WORLD
ISSUES
From Issue #2
THE STORY OF TAIWAN
With
Communist China threatening to invade, the island of Taiwan
is stuck in one of the most dangerous political situations in
the world. Only the risk of American military support and Western
outcry has kept the Chinese army at bay. But the threats keep
coming. The Communists claim Taiwan belongs to China and eventually
the island will be reunified with the mainland, as Hong Kong
was recently. Any suggestion by Taiwanese politicians that Taiwan
has no interest in joining China and wishes to remain independent
brings angry threats of violence from the Chinese government.
A quick look at the history of the island gives some insight
into the resentment the Taiwanese people feel at the thought
of being ruled by yet another "outside" power.
Attack from the sea! This one is just practice.
Taiwan lies about 200 km off the coast of China with the Philippines
to the south and Japan to the north. The mountainous island, about
half the size of New Brunswick, is home to 22 million people.
The original Taiwanese were actually of Polynesian ancestry with
increasing numbers of immigrant Chinese settling the coastal areas
as the centuries wore on.
China looms menacingly 200 kilometres away
Taiwan
was spotted by Portuguese explorers in 1517 and was named Formosa,
meaning "beautiful", a name that stuck in the centuries to follow.
The Dutch eventually settled it in the 17th century, bringing
in more Chinese to work the farms. China, for its part, was
unfamiliar with the island of Taiwan, and was content to let
the Dutch control it. But when the Manchu army invaded the Chinese
Empire from the north, 25,000 Imperial soldiers and noblemen
fled across to Taiwan, ejecting the Dutch. Eventually, in 1683,
the Manchu army crushed the Chinese in Taiwan and sent many
of them back to the mainland, and decided to retain control
of Taiwan. The Manchu Empire (better known as the Ch'ing dynasty)
remained intact for the next 200 years.
The Chinese heritage shows at a Taiwanese temple
In
1895, to appease the powerful Japanese, the Manchu leaders in
China gave Taiwan to Japan. Japan ruled Taiwan for the next
fifty years, facing frequent uprisings, until they lost to the
Americans in World War II. In the 1945 treaty dividing Japan's
colonial lands, Taiwan was given to the new rulers of China,
the Nationalists. The new Chinese overlords were notoriously
corrupt and were brutal in dealing with any disobedience, massacring
thousands of innocent people during an anti-corruption protest
in 1947. To make matters worse, the Chinese Nationalists were
losing a civil war in China to the Communists.
In
1949, the defeated Nationalists fled China (with all the loot
they could carry) and in a short period one million (Mandarin
speaking) mainland Chinese arrived in Taiwan! Their Nationalist
leader, Chiang Kai-shek, took command and immediately declared
martial law. He set up a parliament in Taiwan and went on to
claim that he represented the entire country of China, and held
the seat for China at the United Nations. Their mortal enemies,
the Communists, were ready to finish off the Nationalists in
Taiwan in 1950 but a U.S. naval presence discouraged the invasion.
Eventually, the reality that the Communists in China were going
to be in power for a long while led many countries, including
the U.S., to open relations with the Communists, culminating
in the Communists taking over the United Nations seat for China,
and pushing the Taiwan delegation out in 1971.
Armoured vehicles patrolling the streets
The Nationalists ruled with an iron fist for years, but finally
pressure in the 1980s, especially from the Americans, brought
about a new phase of politics in Taiwan. The stunning economic
success since WWII, largely due to the infrastructure put in
place by the Japanese, also increased the people's desire for
political change. A fledgling opposition party was allowed to
form, and participate in government in 1986. In 1991, the Nationalists
leaders finally announced they no longer claimed all ownership
of all of China. With this claim behind them, the Nationalist
government could focus on solely on the future success of Taiwan.
The first fully democratic elections were held in 1996 and the
experienced Nationalist party was elected to continue to lead
the government, as confidence in the relatively new Democratic
People's Party (DDP) was just starting to grow.
A Taiwanese missile test
This
March, the balance of power shifted as the DDP candidate, Taiwan-born
Chen Shui-bian was elected president. With 85% of the island's
population being of Taiwanese descent (versus 13% "mainlander"
Chinese) the trend towards a new era in Taiwanese politics is
obvious. The issue of formal independence will continue to be
discussed with louder voices, as China's claim to Taiwan, based
on history, is far from solid. China, ruled by very old isolated
men, stuck in a mentality 50 years old, will continue to make
threats. Rich, well-defended Taiwan will do and say just enough
to avoid direct conflict, knowing that it will only be a matter
of time before Communist rule in China collapses as elsewhere.
The bottom line is that Taiwan is historically and culturally
quite different than China, and is already effectively independent,
so there really is no practical benefit to declaring official
independence.
The Current Flag of Taiwan (with a Chinese Sun)
The Flag of An Independent Taiwan
