The "one China" principle is all but dead.
Granted, Taiwan has never been part of the People's Repub-lic of China, but more importantly, over the past decade and a half, the people of Taiwan have made it increasingly clear to the international community that they do not want their country to become part of China and do not want to be placed under communist rule. This is the reality that the US, China and the rest of the world will have to face.
Opinion polls show that the percentage of Taiwanese who favor continued separation from China has increased steadily over the years, while that of those who favor unification has declined. Today, only 12 percent of people support unification.
This trend is also reflected in the outcome of the presidential election. In each of the three direct presidential elections since 1996, and despite China's military threat and verbal attacks, voters elected the presidential candidate backing independence over the candidate favored by Beijing.
On March 20, President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), who has unequivocally and consistently stated that Taiwan is a free and independent country, defeated a rival who had adopted an ambiguous stand regarding Taiwan's sovereignty and who was backed by Beijing.
Chen secured just over 50 percent of the vote, an increase of nearly 12 percentage points from four years ago, when he defeated two rivals to win his first four-year term.
There is no doubt that Taiwanese identity has increased significantly over the past four years.
After nearly four centuries of alien rule, including Dutch, Manchurian, Japanese and Chinese Nationalist, the people of Taiwan have shown they are determined to exercise their hard-won freedoms and political rights to be masters of their own destiny.
Through the 228 Hand-in-Hand Rally, which extended more than 450km and drew 2 million people, and Chen's re-election, the people of Taiwan have resoundingly demonstrated that they reject Beijing's "one China" principle.
Today, Taiwan is a market economy. It has a per capita income of nearly US$15,000, or 15 times that of China. More importantly, according to the US-based Freedom House, Taiwan, next to Japan, is Asia's freest country, while China is one of Asia's least free.
Taiwanese elect all their representatives, including the president, while Chinese are only allowed to elect their township heads. The difference between Taiwan and China is like day and night.
No one should expect the freedom-loving Taiwanese to accept a brutal and dictatorial Chinese regime.
It is time for the US to discard the "one China" fiction, a relic of the Cold War era, and extend diplomatic recognition to a free and democratic Taiwan.
Chen Ching-chih is professor emeritus of history at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville.
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
I have heard people equate the government’s stance on resisting forced unification with China or the conditional reinstatement of the military court system with the rise of the Nazis before World War II. The comparison is absurd. There is no meaningful parallel between the government and Nazi Germany, nor does such a mindset exist within the general public in Taiwan. It is important to remember that the German public bore some responsibility for the horrors of the Holocaust. Post-World War II Germany’s transitional justice efforts were rooted in a national reckoning and introspection. Many Jews were sent to concentration camps not
RSS