The History of Taiwan & China & the Looming Threat of War | Explained

For more than 70 years, Taiwan has faced an almost constant threat of Chinese invasion, and a lot of it boils down to the fact that both strongly disagree over what their relationship actually is, which isn't helped by the fact that they both officially refer to themselves as China.
China is officially known as the People's Republic of China. It believes Taiwan belongs to them but sees it as a renegade province that needs to be unified with the mainland.
Taiwan, on the other hand, formally refers to itself as the Republic of China, and while most of the world doesn’t recognise it as an independent country, it sure does have a lot of the characteristics of one.
It has its own unique identity, its own military, flag, currency, and government. Now, to understand how we ended up with two China's we have to go back to World War Two, when there was only one China, the Republic of China. The ROC was a member of the allied forces and a military dictatorship led by Chiang Kai-Shek's Chinese Nationals Party, the Kuomintang.
When the war ended, the island of Taiwan, which had been under the control of various empires for the past few centuries, found itself in the possession of the ROC.
Unfortunately, as one war ended, another began, a civil war between the nationalists and communists in China.
By the end of 1949, the Communist Party and its red army led by Mao Zedong had defeated Chiang Kai-Shek, who fled with more than a million anti-communist supporters to the island of Taiwan. This is how one China, became two, with both claiming to be the one true China and promising to one day take over the other.
Mao and the CCP established the People's Republic of China, with Beijing as its capital, while Chiang Kai-Shek announced that Taipei would be the new temporary capital of the Republic of China. If you're wondering why the communists didn't chase the nationalists to Taiwan, it's largely because of the United States.
As the Korean War kicked off in the 50s Western countries were getting more nervous about the spread of communism.
So, the US established an alliance with Chiang Kai-Shek's regime, making an invasion by the communist PRC a lot more unlikely.
With war pretty much off the table, the situation turned into a political fight for international recognition, as countries were forced to pick a side. The Republic of China had a head start as a founding member of the United Nations in 1945.
By 1971, the PRC had gained enough allies to unseat and replace the ROC at the UN.
It's around this time that most people started to think of the PRC as China and the ROC as Taiwan. By the end of the 70s, the US and Australia joined the growing tide of countries switching recognition to the PRC. The PRC was still a communist country, but a breakdown in its relationship with the world's other major communist power, the Soviet Union, led to friendlier relations with the West, which was extremely valuable to the US in particular, during the Cold War.
The KMT ruled Taiwan with an iron fist, crushing any political opposition. It took decades of both native Taiwanese and mainlanders, from a variety of political backgrounds, uniting together often in the face of oppression, before the KMT’s grip on power finally loosened. And today, modern day Taiwan couldn't be more different. What was once the authoritarian Republic of China, is now the thriving and open democracy of modern Taiwan. Instead of Chiang Kai-Shek's desire to take control of mainland China, most Taiwanese now just want to be free from the control of mainland China.
In China today, the Communist Party places a huge amount of importance on nationalism and restoring China to its former glory. A big part of this narrative is something called the ‘century of humiliation’. The basic idea is that for about 100 years, China lost almost every war that it fought, and was forced to give up large amounts of money and or territories to various foreign powers. According to the CCP, that humiliation ended in 1949, with the formation of the People's Republic of China, and since then, the CCP has been determined to restore China to its former glory, and Taiwan is seen as sort of the missing piece in the Communist Party's great triumph. But what's standing in the way of this great triumph is the fact that the vast majority of people in Taiwan really don't want to unify with China.
So, what we're left with is the stalemate that we see today, commonly referred to as the ‘status quo’. China has no effective control over Taiwan's democratic government, and as long as Taiwan doesn't try to officially become independent, it still gets to mostly act as if it is, even though the rest of the world doesn't really recognise it. The problem is, this status quo likely won't be an option forever, as China has repeatedly said that unification is inevitable, and that they will use all necessary means to make it happen. - By Nicholas Maher

[@user-ej4zz8zu4g]

This is one of the most fair and balanced explanation of the conflict, giving both sides views. A bit more on the history of Taiwan going back to China's imperial time would be helpful instead of starting from end of WW2.

[@henrythebananaboy]

Hello