History of China Taiwan Relations, Impact of Xi Jinping – Tsai Ing wen

Table of Contents

Republic of China

The Republic of China (ROC) was a sovereign state based in mainland China between 1912 and 1949.
It was established on 1 January 1912 after the Xinhai Revolution, which overthrew the Qing dynasty, the last imperial dynasty of China.
The Kuomintang (political party in ROC) won the parliamentary election held in December 1912 and Sun Yat-sen became first president of ROC.

Manchu Restoration of July 1917 under General Zhang Xun reinstalled the last emperor of the Qing dynasty to the throne for a brief period. In 1921, the KMT established the government of the Republic of China in Guangzhou with the help of Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In 1946, Civil War started in China between the KMT and CCP.

In 1949, CCP established the People’s Republic of China, overthrowing the nationalist government in Nanjing.
The ROC government fled to the island of Taiwan. It took control of Taiwan and several nearby islands.
ROC said that it was the rightful government of China and it included all of China, including Taiwan and Mongolia.

The ROC was a founding member of the United Nations including its Security Council seat.
In 1971, the ROC lost its United Nations seat as China. The seat was given to the PRC.
This made the PRC the rightful government of China internationally. Most countries have accepted the PRC as China.

There are two countries in the world that call themselves China.
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is the country most people think of when they hear the name China.
The Republic of China (ROC) also calls itself China. It is better known in most of the world as Taiwan.

The “One-China policy” is a policy asserting that there is only one sovereign state under the name China, as opposed to the idea that there are two states.
According to People’s Republic of China, Taiwan is a province in China.
Democratic Republic of China opposes this policy.

Lee Teng-hui was the fourth president of the Republic of China (Taiwan) from 1988 to 2000.
He was the first president of the Republic of China to be born in Taiwan and the first to be directly elected.
During his presidency, Lee led an ambitious foreign policy to gain allies around the world.

On 9 July 1999, Lee Teng-hui for the first time openly defined the relations between mainland China and Taiwan as between two countries.
By this he abandoned Taiwan’s previous position on legal government of China and stated that Taiwan and China are two separate countries.
He also noted that there was no need for Taiwan to declare independence again since it (ROC) had always been an independent country since 1912.

Tsai, who was a talented political scholar at the time, supported Lee’s work on the two states theory.
A strong mentor-protege relationship was born between Tsai and Lee, while working on two state theory.

Xi spent nearly 17 years of his political career in Fujian, which is situated across Taiwan strait from the Island.

In 1999,while Xi was acting governor of Fujian province, Cross-strait tensions ran high, fueled in part by large-scale military drills spanning Fujian.
Xi snapped two state theory as Rubbish and said The two states argument “exposed Lee Teng-hui’s fundamental motive of plotting the division of our homeland”

Twenty-one years on, Lee is dead and troubling signs are again appearing over cross-strait relations.
Tsai Ing-wen, protégé of Lee, is serving as the seventh president of the Republic of China, commonly known as Taiwan.
Xi , governor of Fujian in 1999, is President of People’s Republic of China.

In May 2020 Taiwanese president Tsai Ing Wen said Taiwan cannot accept becoming part of China under its “one country, two systems” offer of autonomy.
China responded that “reunification” was inevitable and that it would never tolerate Taiwan’s independence.

Chinese opposition in May prevented Taiwan from joining a virtual annual meeting of the World Health Organization as an observer.
US was supporting Taiwan’s presence in WHO meeting.
Chinese opposition, amid ongoing tension between China and US, moved U.S. and Taiwan closer to each other.

On April 10,US Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar met with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen.
It is the highest-level visit by an American Cabinet official since the break in the formal diplomatic ties between Washington and Taipei in 1979.
Beijing has protested Azar’s visit as a betrayal of US commitments not to have official contact with the island.

The corona virus, the Hong Kong crackdown and the WHO controversy have drastically altered the bilateral relation between US and Taiwan.
Beijing cannot overlook the possibility that U.S. cabinet officials will make frequent visits to Taiwan in the future.
Xi Jinping is confident that he knows more about Taiwan than anybody else. There is no knowing whether Xi’s “confidence” in his dealings with Taiwan will prevent a clash or lead to a dangerous overconfidence
Xi Jinping is confident that he knows more about Taiwan than anybody else. There is no knowing whether Xi’s “confidence” in his dealings with Taiwan will prevent a clash or lead to a dangerous overconfidence