What the ‘One China’ principle means for future of Taiwan
The policy has cast the government in Taipei out into the diplomatic wilderness

A free daily digest of the biggest news stories of the day - and the best features from our website
Thank you for signing up to TheWeek. You will receive a verification email shortly.
There was a problem. Please refresh the page and try again.
Colin Alexander of Nottingham Trent University on why mounting tensions over Taiwan’s sovereignty claims have left Washington in a tricky position
The tense triangular relationship between the US, China and Taiwan has emerged once again amid escalating military tensions across the Taiwan Strait. The status of the small, densely populated island off the southeast coast of the Chinese mainland is hotly contested and there are almost daily news reports predicting that a newly assertive China may soon take action – military or otherwise – to forcibly reincorporate Taiwan. We have been here before, though, and to see such action as inevitable would be misguided.
It’s a complex situation that has its roots in the chaos that followed the end of the Second World War in Asia and the civil war in China which ended with Mao Zedong’s Communist Party founding the People’s Republic on 1 October 1949.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The island, formerly known as Formosa, had been a Japanese colony between 1895-1945 but was placed under the control of Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek’s Republic of China (ROC) following Japan’s defeat.
In 1949, Chiang retreated to Taiwan with around 2m soldiers, affiliates and civilian refugees, planning to retake the mainland and overthrow the communists. Obviously, this never happened and there has since followed a global competition between two competing conceptualisations of China.
During the Cold War, this was often propagated by the ROC and by Western sources as “Red China” versus “Free China”. But both spent much of the conflict as brutal and tyrannical dictatorships that encouraged cults of personality around their figurehead leaders – so the notion of the people of Taiwan as being free was debatable, to say the least.
Neither the PRC nor the ROC acknowledge the other’s claim. Formal contact is limited and negotiations are usually done through proxies to ensure the upkeep of the pretence of the other’s lack of legal existence.
The One China principle emerged soon after the ROC’s retreat to Taiwan. Neither side could be seen to even accept the contestability of their claim to all China in case it damaged domestic and international prestige. The phrase “One China” was then popularised following its use in the 1972 Shanghai Communique between PRC and US representatives and gained further notoriety following the 1992 Consensus when unofficial representatives from Beijing and Taipei met in British Hong Kong and proclaimed their agreement that there was “one China” – although interpretations over who ought to govern this realm clearly differed.
The One China principle is one of the oddities of modern diplomacy: it essentially requests that governments and major international organisations acknowledge that either the PRC or the ROC is the rightful sole government of all of China – including Taiwan and its outlying islands.
Areas of contest
There are three international arenas where One China is most apparent today. One, and perhaps most visible, is in international sporting contests, where Taiwan usually competes as “Chinese Taipei”. Taiwan is not permitted to use the ROC flag and its national anthem is not played.
Another is membership of international organisations including the United Nations (UN) and its affiliates such as the World Health Organization (WHO), where China vetoes Taiwan’s membership. The ROC was one of the founders of the UN in 1945 but resigned its seat in 1971 in protest at UN moves to integrate the PRC. The ROC was subsequently replaced by the PRC in its capacity as a permanent member of the Security Council.
The third arena is diplomatic recognition. Since 1949, there has been a general decline in the number of states around the world that formally recognise the ROC, as this would prevent a formal relationship with the much larger PRC. This limits the formal contact most countries have with Taipei, although informal trade and cultural relations remain.
The UK government recognised the PRC almost immediately after its declaration of statehood in 1949 – mainly out of concerns over the status of Hong Kong. The US government, meanwhile, did not formally recognise the PRC until New Year 1978-79 – the culmination of a process that began under then US president, Richard Nixon, in 1969 and concluded under Jimmy Carter almost a decade later.
Modern Taiwan
Since President Tsai Ing-wen came to power in 2016, Taiwan has been experiencing its fifth wave of diplomatic de-recognition, losing various allies including Burkina Faso in Africa and Panama and El Salvador in Central America. This is because Tsai’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) favours greater independence for Taiwan from China, perceived as a hostile act by Beijing. Hence the threatening behaviour that has been apparent in different forms over the previous five years and which seems to be ramping up in recent weeks.
One should not consider the situation as simply doom and gloom for Taiwan, though. Taiwan has been here before and political commentators have feared for the ROC’s future on many occasions – and yet it continues to be a vibrant part of the social, economic and political landscape of the Asia-Pacific region. Key to the ROC’s durability have been the reforms it undertook during the 1980s and 1990s that moved it from dictatorship to multiparty democracy with respect for human rights at the centre of its political outlook.
This sits in stark contrast to the authoritarian entrenchment and ongoing questions over human-rights abuses by the PRC on the mainland and in Hong Kong.
The mounting tensions put the US in a difficult position though. The Taiwan Relations Act, signed by US Congress in spring 1979 in response to the Carter administration’s recognition of the PRC, pledges to defend Taiwan should Chinese aggression be forthcoming. How far the US would go remains to be seen – but armed conflict between the two superpowers still remains unlikely.
Colin Alexander, lecturer in political communications, Nottingham Trent University.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.
Continue reading for free
We hope you're enjoying The Week's refreshingly open-minded journalism.
Subscribed to The Week? Register your account with the same email as your subscription.
Sign up to our 10 Things You Need to Know Today newsletter
A free daily digest of the biggest news stories of the day - and the best features from our website
-
'A teetering democracy of gerontocrats?'
Instant opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By Harold Maass Published
-
Every 'Saw' film, ranked
The Explainer The highs and lows of the gory horror soap opera
By Brendan Morrow Published
-
Why did the Hadrian’s Wall tree mean so much to us?
Talking Point Teenager arrested after Sycamore Gap tree felled overnight
By Felicity Capon Published
-
'Labour risks making private schools a conclave for the super-rich'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By The Week Staff Published
-
Rebuilding Ukraine: What would it take?
In Depth Russia continues to raze large sections of Ukraine, but that gives Kyiv a unique opening to build a better country — if somebody is willing to pay
By Peter Weber Published
-
Is it time the world re-evaluated the rules on migration?
Today's Big Question Home Secretary Suella Braverman questions whether 1951 UN Refugee Convention is 'fit for our modern age'
By The Week Staff Published
-
A Ukraine election in 2024: how it would work
The Explainer Zelenskyy hints that country is ready for March polls but logistical, security and democratic obstacles remain
By Harriet Marsden Published
-
How Ukraine's claimed kill of Russia's top Black Sea Fleet admiral could affect the war
Speed Read Ukraine says it killed Russian Adm. Viktor Sokolov and 33 other senior commanders in an audacious and expertly timed strike in Crimea
By Peter Weber Published
-
Azerbaijan attacks disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, breaking cease-fire
The 'local anti-terrorist' strikes in the ethnic Armenian enclave threaten to reignite a war with implications for Russia, Turkey and the West
By Peter Weber Published
-
Canada's Trudeau accuses India of role in assassination of Canadian Sikh leader
Canada expelled a senior Indian diplomat after going public with explosive 'credible allegations' that Indian agents helped kill a Canadian citizen
By Peter Weber Published
-
US-Iran prisoner swap: has Biden given in to blackmail?
Republicans condemn $6bn deal but it could help de-escalate rising tensions
By The Week Staff Published