Chinese President Xi Jinping has pledged that "reunification" with Taiwan is "inevitable," but the island residents think otherwise.
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00:00This is a reality of China's threats to Taiwan.
00:06Record number of Chinese fighter jets and warships encircling the island democracy.
00:13China said these exercises were punishment for Taiwanese independence forces.
00:22And a direct response to this speech by Taiwan's president during National Day celebrations.
00:28The People's Republic of China has no right to represent Taiwan.
00:33It was the second round of Chinese military drills in 2024 around Taiwan, which Beijing
00:38claims as its sacred territory.
00:41Although Taiwan has governed itself for more than 70 years, few nations recognise it as
00:46a sovereign state.
00:56China calls Lai a dangerous separatist.
00:59And since he's entered office, cross-strait tensions have reached new heights.
01:04And Chinese intimidation has extended beyond just military means.
01:08We've seen a ratcheting up of pressure, no doubt, from Beijing, trying to make clear
01:14that the ultimate goal of unifying Taiwan with China is very much still the priority
01:20of Beijing.
01:21Part of this conflict is a question about identity, about being Taiwanese.
01:26But why is that threatening to China?
01:28And could it lead Beijing to take even more dramatic steps?
01:46In June this year, China sent a chill through Taiwan.
01:50Beijing announced a new interpretation to laws against separatists they believe are
01:54trying to split Taiwan from China.
01:56The maximum penalty for these crimes?
01:59Death.
02:00In September, activist Yang Jiyuan became the first Taiwanese person to be convicted
02:05under this new interpretation.
02:06A court in eastern China sentenced him to nine years in prison on charges of succession.
02:13This is Maggie Lewis.
02:14She is a professor of Chinese law at Seton Hall University in the US.
02:18He had very limited procedural rights, did not have access to a lawyer or other sort
02:23of standard rights of the accused.
02:26And moreover, his ultimate trial and sentencing was done behind closed doors.
02:31Yang is one of more than 800 Taiwanese people who have been detained or simply disappeared
02:35in China over the last 10 years.
02:38Some face separatist or other charges.
02:41That's according to Amnesty International.
02:44According to Beijing, offences punishable by death include advocating for Taiwan to
02:49be a member of international organisations that only sovereign countries can join.
02:54There's going to be a lot of guesswork here and everything's fine until it's not.
02:59And we don't know what will happen.
03:00Lai Ching-de has said nearly all of Taiwan's population could be subject to prosecution.
03:06That's unless they're willing to accept Chinese Communist Party rule over Taiwan.
03:12And what exactly is this dispute about?
03:15To answer that, we need some history.
03:21For the first half of the 20th century, Taiwan was a Japanese colony.
03:26When Japan lost World War II, it ceded Taiwan to the Republic of China under the Chinese
03:31Nationalist Party or KMT.
03:35But when the KMT lost the Chinese Civil War in 1949, the party fled to Taiwan.
03:42In Taipei, they established a temporary capital for the Republic of China or ROC, which remains
03:48Taiwan's official name to this day.
03:51The victors of that civil war, the Chinese Communist Party, established the People's
03:56Republic of China on the mainland that year.
04:01When the KMT arrived in Taiwan, they were concerned the people living there were not
04:05Chinese enough.
04:07So they enforced draconian policies to re-educate them on how to be what they considered properly
04:12Chinese.
04:14The KMT declared martial law in 1949, and for decades, governed Taiwan as an authoritarian
04:20state.
04:22This is Chen Cui-lien.
04:24She's a professor of Taiwanese history at National Taiwan University.
04:37Initially, China's seat in the United Nations was represented by Taipei as the Republic
05:02of China.
05:03But that changed in 1971, with Resolution 2758, which said that the People's Republic
05:09of China in Beijing was the only legitimate representative of China.
05:21Many countries then switched diplomatic recognition of China from Taipei to Beijing.
05:27Most significantly, the United States did in 1979.
05:31And that had a big impact on how people in Taiwan saw themselves.
05:50After the US switched diplomatic recognition to Beijing, it didn't completely break ties
05:54with Taiwan.
05:56US lawmakers passed the Taiwan Relations Act to define the new unofficial relationship
06:01with Taipei.
06:03The act says that the US must provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself if threatened
06:08militarily.
06:09It also encouraged Taiwan to take steps toward democratization.
06:15Martial law was eventually lifted in Taiwan in 1987, driven by a growing sense of Taiwanese
06:21identity separate from China.
06:24That allowed more open discussion of the more oppressive episodes of KMT rule, including
06:29the 228 incident in 1947, in which thousands of local Taiwanese were killed.
06:36In 1996, Taiwan held its first direct presidential election.
06:42And since then, democracy itself has become a central part of Taiwanese people's identity.
06:51Today, more than 60% of Taiwan's population view themselves as solely Taiwanese.
06:57As a democracy, power has alternated between Taiwan's two main political parties, the KMT
07:24and the now-governing Democratic Progressive Party, or DPP.
07:29And relations with China continue to dominate elections.
07:33Both main parties say they want to preserve Taiwan's ambiguous status quo, but look to
07:38achieve that by different means.
07:41The KMT, once staunchly anti-communist, now favours closer ties with Beijing.
07:47Whereas the DPP is wary of Chinese influence and advocates keeping Beijing at arm's length.
07:58So why is the conflict getting worse now?
08:01Let's outline the key players.
08:03First we've got Lai Ching-de.
08:04He's Taiwan's current president.
08:07Lai comes from the ruling DPP, the Taiwanese party Beijing views as separatist.
08:13His win in the 2024 election marked the first time any party in Taiwan's democratic history
08:19has won at three successive elections.
08:22The DPP underlay says that Taiwan is already a sovereign country and so doesn't need to
08:27declare formal independence, a red line for Beijing.
08:41Then there's Xi Jinping, the Chinese president.
08:44He believes Taiwan is a province of China and has no right to call itself an independent
08:48country.
08:49He's described reunifying Taiwan with China as one of Beijing's core goals, one that he's
08:55suggested he hopes to achieve while leader.
08:59For many in Taiwan, Hong Kong offers a troubling vision for their own future.
09:04Beijing has pointed to their one country, two systems model in Hong Kong as an example
09:08of how to reunify Taiwan with the mainland.
09:12But the suppression of protests in Hong Kong means most Taiwanese don't have faith their
09:17autonomy would be preserved under Beijing's rule.
09:21If a political solution fails, Xi has reserved the right to use military force.
09:26But the Chinese leader says any military action would only be directed at a minority of Taiwan's
09:32population.
09:33Few people in Taiwan would identify as a separatist, but Xi's definition would apply to much more
09:55than a minority.
09:56More than 80% of Taiwanese want to maintain some form of the status quo, in which Taiwan's
10:02people can decide their future.
10:23But that status quo would still fall foul of Beijing's red lines.
10:28Chen Yujie is an assistant research professor at Academia Sinica in Taiwan.
10:33For Taiwan, it's very hard to navigate.
10:36And therefore we see Taiwanese would say we want to maintain a status quo, which is to
10:42me always a code word for, we just want to be independent, just leave us be.
10:51That's why the problem has become so intractable.
10:54China says reunifying Taiwan is inevitable.
10:57But more and more Taiwanese people have a political identity that Beijing is unwilling
11:02to accept.
11:04This is Wen-Ti Song.
11:05He's a non-resident fellow of the Atlantic Council's Global China Hub.
11:09So what we're seeing is a very slow fall in the relationship between the two sides.
11:14They still struggle to come to terms on what's the rightful political foundation on which
11:19to build mutual trust.
11:21For the rest of the world, a conflict over Taiwan would have an enormous impact.
11:26If China invades Taiwan, it could take control of the global semiconductor industry.
11:32Beijing could also project power around the region, emboldening China to take stronger
11:37action in territorial disputes with other countries, like with the Philippines in the
11:42South China Sea.
11:44Many US officials believe it would also bring an end to American dominance of the Indo-Pacific,
11:49gravely threatening the future of democracy in Asia.
11:53But for Taiwanese themselves, a Chinese invasion would alter every aspect of their lives.
11:59Once Taiwan is absorbed and annexed to the PRC, democracy can no longer exist.
12:07So the world will lose a democratic stronghold in Asia.
12:13Great loss for democratic countries would be losing a like-minded partner who share
12:21the same values of protecting human rights and democracy.
12:26That also happens to have a great strategic and economic interest to this democratic alliance.
12:36So how do Taiwanese parties hope tensions can be eased?
12:40We've heard from the ruling DPP, but for Taiwan's main opposition, the KMT, more communication
12:46is key.
13:00The last president from the KMT, Ma Ying-jeou, has said that Taiwan shouldn't raise its defence
13:06budget because it could provoke China.
13:09China's Beijing ramps up military intimidation.
13:32But some experts believe even with this approach, China's threats to Taiwan won't disappear.
13:39More than that, they say partisan debate in Taiwan about its identity could limit international support.
13:46We do need a bipartisan support in Taiwan on this very important issue of Taiwan's sovereignty
13:53and separation from the PRC, but we don't see that right now and that's dangerous.
13:59An October 2024 poll suggested that the majority of Taiwanese don't believe that China will
14:04invade in the next five years.
14:07That's despite some US officials saying that China could attack by 2027.
14:12I think we are likely to see more violent theory coming out of Beijing, of course.
14:27This is a dangerous time.
14:30Taiwan is doing its best to escalate the tension without losing our own identity and sovereignty.
14:39Modern Taiwanese identity is a product of its tumultuous history.
14:44From colonial rule, to an authoritarian regime, and now a vibrant democracy.
14:51What comes next?
14:53Xi has said what he calls the Taiwan question shouldn't be passed down to the next generation.
15:00And is there anything that Taiwan and the international community can do to stop him
15:05providing the answer?