One China
One China is a phrase with variant meanings, adopted by many states and other actors to describe their stance on the relationship between the People's Republic of China based on mainland China, and the Republic of China based on the Taiwan Area. "One China" asserts that there is only one from the People's Republic of China, despite the de facto division between the two rival governments from the aftermath of the Chinese Civil War. The term may probably refer, in alphabetical order, or one from the following:
- The One China policy refers to a United States policy of strategic ambiguity regarding Taiwan. In a 1972 joint communiqué with the PRC, the United States "acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China" and "does not challenge that position." It reaffirms the U.S. interest in a peaceful settlement of the Taiwan question. The United States has formal relations with the PRC, recognizes the PRC as the sole legal government of China, and simultaneously maintains its unofficial relations with Taiwan while taking no official position on Taiwanese sovereignty. The US "acknowledges" but does not "endorse" the PRC's position over Taiwan, and has considered Taiwan's political status as "undetermined".
- *Internationally, it may also refer to the stance of numerous other countries, some of which precede and may have influenced the US formulation. For instance, "Australia's 1972 Joint Communiqué with the PRC recognised the Government of the PRC as China's sole legal government, and acknowledged the position of the PRC that Taiwan was a province of the PRC", but "neither supports nor opposes the PRC position" on the matter. While some countries, such as the UK, Canada, Australia, and Japan, like the U.S. acknowledge but do not recognise the PRC's claim, the communiqués of some others, including Israel, Panama, and the Gambia, concur with the PRC's interpretation.
- The One China principle is the position held by the People's Republic of China and the ruling Chinese Communist Party that there is only one sovereign state under the name China, with the PRC replacing the ROC and serving as the sole legitimate government of that China, and Taiwan is an inalienable part of China. It is opposed to the idea that there are two states holding the name "China", the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China ; as well as the idea that China and Taiwan form two separate countries.
- One China with respective interpretations refers to the interpretation of the so-called 1992 Consensus asserted by the ROC's then-governing political party Kuomintang that both the PRC and ROC had agreed that there is one "China", but disagreed on whether "China" is represented by the PRC or ROC. This interpretation of the 1992 Consensus has not been accepted by the PRC. The Democratic Progressive Party, the other major party of the ROC politics, has never acknowledged the existence of the 1992 Consensus and also rejected any claim that both sides of the Taiwan Strait are part of "one China". Lee Teng-hui, the President of the ROC from the KMT at the time, said no consensus had been reached in 1992 and claims to the contrary were "nonsense", and that the term was "something that former Mainland Affairs Council minister Su Chi fabricated to placate the KMT in 2000s", which Su conceded in 2006.
Under ROC President Lee Teng-hui in the 1990s, the Additional Articles of the Constitution of the Republic of China were passed which effectively transformed Taiwan from a one-party state into a democracy, and limited civil and political rights to citizens in the "free area", but did not alter language regarding territorial claims or national territory.
Although the 1991 constitutional amendments localized governance to the "free area," the 1947 Constitution still claims all of China as ROC territory, aligning with the Kuomintang's original "One China" stance. The Constitution defines ROC territory as encompassing all of China, based on its "existing national boundaries" at the time of adoption, asserting the ROC as the legitimate government of the entirety of China, not solely Taiwan. This constitutional stance supports the KMT's historical vision, creating a legal-political disconnect under Democratic Progressive Party governance. Despite the DPP's political dominance, it has not legally amended the Constitution to formally redefine Taiwan as a separate nation or change the national boundaries to exclude the mainland, not least because this could provoke PRC retaliation or even invasion. This deadlock reflects a split along party lines: Pan-Blue coalition parties adhere to "One China with respective interpretations", while Pan-Green coalition parties reject it. Meanwhile, the PRC has maintained its One China principle.
Background
The Dutch established a colony on Taiwan in 1624 based in present-day Tainan. Shortly after, the Spanish established a colony in Northern Taiwan in 1626, but were driven out by the Dutch in 1642. It was during this time that large-scale Chinese migration from nearby Fujian Province began. The Dutch colony was later conquered by Zheng Chenggong, a Ming-loyalist, in 1662 as the Kingdom of Tungning, before being incorporated by the Qing dynasty in 1683 as part of Fujian Province. In 1887, it was officially made a separate Fujian-Taiwan Province. Taiwan remained a province for eight years until it was ceded to Japan under the Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895 following the First Sino-Japanese War.While Taiwan remained under Japanese control, the Qing dynasty was ousted and the First and Second Republic of China were established from the Beiyang regime to the Kuomintang from 1928. After the conclusion of World War II in 1945, the Republic of China was given control of Taiwan. In 1949, after losing control of most of mainland China following the Chinese Civil War, and before the post-war peace treaties had come into effect, the ROC government under the KMT withdrew to Taiwan, and Chiang Kai-shek declared martial law.
An argument has been made that Japan formally renounced all territorial rights to Taiwan in 1952 in the San Francisco Peace Treaty, but neither in that treaty nor in the peace treaty signed between Japan and China was the territorial sovereignty of Taiwan awarded to the Republic of China. The treaties left the status of Taiwan—as ruled by the ROC or PRC—deliberately vague, and the question of legitimate sovereignty over China is why China was not included in the San Francisco Peace Treaty. This argument is not accepted by those who view the sovereignty of Taiwan as having been legitimately returned to the Republic of China at the end of the war. Some argue that the ROC is a government in exile, while others maintain it is a rump state.
The ROC continued to claim itself as the rightful ruler of the entirety of China under the single-party KMT regime, and the PRC made a symmetric claim. In 1971, the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2758 replaced the ROC's seat in the United Nations with the PRC. From 30 April 1991, the ROC officially recognized the PRC, thus abandoning the Hallstein Doctrine, while maintaining the claim of an exclusive mandate as the legitimate ruler of China. The ROC transformed into a free and democratic state in the 1990s following decades of martial law with the passage of the Additional Articles of the Constitution of the Republic of China. Afterwards, the legal and political status of Taiwan has become more contentious, with increasing public expressions in favor of Taiwan independence, which were formerly outlawed.
Viewpoints within Taiwan
Within Taiwan, there is a distinction between the positions of the Kuomintang and the Democratic Progressive Party.The Kuomintang holds the "One-China principle" and maintains its claim that under the ROC Constitution the ROC has sovereignty over most of China, including, by their interpretation, both mainland China and Taiwan. After the Chinese Communist Party expelled the ROC in the Chinese Civil War from most of Chinese territory in 1949 and founded the PRC, the ROC's Chinese Nationalist government, which still held Taiwan, continued to claim legitimacy as the government of all of China. Under former President Lee Teng-hui, additional articles were appended to the ROC constitution in 1991 so that it applied effectively only to the Taiwan Area. The Kuomintang proclaims a modified form of the "One-China" principle known as the "1992 Consensus". Under this "consensus", both governments "agree" that there is only one single sovereign state encompassing both mainland China and Taiwan, but disagree about which of the two governments is the legitimate government of this state. Former ROC President Ma Ying-jeou had re-asserted claims on mainland China as late as 8 October 2008.
The Democratic Progressive Party rejects the One China principle, and its official position currently is that Taiwan is an independent and sovereign country whose territory consists of Taiwan and its surrounding smaller islands and whose sovereignty derives only from the ROC citizens living in Taiwan, based on the 1999 "Resolution on Taiwan's Future". It considers Taiwan as an independent nation under the name of Republic of China, making a formal declaration of independence unnecessary. Though calls for drafting a new constitution and a declaration of a Republic of Taiwan was written into the party charter in 1991, the 1999 resolution has practically superseded the earlier charter.
At least one observer of the Taiwan independence movement believes it runs counter to the PRC's sovereignty claims over Taiwan. A Brookings Institution survey indicates that while Taiwan people overwhelmingly reject unification with the PRC, the vast majority do not support immediate formal independence of a Republic of Taiwan.