An unimaginable amount of people still confuses Taiwan, also known as Formosa, with mainland China, although their cultures seem very similar, they are in fact two very distinct countries.
In order to understand the reasons for the growing hostility between the two of them we must go back to the origins, the first settlers on the island are thought to have come from southern China and, except for a brief period of time when the Dutch were established in the area, throughout the 17th century the region was administered by China’s Qing dynasty, also Chinese was the significant migration during the following century which brought along turmoil and hardship to the island; fast forward to when World War II ended, Formosa was ceded to the Republic of China, which being among the victors’ circle began its long-lasting ruling alongside its allies USA and United Kingdom.
During the civil war, Mao Zedong’s communist armies managed to beat Chang kai shek’s ones and the last remains of the Kuomintang fled to Taiwan in 1949, where although they were a minority, they dominated its policies through a dictatorship for years to come, despite this Chang kai shek’s son following his father’s steps began the democratization process.
The particularity of Taiwan is that it lies at the intersection of contending systems, a democratic and western one and on the other hand one influenced by Chinese civilization and Asian traditions, These democratic values though, are rooted in Taiwan’s culture so much that it is fully determined to get to a point where the country is completely led by them regardless of the fact that they are and they will be constantly opposed by the mainland’s contrary beliefs, its efforts do not only stop at this but they also spread to keeping the stability of the region and the world, as the consequences of a war between China and Formosa would be globally catastrophic.
As a matter of fact, PRC is set to unify Taiwan with the inland but its population and its democratically elected government seem to think differently of the situation, apparently, while Beijing claims that there is only “one China”, Formosa is every day more thinking of itself as an independent country; in addition China’s claims are that Taiwan is bound by the 1192 consensus reached between representatives of the Chinese government, the CCP, and KMT but nothing final was ever agreed on it and it didn’t mean to address Taiwan’s legal status to begin with, all of this was reiterated by China’s leader in 2019, in his speech he hinted that the only solution would have to be the “one country one system formula” already put in place in Hong Kong, however this disposition is very unpopular among Taiwanese people, which for the majority support the status quo, still, there is a percentage that endorses immediate independence which threatens the PCC, what’s even so more interesting though, is that an overwhelming amount of individuals stand against the Hong Kong system and continued to do so even more when Beijing failed to respect its liberties by implementing a national security law there.
The reason why people feel this way is because Taiwan’s economy is mainly reliant on trade with China and, even though their relations have been sinking in the last few years, concerns for economic overreliance are still rising, in contrast, some think that precisely these economic ties are currently preventing China from launching a military attack, which hasn’t been ruled out by Chinese authorities yet.
Furthermore, something that could potentially harm the stability of the international system is how the US administrations have tackled the Taiwan problem in the last few years, for example, during Donald Trump’s mandate the United States reinforced their relationship with Taiwan in the form of an 18 billion dollars’ worth of arms and military equipment just to unnerve China, alongside the fact that Trump engaged in a phone conversation with Tsai, which to this day it’s the highest level of contact between the two parties since 1979.
Since the installing of Joe Biden’s administration things haven’t changed that much, the new president shares the same belief in a freer relationship with Taiwan of his predecessor as he was the first American president to ever invite a Taiwanese representative to attend his presidential inauguration.
Moreover, in the last few months, China has upped military activity in Formosa causing globally shared concern, Taiwan arguably has sufficient resources to face an eventual Chinese military attack and the only strategy it’s going to reasonably adopt is a defensive one, in the meantime, Formosa has been working on more effective ways to protect itself from the mainland such as the production of Land Attack Cruise Missiles (LACM), naval launchers able to identify specific military targets to maximize their counterstrike capabilities as well as satellite technology, all of the above would implement Taiwan’s defense strategy, another asset that should be taken into consideration by Taipei is to convince Beijing that Taiwan’s allies, meaning Japan and the United States, as well as the international community, wouldn’t hesitate to act through economic sanctions and other international strategies put in place to reduce the risk of an imbalance of power should the PLA attempt an invasion.
A field that would provide another advantage to Taiwan could be cyber warfare, in fact, the high-tech sector is very developed in that area as the quick response to the recent pandemic using artificial intelligence, big data, and surveillance networks, in order to gather useful information, has demonstrated, and it could be used to perhaps even disable China’s nuclear deterrent together with Beijing’s air defense system even if for a brief period of time, so it seems that being left out of main international organizations such as UN and WHO has forced Formosa to come up with its own methods of dealing with crises and apparently they are working.
The international situation of Taiwan could in some way be compared to the Hong Kong one, which is officially part of the PRC but it operates under the form commonly known as “One country, two systems” a principle that allows for the coexistence of socialism and capitalism under “one country,” this confers Hong Kong a limited amount of independence that it has been trying to gain completely for quite a long time now through violent protests such as the ones of 2019 and 2020 still, being under China’s administration all the key decisions are in Beijing’s hands so is the military and diplomacy, on the other hand, Hong Kong has a separate legal system and border crossing.
An example of the way Hong Kong is run can be seen by looking at its parliamentary system, it is made up partly of elected representatives but at the same time, it is mainly composed of people chosen by Chinese authorities who also select the head of the country.
Both Chinese relationships with Taiwan and Hong Kong are tumultuous and complex, surely, they are to be watched carefully by the rest of the world in order to understand how future developments in that area could apport changes to the international arena.
References:
“What’s behind the China-Taiwan divide?” available at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-34729538
“China vs Taiwan: What a War would look like” available at:
“Why China-Taiwan relations are so tense” available at:
https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/china-taiwan-relations-tension-us-policy
“China sends 52 military planes into Taiwan airspace” available at:
Foreign affairs, available at:
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/
“Taiwan is very concerned that China is going to launch a war” available at:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/taiwan-china-us-warning-record-number-chinese-military-flights/
“What country is Hong Kong actually in?” available at:
https://www.tripsavvy.com/what-country-is-hong-kong-in-1535874
“What’s the difference between Hong Kong and Taiwan” available at:
By The European Institute for International Law and International Relations.
