One China Principle

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The One-China Principle Since 1949, China and Taiwan have had a rocky relationship, which is mostly caused by the issues regarding Taiwan’s independence and the One-China Principle. One-China is the idea that there is only one China, not “two Chinas” or one “China and one Taiwan”. This issue started in the 1900s, when Taiwan was Japanese territory. However, when a group of Chinese nationalists fled to Taiwan to escape the Communists, everything started to change. The antagonism between China and Taiwan was brought on by many factors, such as the Kuomintang’s rule of Taiwan, the 1992 consensus, and the differing opinions between the Taiwanese and Chinese leaders. In 1949, Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist Party, the Kuomintang (KMT), fled from mainland China to Taiwan after losing a civil war to the Communists. Once Chiang and the KMT reached the shores of Taiwan, he insisted that they still represented the people of the mainland and proceeded to rule Taiwan from 1949 to 2000. The KMT has always seen Taiwan as part of One-China and does not support Taiwan’s independence (Michal). The People’s Republic of China has the same beliefs as Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang and asserts that there is only One China. Ever since 1949, when the Nationalists moved their Republic of China government to Taipei, Taiwan, China has not budged from its goal to “bring Taiwan back into the fold” (I-chung). Chinese President Hu Jin-Tao himself claimed that “Taiwan is an inalienable part of China’s territory” and that “the greatest threat to peace in the Taiwan Straits is from the splitist activities by the ‘Taiwan independence’ forces” (Taiwan Flashpoint), and Beijing says that Taiwan is bound by the 1992 consensus, which clearly states that there is only One China, but China and Taiwan can interpret this however they want (Backgrounder). Taiwan’s former president, Chen Shui-bian,
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