But the People's Republic of China is already a member, so surely the membership of Chinese Taipei would be somewhat redundant? It's not like each and every U.S. state have their own separate U.N. memberships.
But for those who aren't familiar with the situation, I'll lay it out.
Taiwan was formed when a bunch of Chinese aristocrats fled the mainland.
Their big mistake was, at the time, not declaring themselves a new country, but instead declaring they were the rightful rulers of all of China, and that they were, in fact, part of China.
At some point, a few years later, it became obvious that wasn't going to happen, and that China was going to be its own place. So Taiwan finally realized they really needed to give up this "we are part of China and the rightful rulers" and just become their own country.
However, at this point, they were a fairly prosperous state, so China found it politically-expedient to turn it around and say: "Actually, Taiwan is part of China as they've been saying all these years. We will pull them back into the fold."
All sorts of political shit-storm went down at this point, and hasn't really cooled off ever since.
People who frame Taiwan as being part of China (as parent did) are on the side of Mainland China. People who frame Taiwan as being an independent country (as many UN members do) are on the other side from Mainland China.
The debate is very much not settled.
SOURCE: was married to TW citizen for >10yr, have lived in TW for >1yr of my life. Have way more details on intricacies than I've laid out here.
> Taiwan was formed when a bunch of Chinese aristocrats fled the mainland.
This sounds like something out of Chinese Communist Party propaganda - aristocrats? The last Emperor was deposed almost 40 years before, and the Nationalists had nothing to do with them.
The history:
Taiwan, a large island the size of ~Maryland off the SE China coast, had been a somewhat primitive frontier of China for much of its history. Sometimes the Chinese government controlled it, sometimes not. It was a refuge for fugitives at times. Japan controlled it from 1895 until (IIRC) they lost it in WWII.
Before and after WWII there was a civil war for control of China between the right-wing Nationalists, led by Chiang Kai-chek, and the left-wing Communists, led by Mao Tse-tung. Both were brutal authoritarian dictators; there were no white knights here. Not surprisingly, the U.S. favored Chiang, the Soviets favored Mao.
In 1949 the Communists won. The Nationalists fled to Taiwan and the Communists lacked the capacity to attack them there, so they remained. Both parties claimed to be the legitimate government of China and I'm pretty sure the Nationalists even retained China's UN seat.
In 1972, a falling out between the Communists and Soviet Union created an opportunity that the U.S. exploited. Nixon famously went to mainland China, normalized relations, and the U.S. backed away from Taiwan. The Communists got the UN seat, and all three parties agreed that Taiwan was part of China, not a separate nation, but temporarily with a separate government. Also, the issue would not be resolved by force and the U.S. has an agreement with Taiwan to defend it if necessary.
That arrangement persists until today. Defending Taiwan wasn't a big deal through the 1990s, when China's military was so weak. Now it is a much more serious risk to the U.S.
> Also, the issue would not be resolved by force and the U.S. has an agreement with Taiwan to defend it if necessary.
To further clarify, the Taiwan Relations Act requires the US to give Taiwan the ability to defend itself; whether this would bind the US to directly intervene in a conflict on Taiwan's behalf is somewhat unclear, and that ambiguity is a not-insignificant part of the truce.
Is it still the case that you have to pick one or the other to recognize?
My understanding was that the US, for example, doesn't recognize Taiwan because it would mean losing trade with China; and that if a country recognizes Taiwan, it loses the ability to trade with mainland China, but gets various benefits from Taiwan as well as easier trade terms.
Of course, it's likely that this has changed; my information is probably a few years out of date, maybe a decade or two.
Stop mixing "China" with the "People's Republic of China." Taiwan has only claimed to be a part of "China." But never the "People's Republic of China."
Mixing the two terms might seem pedantic, but it is not, it's the whole reason for the status quo. The PRC is satisfied that the ROC says they're a part of China. The ROC is satisfied that they're not saying they're a part of the PRC.
> Taiwan was formed when a bunch of Chinese aristocrats fled the mainland.
Taiwan was formed through various geological processes, inhabited by aboriginals, later colonized by China during the Ming Dynasty, reclaimed by China during the Qing dynasty, conquered by Japan, claimed by the ROC after Japan was defeated in WW2, and established as the new center of the ROC government after the KMT lost the mainland in the Chinese Civil War.
Taiwan did not spring into existence, fully formed, at the end of the Chinese Civil War. And calling the current government "a bunch of Chinese aristocrats" obscures that they were Jiang Jieshi, leader of the Republic of China, and his motley band of KMT officials.
I don't say this to be pedantic, but to establish important context to what the situation in Taiwan actually is.
> However, at this point, they were a fairly prosperous state, so China found it politically-expedient to turn it around and say: "Actually, Taiwan is part of China as they've been saying all these years. We will pull them back into the fold."
The PRC did not "turn around". During the Chinese Civil War, they were in the process of finishing the job and taking Taiwan, but their lack of a real navy and the US eventually coming to Taiwan's defense made it difficult to complete.
Officially, the PRC and ROC are still at war for control of China (no ceasefires have been signed), and the PRC occupies the mainland and the ROC occupies Taiwan.
In other words, reunification has been both the PRC and the ROC's official stance since the start of the Chinese Civil War.
> So Taiwan finally realized they really needed to give up this "we are part of China and the rightful rulers" and just become their own country.
> People who frame Taiwan as being part of China (as parent did) are on the side of Mainland China. People who frame Taiwan as being an independent country (as many UN members do) are on the other side from Mainland China.
Taiwan is not a very homogenous country. Taiwan is also a representative democracy, so its government is not very homogenous, either.
Some Taiwanese people want things to stay the status quo, some Taiwanese people want reunification, and some Taiwanese people want other more complicated things.
Some Taiwanese people love the KMT, some Taiwanese people were jailed and executed by the hundreds of thousands during the KMT's White Terror because they were suspected of disagreeing with the KMT's rule or being sympathetic to communism.
Some Taiwanese people are aboriginals who hate that they've been dragged into this spat between Chinese people, some Taiwanese people want Japanese rule (Taiwan generally hates Japan the least out of all the territories occupied by Japan, because they were Japan's "model colony" and were treated well, e.g. they didn't have their women forced into sex slavery)...
Mainland China is kind of homogenous in its support for reunification (well, even in the mainland there are plenty of people who don't care or prefer the status quo to war), but Taiwan can't really be said to have one opinion here.
