Political status of Taiwan
The political status of Taiwan is a longstanding geopolitical subject focusing on the sovereignty of the island of Taiwan and its associated islands. The dispute stems from the alleged retrocession of Taiwan from the Empire of Japan to the Republic of China in 1945, and the ROC government's retreat from mainland China to Taiwan as the result of the Chinese Civil War in 1949. The Taiwan Area since then has become the major territorial base of the ROC and which has exercised state authority there independently. Though never having control of Taiwan, the Chinese Communist Party -led People's Republic of China claims it as an inalienable province of China. The PRC's claim is based on the theory of state succession, whereby it deems itself the regime that replaced the ROC as the sole legitimate government of China upon its establishment in 1949, and thus it denies the sovereignty of the ROC in Taiwan under its one China principle. The geopolitical dispute is also a pivotal subject in China–United States relations and China–Japan relations.
The ROC governed mainland China from 1912 until 1949, when it lost control of the mainland due to its defeat by the CCP in the Chinese Civil War. The People's Republic of China was established that year; the effective jurisdiction of the ROC has been limited to Taiwan and its associated islands. Prior to this, Japan's surrender in 1945 ended its colonial rule over Taiwan and the Penghu Islands, which were subsequently placed under the administration of the ROC as agreed by the major Allies of World War II. However, post-war agreements did not clearly define sovereignty over these islands due to the ongoing rivalry between the Kuomintang and the CCP. The division led to the emergence of two rival governments on opposite sides of the Taiwan Strait, each claiming to be the sole legitimate authority over both the Chinese mainland and Taiwan. The PRC and historically the ROC both officially adhere to the principle of "one China," but fundamentally disagree on who is entitled to represent it. This has resulted in what is known as the "Two Chinas" scenario, reflecting the unresolved dispute over which government is the legitimate representative of China.
The 1991 constitutional amendments and the 1992 Cross-Strait Relations Act marked a pivotal shift, as the ROC ceased actively claiming governance over the mainland, stopped treating the CCP as a rebellious group, and started treating it in practice, as the authority effectively governing mainland China from ROC's perspective, though the ROC constitution still technically includes the mainland as ROC territory. Within Taiwan, there emerged a major political contention between eventual Chinese unification with a pan-Chinese identity contrasted with formal independence promoting a Taiwanese identity, though moderates supporting the status quo have gained broad appeal in the 21st century. From 2000 to 2008 and since 2016, Democratic Progressive Party-led governments of Taiwan have been more autonomist in orientation and do not regard their governments as seeking to represent China, and affirms its position that Taiwan is already a sovereign country in its own right under the name "Republic of China" and not subordinate to the PRC. The PRC has refused to rule out using military force to achieve unification, but it also proposes the "one country, two systems" as a model for a peaceful unification, which has been rejected by successive Taiwanese governments.
The international status of Taiwan is complex, but largely agreed upon. Since 1949, multiple countries have faced a choice between the PRC and the ROC with regard to establishing formal diplomatic relations and shaping their respective "One China" policy. Initially excluded from the United Nations in favor of the ROC, the PRC has gained formal recognition as the only legitimate government of China in 1971, when UN General assembly resolution 2758 was passed. Today, the ROC has formal diplomatic relations with only twelve nations but maintains unofficial bilateral ties with other countries through its representative offices, and membership in international organizations as a non-state entity. According to a Lowy Institute tally in January 2025, about 74 percent of the UN member states explicitly endorse the PRC's position that Taiwan as part of China however 23 of those states do not endorse the one-China principle, others merely acknowledge or respect rather than recognize the PRC position.
Background
Pre-WWII
Taiwan was first populated by Austronesian people. Chinese people started settling in southern Taiwan by the late 16th century. The island was partially colonized by the Dutch who arrived in 1623. The Dutch colony was ousted by the Kingdom of Tungning, which lasted from 1661 to 1683, and was the first ethnic Han government to rule part of the island of Taiwan. From 1683, the Qing dynasty ruled much of the western plains of the island as a prefecture and in 1875 divided the island into two prefectures, Taiwan and Taipeh. In 1887 the island was made into a separate province to speed up development in this region. In the aftermath of the First Sino-Japanese War, Taiwan and Penghu were ceded by the Qing dynasty to Japan in 1895 under the Treaty of Shimonoseki. The Qing dynasty fell in 1912, leaving warlords to compete for power and influence in China. The country became more unified during the Nanjing decade, and growing calls to push back against Japanese aggression led to the formation of the Second United Front before the Second Sino-Japanese War.ROC leaders such as Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek had expressed support for Korea's, Vietnam's, and Taiwan's independence from Japan.
Early CCP position on Taiwan
Academics Frank S. T. Hsiao and Lawrence R. Sullivan wrote in 1979, "between 1928 and 1943 Communist Party leaders consistently recognized the Taiwanese" as a "distinct" minzu, a term that can refer to people, nation, nationality, race, or ethnic group. Hsiao and Sullivan theorized that the CCP "believe that the long dissociation of Taiwan from the Chinese state had had a fundamental impact on the Taiwan people's nationality",. Hsiao and Sullivan wrote that "n Mao's eyes Taiwanwas neither an integral part of Japan, nor sovereign Chinese territory,
but, like Korea, a colony of Japan striving for an independent determination of its political future",
and quoted Wang Ming's 1938 listing of Taiwan and Korea among the "national liberation movements " by "weak and small nationalities under the oppression of Japanese imperialism". Hsiao and Sullivan additionally wrote that "he CCP Central Committee seemingly accepted Mao's and Chen's views". Quoting Zhou Enlai's 1941 statement that "we should sympathize with independence-liberation movements of other nation-states ", Hsiao and Sullivan argued that Zhou, alongside "included the Taiwan anti-Japanese movement in the larger anti-colonial, national liberation struggles sweeping the oppressed peoples of the Western colonial empires - a position Chou was to popularize in 1955 at the Bandung, Indonesia conference, but with the exclusion of Taiwan."
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." The academics state that the CCP's stance might have been intended as a temporary measure to build a coalition against Japan, which had colonized both Korea and Taiwan, or could have gone "beyond mere political calculation and expressed a genuine commitment by the CCP to Taiwan's right of self-determination".
WWII
In 1943 Chiang's Nationalists argued that after the end of the war, Taiwan should be restored to the ROC. The CCP followed suit and considered Taiwan an integral part of China. Representatives of the United States and the United Kingdom agreed with Chiang at the Cairo Conference in November, resulting in the Cairo Declaration. That pledge was confirmed at the Potsdam Conference in 1945.Post-WWII
In 1945 Chinese Nationalists accepted the surrender of the Japanese forces in Taiwan on behalf of the Allied powers, ending 50 years of Japanese rule. Confident about their future prospects, they declared Taiwan a province of China again on 26 October 1945. However the final legal dispensation awaited a peace treaty and formal ratification.In 1949, Mao Zedong's forces defeated Chiang Kai-shek's ROC forces in the Chinese Civil War, thus taking control of mainland China and founding the PRC. Chiang Kai-shek and his KMT government fled to Taiwan, which was still under ROC control. Tensions often soared in the following decades. The PRC shelled offshore islands held by the ROC government of Taiwan in the 1950s, and the ROC for a number of years harbored ambitions of recovering the mainland from the CCP. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the United Nations and most non-Communist nations still recognized the ROC as the sole government of China. Non-Communist nations referred to the CCP-controlled mainland as "Red China" during this time.
In 1971, the UN General Assembly voted to move the "China" United Nations seat from the ROC to the PRC. The United States recognized the KMT government in Taiwan as the legitimate representative of all China until 1979. And the ROC itself claimed to be the sole legitimate representative of all China until 1988. As of the present, most nations have switched their official diplomatic recognition of "China" to the PRC, though some of these nations have avoided clarifying what territories are meant by "China" in order to associate with both the PRC and ROC. These countries use vague terms such as "respects", "acknowledge", "understand", or "take note of" in regards to the PRC's claim over Taiwan, rather than officially "recognizing" the claim. From 1988 onwards the Government of Taiwan turned to a checkbook diplomacy promising economic support in return of diplomatic recognition. Until 1995, Taiwan was able to establish diplomatic ties with 29 countries. However this policy was stalled by the PRC as it suspended trade with any country that held diplomatic ties with Taiwan.