Is Taiwan A Country or Part of China?

this is the island of Taiwan is political situation is a bit complicated a slightly oversimplified way of looking at it would be that Taiwan is either its own independent country or part of China but the reason that's oversimplified is because Taiwan isn't a separatist movement Taiwan doesn't want to secede from China because from Taiwan's perspective the are China well at least constitutionally anyway Taiwan's official name as the Republic of China whereas the country that generally referred to as China as the People's Republic of China to fully understand the situation we need to go back to the end of the 19th century in the last imperial dynasty govern China the Qing Dynasty the Qing Dynasty encompassed all of what is modern day China Taiwan and Mongolia as well as parts of several other bordering nations in 1894 began the first sino-japanese war between the Qing Dynasty in the Japanese Empire which primarily took place in Korea and Taiwan at the time Korea was governed by the Joseon dynasty which was a clients day of the Qing Dynasty the war ended just one year later with a decisive Japanese victory which resulted in the island of Taiwan being annexed to the Japanese Empire the war also brought aim to the Joseon dynasty in Korea and guaranteed the complete independence from China Japan officially annexed the Korean Peninsula in 1910 in 1912 after millennia of imperial rule in China the monarchy was overthrown and the first Chinese Republic was established the Republic of China Sun yat-sen was made provisional president and Nanjing but you I'm shocked I had already assumed power in Beijing because he was in command of the be yang army the largest military and nation so to avoid conflict son agreed to accept yuan as president as president however he abused his power which led to a failed revolution in which son fled to Japan as president you won dissolved the Chinese Nationalist Party and in 1915 declared himself as emperor of China as he attempted to restore the monarchy his death one year later began what became known as the warlord era and Chinese history as the country became fragmented ended different factions in 1917 Sun yat-sen generally considered the founder of the Tripoli cheyna returned from exile to re-establish the republic he revived his nationalist party under the name of Kuomintang the government was established in the south of the country as the north was dominated by warlords and the Imperial be yang Army sanyasin wanted to unite the country under one government however he lacked the military power to take on the Warlord's after help from the West was refused assistance came from the Soviet Union in exchange for their military assistance they asked at the Kuomintang cooperate and allied with a much smaller Chinese Communist Party the warlord era came to an end the 2-year military campaign called the northern expedition however before the smells of the campaign was complete the alliance between Nationals and the Communists began to fall apart after the death of Sun yat-sen in 1925 the Kuomintang Party split into two separate ray and left-leaning factions the left-leaning faction moves its capital to Wuhan the original rate leaning corn tank party no led by Chiang kai-shek to control of Nanjing and declared it their capital the China National ins sought to purge the Communists among their ranks and in April of 1927 and what became known as the Shanghai Massacre thousands of communists were executed by nationalist forces the left-leaning Kuomintang faction which broke away also began executing communists and the party ultimately collapsed leaving the original party as the sole gentleman government of China the execution of communists ended their alliance with the Soviet Union and later the star of the chinese civil war between the Nationalists and the Communists the war began in August of 1927 with the nan Chang uprising and the founding of the Red Army the army of the Communist Party with Mao tse-tung's commander-in-chief four years later in 1931 with a civil war still ongoing the Empire of Japan sought to use the war as an opportunity to expand their sphere of influence by invading China the japanese imperial army invaded the east coast of china and occupied Manchuria as well as other nearby lands japan installed their own puppet government and faith in continued although it didn't escalate until all at war between the two nations until 1937 when it dead now since the initial invasion back in 1931 the civil war in China had continued many nationalists had called for a temporary truce with the Communists to defend China against the Japanese her--her Chiang kai-shek the Kuomintang leader refused and he wanted to continue the war against the communists let's changed in 1936 when he was kidnapped by one of his own commanders who forced him to agree to a military alliance with the Communists as before Japan their common enemy the second sino-japanese war escalated as Japan pushed enter the Chinese capital of Nanjing and massacred tens of thousands of civilians and soldiers in 1941 with World War two ongoing Japan carried out a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor at this point the United States were not at war with anyone but the Japanese launched the strike to try and prevent the u.s. from interfering with their Wars and the Pacific the attack cause immediate declaration of war by the natives dazed American involvement in the war with ultimately lead to war ended World War two and the Pacific Theater in July of 1945 in the Potsdam Declaration the Allied forces called for Japan's unconditional surrender in August of 1945 the United States dropped two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki just days later the Japanese accepted the terms of the surrender part of the surrender even included the Japan returned sovereignty of all lands that they had gained through warfare however this didn't just include territory they had gained during World War two has also included their annexation czar Korea and Taiwan several decades earlier so the island of Taiwan taken from the Qing Dynasty by Japan in 1895 was to be returned to China after the war with Japan was over the chaney Civil War started up again in 1946 the Nationalists and the Communists only ever had a very loose alliance against the Japanese and the fading never completely stalled the Soviet Union by the communists while the United States backed the Nationalists and what were the early years of the Cold War despite having a superior number of soldiers and equipment the Chinese Civil War was decisively won by the Communists as they captured more and more land pushing the Nationalists further and further back until 1949 when the Kuomintang government retreated to the island of Taiwan this effectively ended the civil although no official peace treaty was ever signed later that year the Communist Party proclaimed the People's Republic of China meanwhile the Kuomintang government the Republic of China and thus no internationally recognized government of China was exiled to the island of Taiwan over the course of the next few decades international recognition began to shift from the Republic of China to the People's Republic of China and in 1971 with UN General Assembly resolution 2758 the People's Republic of China were recognized as the legitimate government of China although the United States had voted against the resolution the u.s. broke off diplomatic ties with the ROC in 1979 the same year the PRC attempted to open up communication with the ROC with a proposal known as the three links this however was completely rejected by the ROC who responded by adopting the three noes policy no contact no compromise no negotiation this policy however had to be revised in 1986 when a China Airlines 747 aircraft was hijacked by an ROC pilot when he changed its course to Guangdong and defected to the PRC this forced the ROC and the PRC to communicate with each other in 1982 the two governments met coming to an agreement which was known as the 1992 consensus the consensus being that both sides adhere to the one chain of policy the one China policy is the belief that there is only one China and that Taiwan is part of China however both sides see themselves as the legitimate government of China both sides of the Taiwan Strait agreed that Chinese unification was the eventual goal and that the current situation was only temporary before the 1990s Taiwan had been a one-party state with the Kuomintang party as the government and 1986 Taiwan had is first presidential election although the Kuomintang stayed in power however in the year 2000 the Democratic Progressive Party were elated into government and today are the more dominant party having won 2016 election the DPP do not agree with the one chain of policy and reject the 1992 consensus they also do not support Chinese unification and strong support the idea of a Taiwanese identity the DPP believe that Taiwan already has its own independent country the Republic of China has a very ambiguous political status it's not a member of the United Nations and very few countries especially recognize them as a country that being said many countries do have unofficial de facto embassies in Taipei and vice versa so officially at least Taiwan is nor country but every practical sense of the word it has they have their own government with their own president which has jurisdiction over the whole Eggland's of Taiwan they have their own military issue their own passport and the even take part in sporting events such as the Olympics and the FIFA World Cup however they participate under the deliberately ambiguous pseudonym of Chinese Taipei now you may be thinking well Taiwan quite clearly as a country so why not just make official why not just declare independence and change the name to the Republic of Taiwan or something like that well the rest support for Taiwanese independence but it's not something that has a huge amount of support and this is because of China well many people may support the idea in principle and practice is something that can be quite dangerous because China is hostile towards the idea of Taiwan becoming an independent nation because according to the PRC Taiwan is an inseparable part of Chinese territory since antiquity and have threatened to unify China and Taiwan by force if necessary should Taiwan try to pursue independence so unfortunately resolving Taiwan's political status as something that could be incredibly difficult or even impossible for the foreseeable future the two ways to resolve the dispute both seem incredibly unlikely to happen any tension the first unification Taiwan unifies with China this is unlikely because neither side would be willing to give up their claim as the legitimate government of China and after being separated over several decades their populations are very different people the second and the payments that's missing like the most practical approach to solve the dispute both China being hostile to Taiwanese and the painters as just too dangerous is something that could be realized that we can set it at the moment so the third and most likely scenario the staff is cool and today's geopolitical climate that seems like the only realistic option so hopefully now it's clear why I said at the start of the video that seeing Taiwan is either its own independent country or a part of China is oversimplified it's a much more complicated ester than that so obviously there's no yes or no answer to the question as Taiwan a country because it depends on who you ask and have you define a country etc etc Taiwan has a long and complicated history that is brought about this ambiguous political status that it has today a political status that challenges the very meaning of the word country however everyday life in Taiwan is generally unaffected and it operates like any other country in the world the people of Taiwan lived their lives like any other people the majority of whom can sever themselves Taiwanese and the big US political status has very little impact on their day-to-day lives nevertheless as unfortunately almost every other country in the world must play along this facade that Taiwan doesn't exist and that the issue is generally swept under the rug rather than being discussed or debated simply because it's a controversial topic and can be uncomfortable to talk about thanks for watching [Music]

Channel: WonderWhy

Views: 3,409,306

Rating: 4.793045 out of 5

Keywords: Taiwan, ROC, PRC, China, Independence, Republic of Taiwan, country, part of china, Is Taiwan a country, is Taiwan part of China

Id: KQTtwh2GRME

Length: 12min 13sec (733 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 29 2016