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The ruling government of Taiwan is the government of the Republic of China. The passports of the Taiwan people are issued by the ROC.
These are two different countries. Since the establishment of the PRC in 1949, there have been ongoing diplomatic wars between the two countries. It is the PRC that is using buzzwords to insist on "one China" and oppose "Taiwan independence" as a means of putting pressure on a county it hopes to one day dominate.
Actually, since 1912, for over half a century the world recognized the Republic of China. But later on, due to the influence of the United Nations and the United States, since 1971 the world switched its recognition to the PRC. This resulted from the inappropriate diplomatic measures of President Chiang Kai-Shek. After World War II, Chiang overestimated his strength while underestimating the Chinese Communist Party. He wanted to use his diplomatic power to prevent or delay international recognition of the PRC. So he adopted the "one China policy" which was a distortion of reality.
Unexpectedly, the diplomatic weapon Chiang intended to use to defeat the PRC turned against him and caused the ROC a great deal of damage. At present, there are fewer than 30 countries that maintain formal diplomatic relations with the ROC. As a result, the ROC has had to use the name Taiwan to differentiate itself from the PRC, which the world knows as China.
The government of Taiwan has come up with various formulas to define its separate status so as not to be misunderstood as part of China by the international community. There are the "special state-to-state" theory, the "one country on each side" statement, the aim of "moving to be a normal country," and campaigns for "rectifying the name of Taiwan," "rejoining the United Nations in the name of Taiwan" and "amending and rewriting the Constitution."
All these discussions and efforts are interpreted as "Taiwan is moving toward independence" by the Chinese Communist Party in the mainland. Hence the Communist Party has actively prepared for combat by formulating its Anti-secession Law and deploying over 1,000 missiles targeted at Taiwan, demonstrating that it is ready to use military force to curb Taiwan's independence.
If Taiwan really belonged to the PRC, this matter would be an internal affair. The fact is that Taiwan has never belonged to the PRC -- it belongs to the 23 million people of Taiwan. During the civil war between the Chinese Communist Party and the Kuomintang, the Communists "snatched" mainland China by armed force from the ruling Kuomintang government, and then established the PRC in the mainland. However, they did not snatch Taiwan at that time. So according to the late Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong's theory that "political power comes from the barrel of a gun," the mainland belongs to the PRC whereas Taiwan does not. Taiwan still belongs to the ROC.
If the PRC really wants to own Taiwan, it can only resort to military power to "snatch" it through another war of invasion. This would be an international war, not simply the extension of the civil war between the Chinese Communist Party and Kuomintang, as the ROC has been under the rule of the Democratic Progressive Party since 2000, not the KMT anymore. Therefore, it could not in any sense be viewed as a civil war. The international world should not be deceived by the rhetoric of the Chinese Communist Party.
There was no formal ceasefire agreement between the Chinese Communist Party and the Kuomintang. Also, since World War II there has been no proper procedure under international law to determine the issue of Taiwan's ownership. These are acts of negligence caused by human factors, but since they are already long past, it is useless to blame Chiang or other international political figures responsible for this unresolved issue. At this stage we can only look ahead.
Laws exist to serve people, to safeguard human rights. Even if the ROC officially declared there were "two Chinas," or "one China and one Taiwan," or if it declared an official name change from Republic of China to Taiwan, it would merely be making up for what former political figures should have done, formalizing the nation's legal status to protect its people's human rights, which should have done long ago.
Every civilized country should respect the human rights of the 23 million people of the ROC, and give quick, bold and warm recognition to this country. The world should not go along with the Chinese Communist Party in its "one China" trick, and should not be deceived by the unreasonable claims of the CCP that China has the right to resort to military force to prevent Taiwan's independence. Taiwan is not part of China at all.
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(Dr. Chang Chuan-fong is Asia director of the International Educational Foundation based in Macau, and former associate professor at Minghsin University of Science and Technology, Taiwan. @Copyright Chang Chuan-fong.)
