Everybody knows about the backstory, there was a civil war, KMT fled to Taiwan creating two Chinas sort of, maybe, neither recognises the other, whole thing. ROC (Taiwan) ended up transitioning from military rule to a multi-party democracy, while the PRC (mainland China) didn’t do that (they did reform economically, “socialism with Chinese characteristics” and all that, but still a one-party state, not a multi-party democracy). The status quo right now is that Taiwan is in the grey area of statehood where they function pretty much independently but aren’t properly recognised, and both sides of the strait are feeling pretty tense right now.
Taiwan’s stance on the issue is that they would like to remain politically and economically independent of mainland China, retaining their multi-party democracy, political connections to its allies, economic trade connections, etc. Also, a majority of the people in Taiwan do not support reunification with China.
China’s stance on the issue is that Taiwan should be reunified with the mainland at all costs, ideally peacefully, but war is not ruled out. They argue that Taiwan was unfairly separated from the mainland by imperial powers in their “century of humiliation”. Strategically, taking Taiwan would be beneficial to China as they would have better control of the sea.
Is it even possible for both sides to agree to a peaceful solution? Personally, I can only see two ways this could go about that has the consent of both parties. One, a reformist leader takes power in the mainland and gives up on Taiwan, and the two exist as separate independent nations. Or two, the mainland gets a super-reformist leader that transitions the mainland to a multi-party democracy, and maybe then reunification could be on the table, with Taiwan keeping an autonomous status given the large cultural difference (similar to Hong Kong or Macau’s current status). Both options are, unfortunately, very unlikely to occur in the near future.
A third option (?) would be a pseudo-unification, where Taiwan becomes a recognised country, but there can be free movement of people between the mainland and Taiwan, free trade, that sort of stuff (sort of like the EU? Maybe?). Not sure if the PRC would accept that.
What are your thoughts on a peaceful solution to the crisis that both sides could agree on?
反攻大陆 (Counterattack the mainland) 😏
/just kidding
I think the only peaceful unification would be if CCP falls and mainland China becomes an actual democracy with free and fair elections, then mainland, HK, Taiwan can form a union, where Taiwan and HK remains autonomous regions for domestic politics (and this automony would be backed by a constitution) and have a common front for defence.
I mean another option would be complete sovereignty but a European Union type of thing where they do cooperate and sort of is like a country, but maintain the option to leave.
But regardless, I think it all comes down to what HKers and Taiwanese want, you need a referrendum for these types of things. I’d say to have legitimacy: Two consecutive referrendums in two separate regularly scheduled election with majority approval before any plan is enacted, to attempt to prevent a Brexit shenanigan.
I’m Chinese American so while I do support democracy, I am kinda leaning towards reunification assuming that there is actually democracy, but again it all comes down to what the people think, the will of the people is more important than my opinions.