I would like to talk about the Taiwan/China issue from several perspectives. But first of all, please remove the "province of China" part, as Ja-Mez suggested, because it presupposes a certain standpoint and thus provides a biased environment for this discussion.
My first point is historical, namely "what was the relationship between Taiwan and China before?" The history after 1945 seems much more easier to understand--basically it is just a story in which the KMT retreated to Taiwan after its defeat in Mainland China and established a new polity on the island. Over the years it has had multiple disputes with Mainland China internationally over its own legitimacy. Undeniably, since 1945, the sovereignty of Mainland China has never been present in Taiwan. No matter what Mainland China says, it does not rule Taiwanese people. That's for sure.
So why is Taiwan a province of China? Being a province means being subordinated to the sovereignty of a centralized or federal government, which is not the case in Taiwan apparently. That's why I ask for removing "province of China" from the current title of Taiwan.
let us go back to historical facts. Yes, at least as early as the Ming Dynasty, Taiwan was included in the territory of China. Actually some officials of the Ching Dysnasty really did something in Taiwan, like paving the railroad and setting up some basic infrastructure. However, compared to other provinces in China at that time, the Ching Dynasty's sovereignty in Taiwan was relatively weak as it was just an island far away from the power center of China, then Peking. That's why Taiwanese people really recognized the convenience of modernization for the first time when they were colonized by Japanese after 1895. However, being colonized also stimulated some new thoughts about Taiwanese selves and identities. While some people transformed themselves into Japanese, some anticolonists turned to either China or Taiwan as their future detemination. I have to clarify here a fact that at that time, Taiwan or China was just a purely political image to affliate themselves to. It was established because of colonist oppression. That does not mean these people really wanted to become Chinese or Taiwanese; they just didn't want to become Japanese. Some historians even claim that for the first time in history Taiwanese people had their own sense of "togetherness" in the face of Japanese colonists, which turned into a primitive form of nationalism in Taiwan later.
Here comes my second point, a political one: When can a nation be called as such? Scholars trace back the origin of nationalism to the idea of "imagined community", that is, a sense of being together as a community among a bunch of people. They do not have to be geographically close, but the sense contributes to the formation of a new national identity. (Remember the Braveheart played by Mel Gibson? The image of a national hero is usually such a way). However, on a very practical scale, Taiwanese people have formed a very distinct national identity from that of the Chinese people. This is not my B-S. Please refer to Melissa Brown's "Is Taiwan Chinese?" (Stanford Unviersity Press, 2004) for relevant theorization. Politically, Taiwan and China are separate countries because they don't have the same identity. Identity, as Brown claims in her work, comes from living experiences together. (It is a simple extension of the anthropological concept, acculturation.) Since there has been many decades of separation between Taiwan and China, there is no common living experience upon which a shared identity can be established.
My third, and final, point will be stated from a social perspective. Since in recent years there have been many interactive activities going on across the Strait, the so-called life experience in both places may be more and more alike. Besides, economic progress and political change in Mainland China may transfigure it into a more compatible polity for Taiwanese people, and then reunification will be possible as long as Taiwanese people feel it acceptable. However, if the Mainland China stays politically authoritarian and diplomatically unfriendly to Taiwan, the Taiwan Independence is surely becoming a truth. That being said, I guess the biggest issue at stake is whether Mainland China can metamorphose into a politically democratic and economically balanced country, and this is still to be observed.
I am not saying Taiwan will never be a province of China, but I am saying it is NOT right now. I am not supposing a certain outcome (either reunification or separation), but proposing a way of peace across the Strait. There might be no definite answer to it, but the answer may take generations to reach.
Sorry for such a long article and probable grammatical errors or unintentional typos. Love and Peace!!
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