“Why support Taiwan?”
“If you want to be free, there is but one way; it is to guarantee an equally full measure of liberty to all your neighbors. There is no other.”—Carl Schurz
“Peace has to be created, in order to be maintained. It is the product of Faith, Strength, Energy, Will, Sympathy, Justice, Imagination, and the triumph of principle. It will never be achieved by passivity and quietism.”—Dorothy Thompson
“The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty.”—Woodrow Wilson
Taiwan’s unique history
“Taiwan and China split amidst civil war in 1949.” CNN, NPR, BBC, The New York Times, and almost every other major news source has echoed this historical myth when reporting on cross-strait relations. In fact, however, Taiwan’s history is far more complex than “splitting off” from “the Mainland” after World War II. In the past four centuries, the island, originally settled in prehistoric times by people of Malay-Polynesian descent, has been occupied by the Dutch, the French, the Chinese, and the Japanese. Its historical names include Pakan, Ilha Formosa, Taiwan, and, most recently, the Republic of China.
Taiwan’s historical relationship with China
Has Taiwan always been a part of China, as the Chinese Nationalist Party and the Chinese Communist Party claim? Actual history says, “No.” While Imperial China had, from time to time, sent authorities across the Taiwan strait, none had succeeded in establishing control of the island. In the 1870s, the Imperial emperor himself, in response to international complaints about Taiwanese pirates, declared, “Taiwan is beyond our territory.”
So when did China decide that Taiwan was part of its empire? No earlier than 1887, when the Imperial authorities, alarmed by Japan’s expansion in Southeast Asia, declared Taiwan to be a “province.” Eight years later, China was defeated in the Sino-Japanese War, and Taiwan was ceded in perpetuity to Japan. Thus ended Taiwan’s status as a “province of China.”
The century-long struggle for democracy
Less than eager to become part of the Japanese empire, the Taiwanese established the Taiwan Republic in May of 1895. The resistance movement, however, was no match for the twelve thousand Japanese troops that were sent to occupy the island, and for the next fifty years, Taiwan was firmly under Japanese control.
Japan’s defeat in World War II, however, paved the way for a second wave of Chinese occupation, this time in the form of the Chinese Nationalists (Kuomingtang), who were fighting a civil war in China against the Communists. Without any input from the Taiwanese, Chiang Kai-Shek, the leader of the Chinese Nationalist Party, and the Allied Powers decided that Taiwan should be “returned” to China—in other words, that the island should be placed under Chinese Nationalist rule.
To the dismay of the Taiwanese, the Chinese Nationalists proved to be repressive and corrupt. Dissatisfaction with the brutal regime steadily increased until it culminated on February 28, 1947, when island-wide uprisings began. The Chinese Nationalist Party responded by ordering troops from China and massacring tens of thousands of Taiwanese people in the next three months. Between twenty thousand and thirty thousand victims are believed to have been murdered, but nobody knows for sure, since entire families were frequently killed, leaving no witnesses.
The ordeal of the Taiwanese was not over yet, though. In 1949, the Chinese Nationalists were defeated in China by the Communists. With the support of the United States, the losers fled to Taiwan, where Chiang Kai-Shek established the Republic of China in exile. While the Kuomingtang dreamed of reclaiming “the Mainland,” the Taiwanese people suffered under martial law for the next half century. Those who dared to criticize the KMT were jailed, tortured, or executed; in certain cases, even their families, including elderly parents and young children, were killed as a “warning.” Taiwanese culture, history, language, and identity were suppressed in the KMT’s efforts to Sinicize the island and therefore justify their occupation.
The KMT could not block progress indefinitely, however, and thanks to Taiwanese dissidents both at home and abroad, the island began its journey toward democracy in 1991. The first democratic presidential election was held in 1996, and four years later, Chen Shui-Bian, of the Democratic Progressive Party, was voted into office.
The current threat from China
Taiwan’s democracy is not yet secure, though. Today, the island is threatened by the People’s Republic of China, which insists that Taiwan is a province of “the Mainland.” Although the island is a de facto sovereign nation which has never been ruled by the PRC, China repeatedly threatens to attack Taiwan if it should move toward “independence.” Unfortunately for Taiwan, to the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing, any exercise of democracy on the part of the Taiwanese people, from elections to referendums to constitutional reform, is “provocative.” Through military intimidation and diplomatic isolation, China hopes to force Taiwan into relinquishing its hard won freedom.
What China obviously fails to understand is the value of democracy. Even seven hundred Chinese missiles aimed at Taiwan cannot convince the Taiwanese people that freedom is meaningless. On the contrary, liberty becomes all the more precious when one is forced to live under tyranny. The Taiwanese, who have already suffered through a century of repression, cherish their democracy.
“Without justice, there can be no peace.”
“He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it.” These words by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. illustrate Taiwan’s precarious situation today. The international community, in an effort to appease China, dismisses the rights of Taiwan’s 23 million citizens. Taiwan is warned against “provoking” China, when, clearly, China is the aggressor. In this way, the world hopes to preserve “peace” in the Taiwan Strait.
Yet two world wars in this century alone should have taught us as the price of appeasement. When we cater to aggressive dictorships instead of peaceful democracies, the whole world suffers. Every nation who values democracy yet supports China at the expense of Taiwan undermines its own integrity; every oppressed group who struggles for freedom yet opposes Taiwan’s right to self-determination undermines its own chance for success. We urge you and all free nations to support Taiwan’s right to peace, democracy, and freedom.
