The China-Taiwan Issue

Paper Summary:

The paper describes how the island of Taiwan has long been a territory under some form of Chinese rule. The paper relates that the current political turmoil between China and Taiwan has its roots in the Chinese civil war in the early part of the last century. The paper notes the American support of an independent Taiwan that ensured it did not fall to the Communists. The paper shows how the solution to the difficulties between Mainland China and Taiwan is not a political one, but an economic and commercial one.

From the Paper:

"The cross-strait relationship between China and Taiwan has been a point of geo-political concern since the end of World War II following the removal of Japanese colonial control when the Island experienced a brief period of political independence. This period was short-lived since only a few years later the island was inundated with Chiang Kaishek's Nationalist troops fleeing Mainland China and Mao Zedong's Communist troops. While the island of Taiwan has been variously claimed and ignored by Chinese dynasties throughout history, it was not until it was used as a place of refuge for the Goumingtang, or the Nationalists as they are known in English, that it morphed into a long-term point of contention for China and a line in the sand, as it were, for Western democracy and a buffer against Communist dominance in the region."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Cheng, Tun-Jen, Chi Huang, and Samuel S. G. Wu, eds. Inherited Rivalry: Conflict across the Taiwan Straits. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1995.
• Fu, Jen-Kun. Taiwan and the Geopolitics of the Asian-American Dilemma. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1992.
• Shambaugh, David, ed. Greater China: The Next Superpower?. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.
• Spence, Jonathan D. The Search for Modern China. 2nd ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 1999.
• Zagoria, Donald S., and Chris Fugarino, eds. Breaking the China-Taiwan Impasse. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003.

More papers on The China-Taiwan Issue:

• Analytical Essay # 131316 : "The China-Taiwan Relationship"
• Essay # 6071 : "The China-Taiwan Quagmire"
• Essay # 33653 : "China-Taiwan Relations"

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