“Yo! Chinese noodles!”

            This was a seemingly innocuous playful tease I and a Taiwanese friend received back in fourth grade, at an elementary school in the United States. Of course, we were quick to correct him that we were not Chinese, but Taiwanese. To us, this misconception was discourteous to our nation’s existence. But the misconception was widespread, even among the Taiwanese American community, most of who were brainwashed by the then-ruling KMT regime before coming to the United States. Although Taiwanese self-identity and awareness have consolidated in recent years and although more and more Westerners I’ve talked to seem to be informed of Taiwan’s true relation with China, it’s still difficult to counter the Chinese government’s spurious propaganda, especially at a time when phrases such as “China rising” and “the new Asia power” are all over the news. Misconceptions are best corrected, in my view, through a zetetic approach. I will attempt to summarize my nation’s predicament in a simulated dialogue between me and a new Western friend I just met.

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            Hello, where are you from?

            Taiwan.

            Where? Thailand?

            No, Taiwan. It’s an island country off the southeast coast of China. It shapes like a yam on the map.

            Oh, so you are Chinese, I suppose.

            Well, it depends on what you mean by “Chinese.” I do have ancestors that came from China. But just as Americans are not English and Brazilians are not Portuguese, it might be more appropriate to think of me as just Taiwanese.

            But I thought Taiwan is a part of China.

            Actually, no. Not since 1895. Each has its own government and its own foreign affairs. Currently, Taiwan is a fully democratic and free republic while China is a totalitarian, single-party dictatorship.

            Then why does China insist on claiming Taiwan as a “renegade province”?

            Good question. The Chinese government claims that Taiwan is both historically and legally part of China. Historically, they cite a handful of ancient texts that mention the existence of an island off the coast of China, called Yizhou or Liuqiu, where a Chinese general of the Three Kingdom Period visited, raided and brought captives back to China. They assert this place to be Taiwan. Legally, they contend that the Cairo and Potsdam Declarations made by the Allied powers during World War II granted the Republic of China legal rights to Taiwan, rights which the People’s Republic of China, the champion of the Chinese Civil War, “inherited.”

            So what’s wrong with the claim?

            First of all, the ancient texts were most likely alluding to the island group Ryukyu, which is pronounced Liuqiu in Mandarin Chinese. These islands, in contrast to Taiwan, had historically traded with China. Han Chinese, the dominant ethnic group of China, began to settle in Taiwan only four hundred years ago, while the Austronesian aborigines with whom the Han people mixed had been hunting and farming on the island for over a thousand years.

            What was Taiwan like before the Han Chinese came? Was there a kingdom of any sort?

There is no historical record of a well-organized local government in Taiwan before the 17^th century. There were probably aboriginal tribes that fought each other for territory, much like what America was like before the European settlers arrived in the New World.

How, then, did Taiwan become “civilized”?

A Dutch sailor on a Portuguese ship first sighted Taiwan at the end of the 16^th century, naming the island Formosa, which means “a beautiful island” in Portuguese. But the first civilized power to take control of any part of Taiwan was the Dutch East-Indies Company, which governed parts of the island from 1624 to 1661.

Wow, so the Dutch was the first to occupy Taiwan?

Indeed. The Spanish also came to claim parts of Northern Taiwan as well, from 1626 to 1641, but was fought off by the Dutch. So the Western powers were fighting over this island even before the Chinese came.

But this doesn’t make sense. If Taiwan were located just off the coast of China, why didn’t the Chinese arrive much earlier?

There is a strong ocean current in what is now the Taiwan Strait. The difficulty of crossing the strait is summed up by its nickname, the “Black Ditch.” The archipelago Pescadores, which lies in the middle of the Taiwan Strait, was settled by the Chinese since the 12^th century. But there was truly no documentation of Chinese settlers in Taiwan until the 17^th century, when Chinese pirates began to visit the island occasionally.

How, then, did Taiwan come to be occupied by the Chinese?

During this period, Han immigrants came in larger numbers, a consequence of the Dutch’s incentives for land development. In 1661, Koxinga, a loyal minister to the previous Ming Dynasty of China, fought off the Dutch and took over Taiwan, where his family reigned until 1683. Then the Qing Emperor of China decided to eradicate all remnant powers of the old dynasty, so he sent a general across the Taiwan Strait and vanquished Koxinga’s forces.

So is 1683 the first year that Taiwan was ever part of China?

Yes. But interestingly, before the annexation occurred, it was hotly debated within the Qing government. Most of the ministers and even the emperor himself opposed to annexation because they thought Taiwan was “a barren land full of savages since the ancient times,” so it would be too much of an economical burden to govern it. However, Shih Lang, the general that conquered Taiwan, argued that Taiwan’s location was strategic for China’s defense. Furthermore, being a former subordinate to Koxinga, Shih Lang knew that the island was rich and fertile, so he argued strongly for its annexation. In the end, Shih Lang was able to convince the emperor, so Taiwan became part of China.

It seems that Shih Lang was hero for Chinese occupation in Taiwan.

Indeed. It is rumored that the Chinese government is building an aircraft carrier. Guess what the name of the carrier will be? That’s right—Shih Lang.

How did the Qing Empire govern Taiwan?

Even though the Qing Empire agreed with the annexation, it still tried to minimize managerial burden by imposing immigration laws. Sometimes the law restricted immigrants to Taiwan from taking their wives and children with them and other times banned immigration completely. It was not until 1860, the year the Qing Empire got humiliated by England and France in the second Anglo-Chinese War, when Taiwan was officially made a province and began to attract more attention and development. Nevertheless, Taiwan was ceded to Japan after China lost the 1894 Sino-Japanese War, and Taiwan was never officially part of China anymore.

First the Dutch. Then the Qing. And now Japan?

Exactly, the fact is that Taiwan had mostly been ruled by a foreign power that didn’t truly care about the islands residents. However, Japanese occupation was beneficial to Taiwan in some ways. Japan ruled the island for 51 years, modernizing Taiwan and installing infrastructure that contributed to its economic growth in the latter half of the century. For example, Japan helped eradicate unwholesome habits common in the Qing dynasty, such as foot binding. Japan also raised the level of education in Taiwan to the same level as in Japan.

That’s interesting. So Taiwan is highly influenced by Japan as well?

Correct. But for most of the time Japan considered Taiwan as a colony, so it didn’t encourage naturalization until the very last years of their occupation. In 1945 Japan surrendered to General McArthur of the Allied Powers and relinquished all its rights to Taiwan.

“Relinquished all rights.” To whom?

This is not stated explicitly, which is crucial to the indeterminacy of Taiwan’s legal status in the world. Even though the Cairo Declaration and the later Potsdam Declaration stated that Taiwan was to be returned to Nationalist China after the war, the former was an unsigned document for press release and both were agreements among a few parties that happened during the war, so their legality is disputed. The San Francisco Peace Treaty of 1951 merely states that “Japan renounces all right, title and claim to Formosa and the Pescadores.”

            In fact, some Taiwanese independence activists have argued that the Charter of the United Nations guaranteed that any territory relinquished by the defeated powers of WWII should be guided to independence within a ten-year time frame, a fate that had befallen rightfully to Libya—but not to Taiwan. And that’s a clear-cut refutation to the Chinese government’s claim about Taiwan’s legal status.

            But I’m confused. With all your Taiwan independence rhetoric, why does your passport still print “the Republic of China” on its cover?

            Sadly, it turned out that the People’s Republic of China was not the first to deceive the Taiwanese and the world of Taiwan’s legal status. The KMT (Nationalist Party) government of the Republic of China led by the then Generalissimo Chiang Kai Shek, immediately established control over the island after the Japanese surrendered in 1945. Initially, the Taiwanese were exhilarated to become part of a more culturally similar Republic of China. The excitement descended into disappointment when Chinese officials turned out to be corrupt and inefficient. Unlike the Japanese who granted limited autonomy at the end of their rule, the Chinese officials distrusted the Taiwanese, barred them from taking part in politics, and treated them as second-class citizens.

            That’s too bad.

It’s even worse. On February 28, 1947, the Taiwanese marched on the streets in a peaceful demonstration, which Chiang brutally responded to with armed forces. Using this “228 massacre”, Chiang eliminated a great portion of the Taiwanese elite, and silenced the rest in the decades that followed.

But you still haven’t explained why Taiwan still calls itself the Republic of China.

After being defeated by the communists in the Chinese Civil War, Chiang and many other Chinese fled to Taiwan, where they maintained a totalitarian regime for forty years that many dub “The Era of White Terror.” Political dissidents were spied on and jailed for arbitrary reasons. Their family members disappeared for inexplicable reasons, most of them probably murdered by the government. Textbooks brainwashed the population by telling them they were all Chinese and that it was their duty to fight the communists and “recover the mainland.”

It was not until 1988 when Chiang’s son died that Taiwan was allowed to democratize. The Taiwanese finally ruled themselves for the first time in their history, and the nation has ever since been free and democratic. The old name, flag and national anthem are still there, however, partly because the 15 percent of the population that came with Chiang doesn’t want to change them, and partly because of any attempt to vote on this issue would incur China’s threat of war.

            But isn’t the Taiwanese ethnically and culturally the same as the Chinese? Why are you so opposed to reunification?

            Han culture indeed dominated Taiwan over the past three hundred years, mainly due to the Qing dynasty’s extended rule. However, the immigration policy from the Qing Empire meant that the majority of Taiwanese nowadays descended from both Han and aboriginal origins. Furthermore, the fifty-year period of Japanese influence and the more than a hundred years separation from China meant that cultural differences have become increasingly significant.

            Even if Taiwan and China have similar cultures, why must they be part of the same country? Taiwan is doing perfectly fine as an independent democracy. It is the 25^th largest economy in the world. Its high tech companies design and manufacture 70% of the world’s PCs and 80% of the world’s laptop computers. Economic union with China similar to the NAFTA and the EU might be beneficial, but why should Taiwan bother to unify with China politically?

            If all you said about Taiwan is true, how come the world maps still label the island as “Taiwan, Province of China”? And how come most nations in the world are still hesitant to offer recognition of Taiwan’s independent status?

            First of all, China’s continuing threat of war has prevented Taiwan from declaring formal independence. Taiwan could probably not withstand a Chinese attack without the help of U.S. and Japan. Also, China is a rising power both politically and economically. Who would want to anger China if it means giving up trillions of dollars worth of trade and investment opportunities?

            Why don’t you just give up formal independence, then? Why not enjoy de facto independence and maintain the status quo?

            Even if Taiwan doesn’t care about its dignity as a nation, giving up formal independence has unfavorable consequences. China, by claiming that Taiwan is its “internal affair,” is fettering Taiwan in the international arena in many different ways. Taiwan is not accepted into the United Nations, nor is it permitted to gain even observer status in the World Health Assembly. When there is a pandemic, Taiwan, with its 23 million people, is usually the last to receive medical aid. Also, Taiwan is forced to participate in international sports events under the obscure name “Chinese Taipei.”

            Furthermore, even though there is no war imminent, the so-called “status-quo” is actually a deployment of over a thousand missiles on the southeast coast of China all aiming towards Taiwan, and this number is increasing every year. Imagine a scenario in which a villain holds a knife at your throat while the only thing other people say is: “Don’t anger him because nobody wants to get into a fight.” How would you feel?

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            I don’t expect all foreigners to understand this quagmire fully, because even the Taiwanese themselves are often confused. There is but one important message—that Taiwan is in all possible ways an independent and democratic nation. And there is no need for a debate, because the facts speak the truth.