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?
While I don’t claim to be an expert on the subject, the only peaceful outcome I can see is actually just a continuation of the status quo, where mainland China uses “reunification” messaging as little more than a show of strength and patriotic political rhetoric, and where the Western world continues to treat Taiwan’s independence with “strategic ambiguity” while hinting to China that any attempt to take Taiwan will be met with a large scale Western response from the US and allies.
I do think that the West wants Russia’s attempted invasion of Ukraine to be a sign of what China should expect if they were to attempt to annex Taiwan. It won’t be easy, it’ll throw trade and supply chains into absolute chaos, and it’ll be met with harsh economic sanctions and large weapons deals at the very least. The West wants China to feel that there is very little upside to attacking Taiwan, and that it’s much more reasonable to maintain the status quo (though arguably, tariffs and trade wars needlessly remove some of the US’s economic leverage over China).
Rhetoric aside, how much chaos and bloodshed is China really willing to tolerate just for the pyrric victory of finishing what Mao started almost a century ago?
I think the main hope for peace is that Xi and the ruling members of the CCP feel that it’s in their personal best interest to talk a big game while doing the bare minimum to disrupt the systems that they currently benefit from.