President William Lai (賴清德) delivered a pithy reply to Beijing’s constant claim that Taiwan belongs under the control of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) — “the Chinese motherland.” As Lai deftly noted, Communist China could not possibly be considered the “mother” of the Republic of China (ROC) government on Taiwan. The ROC has ruled Taiwan since Imperial Japan surrendered to end World War II in 1945 and relinquished control of Taiwan. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) in Beijing did not come into existence until 1949.
Taiwan’s history has been interwoven with that of three Asian tyrannies since the end of the 19th century. In 1895, it came under the control of Imperial Japan in the Treaty of Shimonoseki after China lost its war with Japan. Tokyo then controlled Taiwan for the next 50 years, governing it in a somewhat milder manner than the ultra-harsh treatment it imposed on other Japanese colonies. Fortunes changed with the outcome of World War II, when Taiwanese went from the Imperial Japanese fire into the authoritarian Chinese frying pan.
Taiwan, like China, was then ruled by the generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), an anti-communist dictator and wartime ally of the US, but no believer in democratic governance for his own country. His Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime was guilty of the White Terror and many other depredations against Taiwanese. Their valiant efforts for freedom and human rights were increasingly supported by the US government and important US public figures.
Chiang died in 1975 and he was succeeded as president by his eldest son, Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國). Katherine Graham, publisher of the Washington Post, interviewed him during a visit to Taiwan in 1986, and he used the occasion to state that he was lifting some restrictions on the press and political parties, and was considering easing martial law.
Taiwan’s democratic movement made sure those promises were fulfilled, and it accelerated its long and painful march toward full democracy. The evolution has riled the CCP because it demonstrated that a multi-ethnic Chinese society can function as a free, modern nation. That implicitly threatened the political legitimacy of the PRC itself, the third Asian autocracy with designs on Taiwan.
Ever since Henry Kissinger’s muddled, too-clever-by-half diplomacy paved the way for then-US president Richard Nixon’s historic opening to China in 1972, Beijing has intensified its baseless claim to “reunify” with Taiwan, which it has never governed.
In 1984, former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平) promulgated his “one country, two systems” theory which promised that Hong Kong and Taiwan, while supposedly part of the Chinese nation, would govern their own internal affairs. Deng said at the time: “Has any government in the history of the world ever pursued a policy as generous as China’s? ... We should have faith in the Chinese of Hong Kong, who are quite capable of administering their own affairs. The notion that Chinese cannot manage Hong Kong affairs satisfactorily is a leftover from the old colonial mentality.”
Five years later, Deng showed how much he respected the aspirations of the Chinese on the mainland, culminating in the Tiananmen Square Massacre. In the past decade, the crushing of Hong Kong’s local governance system demolished any appeal “one country, two systems” might have had for Taiwan, despite Deng’s soft language.
“As for Taiwan, reunification of the motherland is the aspiration of the whole nation. If it cannot be accomplished in 100 years, it will be in 1,000 years. As I see it, the only solution lies in practicing two systems in one country,” he wrote.
However, after witnessing Hong Kong’s demise, and having gotten rid of Chiang Kai-shek’s dictatorship, democratic Taiwanese are in no mood to accept CCP tyranny.
In 2005, China adopted its “Anti-Secession” Law, declaring that if Taiwan takes too long to submit to China’s rule, Beijing would resort to “non-peaceful means” to force “reunification.” So says “the motherland.” Beijing’s motives strike most Taiwanese as malicious rather than maternal.
Joseph Bosco served as China country director for the US secretary of defense from 2005 to 2006, and as Asia-Pacific director of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief from 2009 to 2010.
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