The island of Kinmen is an anachronism in global geopolitics. On a clear day, the Chinese city of Xiamen is visible from the Juguanglou Tower in the northern part of the island. Barely a couple of kilometres of a shallow bay separate this island from the mainland. Yet, Kinmen, which is part of Fujian province, is not governed by the People’s Republic of China or the ‘mainland’ as people here call it. It is governed by the Fujian provincial Government — not the provincial Government based in the city of Fuzhou on the mainland, but the provincial Government based in Kinmen itself.
That is because Kinmen and the islands of Matsu are part of the Republic of China (RoC), or Taiwan as most people know it. The islands are a reason that the RoC Government feels that they are more than just the island of Taiwan, even though the island is 99 per cent of the territory of the country.
Wu Tseng-Dong hammers away at his steel workshop on Kinmen, a small island which played a disproportionate role in sending Chinese emigres to south-east Asia. Maestro Wu, as the knife workshop is known, is rather unique. The steel for these globally renowned knives comes from the mainland. Not in sheets or ingots but rather in the form of artillery shells.
Throughout the 1960s, the Chinese Civil War did not seem to end. As Kinmen was well within the range of medium guns, the island was littered with shells filled with propaganda material. These shells made from high-quality steel and converted into knives coveted by chefs across the world are very popular. Particularly by the planeloads of Mainland Chinese tourists who visit the island every day.
And that, back in Taipei, the Capital of the RoC is a strange modern reality. Those who have visited the National Palace Museum in the past knew this grand building — built by Chiang Kai-Shek to house the treasures from the Forbidden City in Beijing that he relocated to Taipei (along with most of China’s gold) inadvertently preserving it from Mao’s cultural revolution — was relatively empty. But this early November morning, there are over 3,000 people, all of them tourists from the mainland.
Relations between the two nations, that until the November 7 meeting between Presidents Xi and Ma had few official meetings, have never been better. President Ma Ying-jeou of Kuomintang, or the Chinese Republican Party, ushered in a new era of cross-straits relations.
For years, travellers between the two countries had to travel via Hong Kong; contributing massively to that (now Chinese) city. Today there are an estimated 900 flights every week between four cities in Taiwan and 40 cities in China. Of the four million tourists who visited the RoC last year, three quarters were suddenly economically empowered Mainland Chinese.
Yet, it is not just a one-way street. After the 1949 defeat of the Republican forces led by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and his retreat to Taiwan, the country was hardly ‘Republican’; indeed till Chiang’s death it was a dictatorship. However, Chiang built up this small country of 36,000 square kilometres into an economic powerhouse.
Backed by an American guarantee of the RoC’s sovereignty with its military might as the US military used Taiwan as a base during the Korean and Vietnamese conflicts. Taiwan became a global leader first in manufactured good and then in high-tech products. And as Deng Xioping began to open up China after the Maoist purges and destruction, it was Taiwanese companies that led a bulk of the investment into China.
What is really odd about the entire situation, even after one speaks to tens of officials from Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), is that the PRC still considers Taiwan as their ‘lost’ 19th province. Indeed, until the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2758, which handed the seat belonging to ‘China’ to the PRC, it was the RoC that represented ‘China’ at the UN.
This due to the fact that Chiang represented China at the ‘Great Power’ conference in Cairo in the midst of World War II which called on Japan’s unconditional surrender. It was the combined Republican and Communist armies in China supplied via the ‘hump route’ from eastern India that kept the Imperial Japanese Army tied down in the Chinese mainland.
During this time, Taiwan oddly enough was ruled by the Japanese. In fact, Taiwan was Imperial Japan’s first ‘colony’ acquired from the Qing dynasty in 1895. Indeed, in Taiwanese political discourse today, there is an odd feeling of sentimentality towards the Japanese colonial period, despite the fact that the Japanese brutally suppressed Taiwan’s Aboriginal tribes. What many Koreans and mainland Chinese find odd is that the Taiwanese have little antipathy towards the Japanese and the two nations grew almost hand in hand following the destruction of World War II.
Taipei was also the city where Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose apparently died in an air crash, although today there remains no landmark or sign that a wartime airport existed on that site, which is full of residential blocks.
Both countries and even the UN talk of ‘One China’, yet the PRC has used this policy and their international heft to keep the RoC out of most international forums. At the Olympic Games, the RoC competes under the name of ‘Chinese Taipei’ and the country is not allowed to take part in any international fora where the PRC is also a member, as there is only ‘One China’.
The Communist and Kuomintang leadership talk wistfully of eventual reunification; President Xi stating in Singapore of the kinship shared by the two countries. Yet, Chinese state TV cut out statements from Ma Ying-jeou’s conference and because neither country recognises the other, the leaders of each country had to refer to each other as ‘Mr.’
This ‘de facto’ independence enjoyed by Taiwan has led to the rise of Opposition parties in the country that are demanding ‘de jure’ (in law, rather than in fact) independence. The Democratic People’s Party (DPP), which is widely expected to win the Presidential and Parliamentary elections in Taiwan, and its candidate Tsai Ing-wen use a map on Taiwan as their symbol and believe that the country should declare ‘independence’ and join the global community as a full-fledged member. Many younger Taiwanese, who according to polls identify themselves more as ‘Taiwanese’ rather than ‘Chinese’, feel the same way which has led to the massive support for Tsai over the Opposition Kuomintang.
The other problems with declaring independence is America’s position. China is America’s largest trading partner and the two countries share a problematic relationship, particularly around China’s claims on the South China Sea and the fact that America has promised to protect Taiwan against Chinese aggression.
In 1996, also an election year in Taiwan, the PRC lobbed several missiles in Taiwan’s general direction and the then US President Bill Clinton promptly sent not one, but two US Aircraft Carrier Battle Groups to the region. Yet, the Americans have always stated if there is a unilateral change of the status quo of Taiwan they will not come to its aid. Some believe a declaration of independence to be a unilateral change in status quo.
Yet, as President Xi extended his hand to President Ma in Singapore, some in Taiwan, particularly the DPP, believe that this was an attempt by the Chinese to influence the 2016 elections. Not by using missiles, but this time by assuring peace if status quo is maintained. The Kuomintang and the Government believe that this will lead to better cross-strait relations and regular meetings. The DPP has not shifted from its stance either, and continues to believe that the RoC should be a proper nation state and could even drop ‘China’ from its name.
The DPP has a point, as Taiwan is excluded from most global communities and is recognised in exchange for money by very few African and Central American states, it could face worse isolation.
Taiwan cannot take part in global trade talks at the World Trade Organization despite being a crucial cog in global high-tech trade. It finds itself excluded from global sporting events and even health-related talks as countries are fearful of angering China or stopping the flow of Chinese funds. A ‘de jure’ independent Taiwan can participate in the global community as a full-fledged member. Yet, declaring independence is casus belli for the massive People’s liberation Army, and Taiwan stands little chance of holding out.
Taiwan remains an economic miracle and a model for what the Chinese can achieve. By Purchasing Power Parity, this small mountainous island nation — with less land area than the State of Kerala — is the 21st largest economy in the world.
The Taipei 101 Tower at the heart of the Capital’s financial district was for years one of the tallest buildings in the world and stands as testament to the people of the country. The politics of change notwithstanding, it is difficult to see either reunification or independence. Taiwan remains a country in limbo and a country with a severe identity crisis.
The problem, as several senior officials aligned to the ruling dispensation point out, is that the RoC was never ‘dependent’ in the first place. The country claims to be the first modern ‘Republic’ in Asia and was founded by Sun Yat-sen in 1912 after the Qing dynasty was overthrown.
However, it hardly ruled China, as the country was ravaged by internal turmoil and then Japanese occupation, which included the shameful ‘Rape of Nanjing’. The Communists and Kuomintang fought a bloody civil war after defeating the Japanese, but while Chiang Kai-shek is a divisive figure in modern Taiwan, in the mainland his image is being rehabilitated as a ‘misguided patriot’ even though a new hagiographic film on Mao Zedong in China has the Communist leader (and not Chiang) travelling to Cairo.