For most Americans, Taiwan has no past. It is a democratic country that, for some inexplicable reason, the Chinese Communist Party wants to swallow. We Americans are famously amnesiac. We have forgotten how differently we portrayed Taiwan in the 1950s and ‘60s. Back then, we asserted that, despite its defeat on the mainland, the Chinese regime that had retreated to Taiwan was still the lawful government of China, including the mainland and outer Mongolia as well as Taiwan. And we insisted on the right of the defeated Chinese authorities in Taipei to continue to represent China internationally. US Ambassador Chas. H. Freeman
The completion of the Nordstream Two pipeline between Russia and Germany was a ‘now or never’ moment for the Pentagon. It triggered the Ukraine war. China’s planned roads, bridges, and railways to Taiwan could trigger a war there, too, though America’s odds of success are worse than they were in Ukraine: almost zero.
After all, Taiwan is already well represented in China's all-powerful Congress and island enjoys navigation rights on the mainland’s vast internal waterways–a unique cost advantage over rivals. President Xi has relatives in Taiwan, where locals trust him more than they trust their own politicians. But only last year, when wages in (formerly poor) Fujian Provence overtook Taiwan’s, did they really pay attention. How many would give their lives to save Taiwan’s corrupt ‘democracy’ when the alternative is a wage raise?
Back Story
Taiwan became a Chinese province in 1887 and the Qing dynasty appointed governors to Taiwan[1]. In 1895, after losing the Sino-Japanese War, the Japanese government demanded that China cede Taiwan to Japan[2] under the terms of the Treaty of Shimonoseki. At the Cairo Conference in 1943, the Allies, of which the Republic of China was a member nation, it was agreed that Taiwan would be returned to the Republic of China.[3] At the end of WWII, the Japanese military formally ceded Taiwan back to the Republic of China government.
In 1949, after losing the Chinese Civil War, the Chinese Nationalist government, under Chiang Kai-shek, moved its capitol from Nanking (now Nanjing) to Taipei.
Both the Republic of China government (Taiwan) and the People’s Republic of China (Beijing) state that because Taiwan was previously under Chinese rule, Taiwan is a part of China.
Taiwan’s Constitution is clear: Taiwan and China are one indissoluble country. Ditto the Mainland’s Constitution. Taiwan legally stopped being an independent nation and became a Chinese client state in 1972, “pursuant to the Treaty of San Francisco, The Shanghai Communiqué, the 1982 Joint Communiqué, and UN Resolutions 2758 and 1668:
The United States acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China. The United States Government does not challenge that position. It reaffirms its interest in a peaceful settlement of the Taiwan question by the Chinese themselves. With this prospect in mind, it affirms the ultimate objective of the withdrawal of all US forces and military installations from Taiwan.
Prior to 1971, China's seat in the UN Security Council was controlled by Taiwan. The changeover was codified and made permanent on October of that year, in UN General Assembly Resolution 2758, which recognized the government of the People’s Republic of China as the only legitimate representative of China at the United Nations and established the One-China Principle.
Western media and Western governments have misled the public into thinking Taiwan is an independent country and that China is “bullying” it, imagining that the rest of the world are like Americans: whatever the media says becomes their reality.
The Mischief
US military planners pushed for nuclear strikes on mainland China in 1958 to protect Taiwan from an invasion by Communist forces. The planners also assumed that the Soviet Union would aid China and retaliate with nuclear weapons. New York Times.
The US Army took Chiang Kai-shek’s soldiers to the United States, trained them as terrorists, then parachuted them into the mainland from Taiwan to organize uprisings. But exporting a counterrevolution did not work and the island’s population were restless. On Feb. 28, 1947, Chiang massacred 30,000 locals and the following year issued “Temporary Regulations for the Period of National Mobilization to Suppress the Communist Insurrection”. On the president’s sole authority, new media, associations, and parties, were “temporarily,” banned until 1988.
In 2021, the US Army War College Press published Broken Nest: Deterring China from Invading Taiwan, which discusses using Taiwan as a point of contention for as long as possible, then sacrificing it entirely:
To start, the United States and Taiwan should lay plans for a targeted scorched-earth strategy that would render Taiwan not just unattractive if ever seized by force, but positively costly to maintain. This could be done most effectively by threatening to destroy facilities belonging to the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the most important chipmaker in the world and China’s most important supplier.
While that option satisfies Washington,, Fantasy
Politically divided and economically overextended, Washington is instigating simultaneous wars against the most powerful countries on earth. The reality of Taiwan favors China even more than the reality of Ukraine favors Russia.
Reality
Though outnumbered 3:1, Russia defeated Ukraine’s NATO-armed, -trained, and -led forces in forty-eight hours. [Defeated armies cannot mount coordinated attacks]. General H.R. ‘Mad Dog’ McMaster drove the point home: "Should US forces find themselves in a land war with Russia, they would be in for a rude, cold awakening.. We’re out-ranged by a lot of their systems and they employ improved conventional munitions, which we are going away from. There will be a 40- to 60-percent reduction in lethality in our systems. Remember that we already have fewer artillery systems. Now those fewer artillery systems will be less effective relative to the enemy.”
China is even more formidable on its home turf. Much has been written about a confrontation between the US and China but the notion is absurd: the US cannot compete with the PLA in the West Pacific nor defend American cities from Chinese missiles. Recall that PLA volunteers – lacking both air cover and heavy weapons – humiliated the US in Korea.
Today, within two thousand miles of its borders, China’s weapons are more numerous, accurate, and longer-ranged than America’s – while its military enjoys internal supply routes. Taiwan, visible from the mainland, has neither sympathetic neighbors nor defensible supply routes.
China outguns any combination of forces in the area, and Russia remains eager to help. China’s Type-55 cruisers, the most powerful surface combatants afloat, are armed with 1,000-mile, anti-ship ballistic YJ-21 missiles along with AA, AM, AS, and ASW missiles, neatly arranged in 112 vertical launch cells. Twenty Arleigh Burke-class Type-52 destroyers back them up.
The Announcement
As of midnight tonight, all goods and personnel moving into and out of Chinese Taipei must clear China Customs and Immigration. Under the terms of UNCLOS, the Taiwan Straits are now domestic waters. The PLAN and PLAAF will assist in the orderly observance of the combined ADIZ. No further changes are currently contemplated.
A picket line of eighty Type 22 missile patrol boats ensure the domesticity of the Straits and inviolability of the combined ADIZ, while layered surveillance–from outer space to ocean floor–provides targeting information.
Aftermath
Internally, business and life will go on as usual but, externally, China’s control of the production of high end integrated circuits, and its dominance of international trade and finance, will mark the end of US dominance.
Taking Taiwan
Sorry for the late comment, just came accross your write up. I think there is some missing nuance in a couple areas. After the PRC firmly established control of mainland China, they entreatied for years within the UN body to develop enough support to boot the ROC as China's representative. England seems to have been supporters of this effort since 1950, and eventually enough support was garnered for the ROC to lose at the UN. Also, this time period should be viewed through the lens of the Dulles brothers: the first avoiding several chances to include 'independence' language in the re-establishment of Formosa after WW2, the second being head of the CIA during these years and advisor during critical junctures afterward. This was an era of nation-building and CIA-induced revolutions all over the place, especially in Asia. My contention is that Taiwan's status is exactly what the Dulles brothers wanted it to be, whether they were doing the bidding of MI6 or just had their own opaque reasons.
Interesting blog, will subscribe. There are not enough people really probing into what motivates China. I touched on the topic of Taiwan in this piece, as it ties in to Kennedy and other topics: https://visayasoutpost.substack.com/p/1963-original-sin
Mr. Roberts,
Thank you for a very good writeup of the actual history of Taiwan.
I would only suggest that you also add the fact that China's seat in the UN Security Council - prior to 1971 - was actually controlled by Taiwan. Talk about stacking the deck...