Cross-strait relations
Cross-strait relations are the political and economic relations between China and Taiwan across the Taiwan Strait. Due to the existing controversy over the status of Taiwan and the Chinese legitimacy question, they are also not defined as diplomatic relations by either side.
The relationship has been complex and controversial due to the dispute regarding the political status of Taiwan after the island's administration was transferred from Japan to the Republic of China in 1945, and the split between the PRC and ROC in 1949 as a result of the ROC's retreat to the island after losing the Chinese Civil War. The essential questions are whether the two governments are still in a state of civil war over One China, each holding one of two "regions" or parts of the same country ; whether they can be unified under a "one country, two systems" framework; or whether they are now separate countries. The English expression "cross-strait relations" is considered to be a neutral term that avoids reference to the political status of either side.
After the Japanese surrender at the end of the Second World War in 1945, the administration of Taiwan was transferred from the Empire of Japan to the Republic of China, who was one of the "Big Four" of Allied Nations, although questions remain regarding the legal language used in the Treaty of San Francisco. In 1949, with the Chinese Civil War turning decisively in favor of the Chinese Communist Party, the Republic of China Government led by the Nationalist Party of China evacuated to Taiwan and established a provisional capital in Taipei, while still claiming to be the legitimate government of all of China. CCP chairman Mao Zedong proclaimed the establishment of the Central People's Government with Beijing as the capital, and the People's Liberation Army subsequently conquered and quelled all of mainland China, although the disastrous landing attempt at Kinmen, the unexpected outbreak of the Korean War and the subsequent American involvement halted any further plans to invade Taiwan. The two sides then entered decades of stalemate and de facto ceasefire with sporadic episodes of naval skirmishes and island shellings, but no armistice or peace treaty has ever been signed, and debate continues as to whether the civil war has legally ended.
Since then, the relations between the governments in Beijing and Taipei have been characterized by limited contact, tensions, and instability. In the early years, military conflicts continued, while diplomatically both governments competed to be the "legitimate government of China". Since the democratization of Taiwan, the question regarding the political and legal status of Taiwan has shifted focus to the choice between political unification with the mainland or de jure Taiwanese independence. The PRC remains hostile to any formal declaration of independence and maintains its claim over Taiwan, citing its status as the only internationally recognized government of all of China since the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2758 in 1971.
The administration of cross-strait relations of both sides are independent from the official diplomatic system. The Taiwanese government established the Mainland Affairs Council led by the Executive Yuan, and China established the Taiwan Affairs Office in both the State Council and the CCP Central Committee, while the top decision-making body is Central Leading Group for Taiwan Affairs of the CCP. The communication between both sides are through two semi-official institutions: Straits Exchange Foundation by the ROC side, and the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits by the PRC side.
History
Timeline
Leaders of the two governmentsImageSize = width:900 height:auto barincrement:70
PlotArea = left:150 right:100 bottom:80 top:0
DateFormat = dd/mm/yyyy
Define $now = 31/12/2024
Period = from:01/01/1950 till:$now
TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal
ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:5 start:01/01/1950
ScaleMinor = unit:year increment:1 start:01/01/1950
Legend = orientation:horizontal position:bottom
Colors =
id:ccp value:coral legend:Chinese_Communist_Party
id:kmt value:powderblue legend:Kuomintang
id:dpp value:drabgreen legend:Democratic_Progressive_Party
BarData =
bar:cn text:People's Republic of China
bar:tw text:Republic of China
PlotData=
align:center mark:
bar:cn
from: 15/11/2012 till: $now text:"Xi Jinping" color:ccp
from: 15/11/2002 till: 15/11/2012 text:"Hu Jintao" color:ccp
from: 09/11/1989 till: 15/11/2002 text:"Jiang Zemin" color:ccp
from: 22/12/1978 till: 09/11/1989 text:"Deng Xiaoping" color:ccp
from: 09/09/1976 till: 22/12/1978 text:"Hua G." color:ccp
from: 01/01/1950 till: 09/09/1976 text:"Mao Zedong" color:ccp
bar:tw
from: 20/05/2024 till: $now text:"Lai Ching-te" color:dpp
from: 20/05/2016 till: 20/05/2024 text:"Tsai Ing-wen" color:dpp
from: 20/05/2008 till: 20/05/2016 text:"Ma Ying-jeou" color:kmt
from: 20/05/2000 till: 20/05/2008 text:"Chen Shui-bian" color:dpp
from: 13/01/1988 till: 20/05/2000 text:"Lee Teng-hui" color:kmt
from: 20/05/1978 till: 13/01/1988 text:"Chiang Ching-kuo" color:kmt
from: 05/04/1975 till: 20/05/1978 text:"Yen C.-K." color:kmt
from: 01/01/1950 till: 05/04/1975 text:"Chiang Kai-shek" color:kmt
Before 1949
The early history of cross-strait relations involved the exchange of cultures, people, and technology. However, no Chinese dynasty formally incorporated Taiwan in ancient times. In the 16th and 17th centuries, Taiwan first caught the attention of Portuguese, then Dutch and Spanish explorers. After establishing their first settlement in Taiwan in 1624, the Dutch were defeated in 1662 by Koxinga, a southern Ming dynasty loyalist, who expelled the Dutch and established the first Han Chinese regime in Taiwan. Koxinga's heirs used Taiwan as a base for launching raids into mainland China against the Manchu-led Qing dynasty, before his descendants being defeated in 1683 by Qing forces. Taiwan was incorporated into Fujian Province in 1684.With other powers increasingly eyeing Taiwan for its strategic location and resources in the 19th century, the administration began to implement a modernization drive. In 1887, Fujian-Taiwan Province was declared by Imperial decree. However, the fall of the Qing outpaced the development of Taiwan, and in 1895, following its defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War, the Imperial government ceded Taiwan to Japan in perpetuity. Qing loyalists briefly resisted Japanese rule under the banner of the "Republic of Formosa" but were quickly put down by Japanese authorities.
Japan ruled Taiwan until 1945. As part of the Empire of Japan, Taiwan was a foreign jurisdiction in relation to the Qing dynasty until 1912, and then to the Republic of China for the remainder of Japanese rule. From 1928 to 1942, the Chinese Communist Party maintained that Taiwan was a separate nation. In a 1937 interview with Edgar Snow, Mao Zedong stated, "we will extend them our enthusiastic help in their struggle for independence. The same thing applies for Taiwan."
In 1945, Japan was defeated in World War II and surrendered its forces in Taiwan to the Allies; the ROC, then ruled by the Kuomintang, took custody of the island. The period of post-war KMT rule over China was marked by conflict in Taiwan between local residents and the new KMT authority. The Taiwanese rebelled on 28 February 1947, but the uprising was violently suppressed by the KMT. The seeds of the Taiwan independence movement were sown during this period.
China was soon engulfed in full-scale civil war. In 1949, the conflict turned decisively against the KMT in favor of the CCP. On 1 October 1949, CCP Chairman Mao Zedong proclaimed the founding of the People's Republic of China in Beijing. The ROC government retreated to Taiwan, eventually declaring Taipei its temporary capital in December 1949.
Military stalemate to diplomatic war (1949–1979)
In October 1949, the PRC's attempt to capture the ROC-controlled island of Kinmen was thwarted in the Battle of Guningtou, halting the PLA’s advance towards Taiwan. In November 1949, ROC forces repulsed the PRC at the Battle of Dengbu Island but were later forced to retreat after the PRC established air superiority. Other PRC amphibious operations in 1950 were more successful, leading to the capture of Hainan Island, the Wanshan Islands off the Guangdong coast, and Zhoushan Island off Zhejiang. Additional PRC successes included the Battle of Dongshan Island and the Battle of Nanpeng Island.While in the process of losing mainland China, the ROC declared a "closure" of Chinese ports, and its navy attempted to intercept all foreign ships. This also blocked direct traffic between northern and southern China. On the mainland, the ROC government launched several air bombing raids on Shanghai. Meanwhile, approximately 12,000 KMT soldiers retreated to Burma, where they continued launching guerrilla attacks into southern China during the early 1950s.
Most observers expected Chiang's government to eventually fall in response to a Communist invasion of Taiwan, and the U.S. initially showed no interest in supporting Chiang's government in its final stand. Things changed radically with the onset of the Korean War in June 1950. At this point, it became politically impossible in the U.S. to allow a total Communist victory over Chiang, so President Harry S. Truman ordered the U.S. Seventh Fleet into the Taiwan Strait. The U.S. fleet hindered the Communist invasion of Taiwan, and the PRC decided to send troops to Korea in October 1950. The ROC proposed participation in the Korean War but was rejected. The battles on the coastal islands of the mainland continued. In 1952, the ROC won the Battle of Nanri Island with U.S. support. In 1953, the Communists secured victories in the Battle of Nanpeng Archipelago, the Battle of Dalushan Islands and the Dongshan Island Campaign. At the end of the Korean War, approximately two-thirds of captured Communist Chinese soldiers, many of whom were originally KMT soldiers, were repatriated to Taiwan rather than China.
Though viewed as a military liability by the United States, the ROC viewed its remaining islands in Fujian as vital for any future campaign to defeat the PRC and retake China. On 3 September 1954, the First Taiwan Strait Crisis began when the PLA started shelling Kinmen and threatened to take the Dachen Islands. On 19 January 1955, the PLA took nearby Yijiangshan Islands, with the entire ROC garrison of 720 troops killed or wounded in the defense. The U.S. Congress then passed the Formosa Resolution, authorizing the President to defend the ROC's offshore islands. The First Taiwan Strait Crisis ended in March 1955 when the PLA ceased its bombardment. The crisis was brought to a close during the Bandung Conference. At the conference, the PRC articulated its Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence with Premier Zhou Enlai publicly stating, "he Chinese people do not want to have a war with the United States. The Chinese government is willing to sit down to discuss the question of relaxing tension in the Far East, and especially the question of relaxing tension in the Taiwan area." Two years of negotiations with the U.S. followed, although no agreement was reached on the Taiwan issue.
The Second Taiwan Strait Crisis began on 23 August 1958 with air and naval engagements between the PRC and the ROC military forces, leading to intense artillery bombardment of Kinmen and Xiamen, and ended in November of the same year. PLA patrol boats blockaded the islands from ROC supply ships. Though the U.S. rejected Chiang Kai-shek's proposal to bomb Chinese artillery batteries, it quickly moved to supply fighter jets and anti-aircraft missiles to the ROC. It also provided amphibious assault ships to land supply, as a sunken ROC naval vessel was blocking the harbor. On 7 September, the U.S. escorted a convoy of ROC supply ships, and the PRC refrained from firing. On 25 October, the PRC announced an "even-day ceasefire"—the PLA would only shell Kinmen on odd-numbered days.
File:U.S. President Eisenhower visited TAIWAN 美國總統艾森豪於1960年6月訪問臺灣台北時與蔣中正總統-2.jpg|upright=1.1|thumb|U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, riding with President Chiang Kai-shek, waves to onlookers during his visit to Taipei, Taiwan in June 1960.
File:President Richard Nixon and Premier Chou En-Lai Shake Hands at the Nixons' Arrival in Peking, China.jpg|upright=1.1|thumb|U.S. President Richard Nixon shakes hands with Premier Zhou Enlai during his visit to Beijing, China in February 1972.
After the 1950s, the "war" became more symbolic than real, represented by on again, off again artillery bombardment towards and from Kinmen. In later years, live shells were replaced with propaganda sheets. The ROC once initiated Project National Glory, a plan to retake mainland China. The project failed in the 1960s, and the bombardment finally ceased after the establishment of diplomatic relations between the PRC and the United States. The PRC and the ROC have never signed any agreement or treaty to officially end the war. There were occasional defectors from both sides.
Until the 1970s, the ROC had international recognition from most countries. The PRC government was recognized by Soviet Bloc countries, members of the Non-Aligned Movement, and some Western nations, such as the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. Both governments claimed to be the legitimate government of China, and each side referred to the other as "bandits". Civil war propaganda permeated educational curricula on both sides. Additionally, the ROC suppressed expressions of support for Taiwanese identity or Taiwan independence.
The ROC represented China at the United Nations until 1971, when the PRC replaced the ROC in the UN seat.