition from supporters of the Taiwan independence movement, which pushes to establish the "Republic of Taiwan" and cultivate a separate identity apart from China called "Taiwanization“.
10. Second, Mainland PRC’s stand : The Kuomintang holds the "One China Principle" and maintains its claim that under the ROC Constitution, the ROC has sovereignty over most of China (including mainland China and Taiwan). 
11. China itself does not actually have a one-China policy. It has a a one-China principle, which is the PRC.  
12. It says Taiwan is a renegade Chinese province and refuses diplomatic recognition to any country that recognises Taiwan as a state. 
13. Yet this rigid principle can be bent. In 2015 President Xi met the island’s then-president, Ma Ying-jeou.
14. China hates it when America sells arms to Taiwan— America said in 1982 it would be phased out, but continues to this day.

• Xi Jinping made a strong speech in 2019. Key points were

1. There’s substantial continuity with China’s past policies. Xi reiterated key elements of the peaceful unification formula: to abide by the “one China” principle and to resolutely oppose Taiwan independence or interference by foreign forces
2. There’s a new sense of urgency for unification — but no timetable. After the 1979 message, Chinese and U.S. officials alike expected that unification was within reach, because of Taiwan’s increasing isolation in the world. A similar sense of urgency was discernible. Xi offered discussion about how to achieve peaceful unification and the post-unification benefits and arrangements for Taiwan.
3. There’s room for flexibility and proactiveness for the purpose of peaceful unification. Xi indicated implicitly that the Taiwan version of “one country, two systems” might look quite different from the scenario in either Hong Kong or Macao. What the “two systems” would look like in Taiwan’s case remained open to discussion and consultation.

• The story of an island called Taiwan

1. "Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, was not happy!
2. “China must face the fact of the existence of Taiwan, and not deny the system of a democratic county that has been commonly built up by the Taiwanese people,” she said.
3. Tsai’s pro-independence party, the DPP, replaced the China-friendly Kuomintang party in 2016, making it less likely than ever that Taipei will accept a peaceful “reunification” with the Communist-governed mainland. 

• What does the world say about it

1. Donald Trump, then America’s president-elect, said that “I don’t know why we have to be bound by a one-China policy” 
2. That shocked the PRC as no one had said this earlier!
3. Two months later, he told Xi Jinping that he would honour the one-China policy “at President Xi’s request”
4. America does not accept the one-China principle, but has the one-China policy – that China has such a principle—not quite the same thing. 
5. America does not recognise Chinese sovereignty over Taiwan, nor does it recognise Taiwan as an independent state. Taiwan is the ninth-largest buyer of American exports

• The story of an island called Taiwan
• Summary and road ahead

1. Problems exist today. 
2. China’s economy has been slowing, and Trump’s trade war is extracting a big price.
3. Chinese territorial claims over various islands are heightening tensions – it is building artificial islands armed with missiles.
4. Trump confirmed to Shinzo Abe, Japan’s PM, that their two countries’ defence treaty covers the Senkaku islands, which China calls the Diaoyu
5. The military balance in the Taiwan Strait is not such that PRC could sweep into Taiwan so fast the world did not have time to react (as when Russia invaded Crimea)
6. Other countries will treat any rapid and successful invasion as a fait accompli. But Taiwan is no Crimea.  
7. Only 10% of the population wants unification and less than 2% wants it as soon as possible. 
8. The island has a vibrant civil society capable of putting millions of protesters onto the streets against a Taiwanese government, let alone a Chinese occupying force.
9. The mainland has around 1,400 land-based missiles aimed at Taiwan, plus an unknown number of air- and sea-launched ones. But an invasion will need troops across 180 km of open water. 
10. The 2020 victory of Tsai Ing-wen as President of Taiwan is a clear message to the PRC!

• The simple solution is for everyone to admit there are two Chinas, but PRC is not ready to do that. It is taking everyone towards a more dangerous end-game, even as the North Korean issue remains hanging fire.

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