Why China-Taiwan Relations Are So Tensed

 

Taiwan, officially known as the Republic of China (ROC), is an island separated from China by the Taiwan Strait. It has been governed independently from mainland China, officially the People’s Republic of China (PRC), since 1949. The PRC views the island as a renegade province and vows to eventually “unify” Taiwan with the mainland. In Taiwan, which has its own democratically elected government and is home to twenty-three million people, political leaders have differing views on the island’s status and relations with the mainland.

Cross-strait tensions have escalated since the election of former Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen in 2016. Tsai refused to accept a formula that her predecessor, Ma Ying-jeou, endorsed to allow for increased cross-strait ties. Meanwhile, Beijing has taken increasingly aggressive actions, which includes flying fighter jets near the island. Some analysts fear a Chinese attack on Taiwan has the potential to draw the United States into a war with China.

Beijing asserts that there is only “one China” and that Taiwan is part of it. It views the PRC as the only legitimate government of China, an approach it calls the One China principle, and seeks Taiwan’s eventual “unification” with the mainland.

Beijing claims that Taiwan is bound by an understanding known as the 1992 Consensus, which was reached between representatives of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Kuomintang (KMT) party that then ruled Taiwan. However, the two sides don’t agree on the content of this so-called consensus, and it was never intended to address the question of Taiwan’s legal status. For the PRC, as Chinese President Xi Jinping has stated, the 1992 Consensus reflects an agreement that “the two sides of the strait belong to one China and would work together to seek national reunification.” For the KMT, it means “one China, different interpretations,” with the ROC standing as the “one China.” The KMT’s chief rival party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), has never endorsed the understanding laid out in the 1992 Consensus. Former President Tsai refused to explicitly accept the consensus. Instead, she has attempted to find another formulation that would be acceptable to Beijing. In Tsai’s 2016 inaugural address, she noted she was “elected president in accordance with the Constitution of the Republic of China,” which is a One China document, and said she would “safeguard the sovereignty and territory of the Republic of China.” However, Beijing rejected this formulation and cut off official contacts with Taiwan. Tsai’s successor, current DPP leader and Taiwanese Vice President Lai Ching-te, called for reopening dialogue with China to “replace confrontation” during his 2024 presidential election victory speech and pledged to maintain the “cross-strait status quo,” aligned with his party. But experts are skeptical that China will be willing to engage in cross-strait dialogue. 

In a 2019 speech, Xi reiterated China’s long-standing proposal for Taiwan: that it be incorporated into the mainland under the formula of “one country, two systems.” This is the same formula used for Hong Kong, which was guaranteed the ability to preserve its political and economic systems and granted a “high degree of autonomy.” Such a framework is deeply unpopular among the Taiwanese public. Pointing to Beijing’s recent crackdown on Hong Kong’s freedoms, even the KMT have rejected the “one country, two systems” framework.

No. China rejects Taiwan’s participation as a member in UN agencies and other international organizations that limit membership to states. Taipei regularly protests its exclusion; the United States also pushes for Taiwan’s meaningful participation in such organizations. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Taipei criticized the World Health Organization (WHO) for giving in to Beijing’s demands and continuing to bar Taiwan—which mounted one of the world’s most effective responses to COVID-19 in the first two years of the pandemic—from attending the organization’s World Health Assembly as an observer. Ministers from the Group of Seven (G7) countries have called for Taiwan’s inclusion in WHO forums.

Taiwan does, however, hold member status in more than forty organizations, most of them regional, such as the Asian Development Bank and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, as well as in the World Trade Organization. It holds observer or other status on several other bodies. Only twelve states maintain official diplomatic ties with Taiwan. In March 2023, Honduras severed ties with Taiwan and established relations with China, and in January 2024, just days after Taiwan’s presidential election, so did the Pacific Island nation of Nauru. No government has ever simultaneously maintained formal diplomatic ties with both China and Taiwan.

In 1979, the United States established formal diplomatic relations with the PRC. At the same time, it severed its diplomatic ties and abrogated its mutual defense treaty with the ROC. But the United States maintains a robust unofficial relationship with the island and continues to sell defense equipment to its military. Beijing has repeatedly urged Washington to stop selling weapons to and cease contact with Taipei.

In addition to the tactics described above, China has ramped up interference in Taiwan’s elections. Its methods include spreading disinformation on social media and increasing its control over Taiwanese media outlets. In the 2024 elections, China took its disinformation campaign one step further by working through proxies, such as Taiwanese business elites, to amplify existing local disputes and divisions. The Taiwanese government responded by prosecuting citizens who received funding from China to publish fake news. Such efforts are part of China’s larger strategy of employing coercion to erode trust in Taiwan’s political system and sow divisions in Taiwanese society. However, experts view the DPP’s success in recent elections, and unprecedented third term win, as a rebuke of Beijing.

Taiwan’s democracy is relatively young. The KMT governed under martial law from 1949 to 1987. During that time, political dissent was harshly repressed and Indigenous Taiwanese who had long inhabited the island before 1945 faced discrimination. Taiwan held its first free legislative elections in 1992 and its first presidential elections in 1996. Since then, it has peacefully transferred power between parties several times.

Despite Chinese threats, Taiwan appears to have so far bucked the trend of backsliding afflicting democracies around the world. In 2020, the Economist’s Democracy Index labeled Taiwan a “full democracy” for the first time. In 2022, the index named Taiwan [PDF] the world’s tenth-most-democratic country, ranking it higher than its Asian neighbors (Japan ranked sixteenth and South Korea ranked twenty-fourth) and the United States, which was thirtieth. Recent elections have seen high voter turnout.


Lindsay Maizland is an
American journalist specialized
on international relations and
climate change.
Courtesy: Council on Foreign
Relations (CFR)