Why China-Taiwan Relations Are So Tense
Taiwan, officially known as the Republic of China (ROC), is an island separated from China by the Taiwan Strait. Mainland China, officially the People’s Republic of China (PRC), is under Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rule and asserts that Taiwan is an integral part of its territory, though it has never governed the island.
The PRC views the island as a renegade province and vows to eventually “unify” Taiwan with the mainland, preferably by peaceful means but by force if necessary. 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 in recent years as China has rapidly ramped up its military capabilities and conducted more complex and intrusive operations near the island. Meanwhile, Taiwan’s most recent presidents have hailed from a party that does not view the island as part of a unified China, a departure from the view of the previous Nationalist or Kuomintang (KMT) government. Many foreign policy analysts fear a Chinese attack on Taiwan could draw the United States into a massively destructive and costly war with China.
In the first half of the twentieth century, China entered a civil war between the ruling Nationalist government and the insurgent Communists. During World War II, the Nationalists, led by Chiang Kai-shek, were an important U.S. ally; following the end of the war, the United States backed Chiang in his fight against Mao Zedong’s communist forces. The Communists won that conflict, seizing control of mainland China in 1949 and forcing the Nationalists to retreat to Taiwan, where they set up a government in exile and maintained their claim to the mainland. Today, Beijing, led by the CCP, asserts through its One China principle that there is only one China and that Taiwan is part of it. Beijing seeks Taiwan’s eventual unification with the mainland.
