Why is Taiwan so important to the western world?
What is all the fuss and worry about Taiwan? Why does a visit by USA House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi cause the Chinese government to threaten war?
It all sounds bizarre and quite outside average Canadian thought. Nevertheless, the island of Taiwan is a hot spot of political tension in the geopolitical world. Located about 160 km off the coast of China, Taiwan has had a complicated relationship with China. There is a long story that gets us where we are, with a recent tradition of the two territories each claiming the other as its dependent possession. History does inform the gamesmanship, especially the removal of Taiwan from UN membership as "China", to be replaced by communist China. Deals and compromises were made to get mainland China into full UN membership, as Taiwan lost its UN membership. Canada observes the classic struggle of the young democracy of Taiwan struggling to mature and become its own, midst threats of invasion from a giant oppressor. Sound familiar (Ukraine?) Taiwan matters to Canada.
The island has attracted explorers for centuries. Going back to the Middle Ages, there has been a tradition of locals fighting off invaders. The Dutch, Spanish, French, and mainland Chinese each have had their period of control. In 1885, the Chinese Qing empire designated Taiwan as China’s 22nd province. Then China lost a war with Japan in 1895 and Taiwan was ceded to Japan as a colony of Japanese occupation from 1895 to 1945.
After Japan's defeat in World War II, Japan lost control of Taiwan, and the government of the Republic of China (ROC), led by Chiang Kai-shek's Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), re-established Chinese control over the island. After the Chinese Communists under Mao Zedong defeated the ROC government in the Chinese Civil War (1945-1949), the ROC regime retreated to Taiwan and established the island as a base of operations to fight back against the Chinese mainland. For years the Taiwanese government claimed to be the legitimate heir of all of China and naively hoped it could one day overcome the Communist Regime of Mao Zedong. The mainland People's Republic of China (PRC) government from the very beginning had intentions to "liberate" Taiwan by military force. This began a period of Taiwan's de facto political independence from the Chinese mainland which continues today.
During the Korean War in 1950, the United States sought to prevent the spread of Communism, sent the Seventh Fleet to patrol the Taiwan Strait and stop Communist China from invading Taiwan, and prevented Mao's invasion of Taiwan. However, the ROC regime in Taiwan continued to hold the "China seat" in the United Nations. Under the pretext of ongoing civil war, Chiang Kai-shek continued to suspend the ROC constitution and Taiwan remained under martial law and local democracy did not develop. Chiang Kai-shek had the false hope to fight back and recover the mainland.
After Chiang Kai-shek died in 1975, his son Chiang Ching-Kuo led Taiwan through a period of political, diplomatic, and economic transition and rapid economic growth. In 1972, the ROC lost its seat in the United Nations to the People's Republic of China (PRC). Canada followed that policy, and in 1979, the United States switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing. The US Congress passed the Taiwan Relations Act, which commits the U.S. to help Taiwan defend itself from attack by the PRC.
In Canada, Communist China opened the Chinese Embassy. Taiwan had to rely on existing social and business contacts in Canada, and established the very successful quasi-business offices in Ottawa, Toronto, and Vancouver, entitled the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (TECO) which serve as pseudo embassies.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has made security over the Taiwan Strait a major focus of worldwide attention. Aggression against democratic Taiwan would have a tremendous impact on the security of the entire Indo-Pacific. Taiwan is facing deliberately heightened military threats, but Taiwan will not back down. They firmly uphold their nation's sovereignty and continue to hold the line of defense for democracy. They claim they desire to cooperate and work in unity with all democracies around the world to jointly safeguard democratic values.
We recall that the Communist Party regime in Beijing began a period of "reform and opening" after Deng Xiaoping took power in 1978. Beijing changed its Taiwan policy from armed "liberation" to "peaceful unification" under the "one country, two systems" notions, but it also refused to renounce the eventual possible use of force against Taiwan.
Through government investment in high-tech, export-oriented industries, Taiwan experienced an “economic miracle” and its economy became one of Asia’s ‘four little dragons.’ Canada developed significant economic and social ties with Taiwan. Many Taiwan students come to Canadian Universities. Under Lee Teng-hui, the ROC’s first Taiwan-born president, Taiwan experienced a transition to democracy and a clear Taiwanese political identity distinct from mainland China. Through a series of constitutional reforms, the ROC government went through a process of ‘Taiwanization.’
While officially continuing to claim sovereignty over all of China, the ROC recognized PRC control over the mainland and declared that the ROC government currently represents only the people of Taiwan and the ROC-controlled offshore islands of Penghu, Jinmen, and Mazu. Alternately, the mainland PRC never abandoned their claim that Taiwan was their possession.
People in Taiwan view themselves as “Taiwanese” rather than “Chinese” and the complete independence fever has steadily risen. In 1996, Taiwan witnessed its first direct presidential election, won by president Lee Teng-hui of the KMT. Before the election, the mainland PRC launched missiles into the Taiwan Strait as a warning that it would use force to prevent Taiwan's political independence from China. In response, the US sent two aircraft carriers to the area to signal its commitment to defend Taiwan from a PRC China attack.
The Communist Party regime in Beijing China worried that Taiwan was moving toward complete irrevocable legal independence from China, and in 2005 passed the Anti-Secession Law authorizing the use of force against Taiwan to prevent its legal separation from the mainland. The political fictions continued, as each has functioned very independently since the rise of the Communist Regime of Mao Zedong on the mainland in 1949.
The Taiwan government tried to improve relations with Beijing and promote economic exchange while maintaining independent political status. Based on the so-called "92 consensuses," the government held historic rounds of economic negotiations with China which opened direct postal, communication, and navigation links across the Taiwan Strait, established the ECFA framework for a cross-Strait free trade area, and opened Taiwan to tourism from mainland China.
Despite this thawing in relations between Taipei and Beijing and increased economic integration across the Taiwan Strait, there has been little sign in Taiwan of increased support for political unification with the mainland. The majority of Taiwan’s citizens support a continuation of the status quo of de facto independence from China. They enjoy business with China but also their democratic and political independence.
Nevertheless, mainland China has become bolder and more belligerent in the world and has stepped up its fantasy claim on Taiwan. Nancy Pelosi said her recent trip to the region was “not about changing the status quo in Taiwan”. However, her diplomatic support to Taipei infuriated China, prompting it to hold live-fire military drills in the waters off Taiwan. China’s state broadcaster said the military exercises would be the largest conducted by China in the Taiwan Strait. Five missiles landed in Japan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), prompting Tokyo to lodge a strong protest through diplomatic channels. Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida said China’s military exercises aimed at Taiwan represent a “grave problem” that threatens regional peace and security.
The US House speaker, who previously asserted American commitment to democracy in Taiwan and elsewhere as "ironclad," said China will not isolate Taipei by preventing American officials from traveling there. China issued a chilling warning to Taiwan not to assert its independence anymore, lest it have China “re-educate” the breakaway territory. Ms. Pelosi, became the highest-level US official to visit Taiwan in 25 years, and praised its democracy and pledged solidarity, which enraged China and prompted the tantrum of live-fire military drills. China, which claims Taiwan as its territory and reserves the right to take it by force, said on Thursday, that its differences with the self-ruled island were an “internal affair”. No one takes such self-deception seriously.
The United States and the foreign ministers of the Group of Seven nations warned China against using Pelosi’s visit as a pretext for military action against Taiwan. The G7 Foreign Ministers of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, and the High Representative of the European Union, reaffirmed the shared commitment to maintaining the rules-based international order, peace, and stability across the Taiwan Strait and beyond. That is a significant Canadian connection. Hundreds travel back and forth between Canada and Taiwan every week. Our social and economic ties are historically strong. Canada is an ally of Taiwan. When China threatens Taiwan, it is threatening us.
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