News Highlight
The speaker of the US House of Representatives arrived in Taiwan.
Key Takeaways
- China views the visit as a serious violation of the “One China” principle.
What are the “One China Principle” and “One China Policy”?
- The People’s Republic of China (PRC) follows the One China Principle.
- The One China Principle is advocated by China – that there is only one China, and Taiwan is a part of China’s
- “One China Policy”, however, this is the formulation of solutions on Taiwan framed by the US and governments around the world that do not officially recognize the ROC.
What is the genesis of the China-Taiwan tensions?
- The Republic of China-ROC- (Taiwan) was founded in 1912 following the collapse of the Qing dynasty and the 1911 Revolution.
- After the communists won the civil war on the mainland, Mao Zedong proclaimed the founding of the People’s Republic with its capital in Beijing on October 1, 1949.
- Until the 1970s, the US and most Western governments recognised the ROC as the government of all of China.
What has changed now?
- China:
- One of China’s stated national security objectives has been “reunification with Taiwan”.
- Since 2020, China has routinely sent aircraft into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone.
- Taiwan:
- In 2016, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate Tsai Ing-wen was elected President.
- In 2016, she initiated conversation with then US President — the first time since 1979.
- In 2018, the US signed into law the Taiwan Travel Act, which allowed American officials to step up exchanges with Taiwan.
- China views all of this as the US attempts to use Taiwan to contain the PRC’s “peaceful rise”, emboldening “ROC’s pro-independence separatist activities”, and “impacting cross-strait harmony.”
- The United States:
- The US has carried out a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics, added more Chinese companies to its trade restriction list, and
- Congress has passed a bill to counter China’s human rights abuses in Xinjiang.
- Later, the US concretised the relationship by signing the AUKUS trilateral security pact with the UK and Australia, and increasing Quad coordination with Japan, India, and Australia to limit Beijing’s influence in the Indo-Pacific region.
- Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there was concern over whether China could carry out similar activities in ROC.
- Against this background, Speaker Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan has led some security scholars to predict a fourth ROC Strait Crisis.
Taiwan
- Taiwan is located at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean.
- Capital -Taipei
- Neighboring countries:
- Northwest – People’s Republic of China
- Northeast – Japan
- South – Philippines
- Maritime Borders:
- North and northeast – The East China Sea
- East -the Pacific Ocean
Pic Courtesy: The Quint
Content Source: The Indian Express