The China Factor in the Evolution of Cross-Strait Relations, 2024 and Onward

Table of Contents Introduction Can China Act Rationally Regarding Taiwan? Attitudes in Taiwan Are Hardening Taiwan is a Genuine Democracy Can Taiwan Defend Itself? What Are the Projected Costs in Blood and Treasure? How Serious is Canada about Taiwan? Should Canada Get Involved? Think Twice and Thrice References End Notes About the Author Canadian Global Affairs Institute Introduction In the coming decade, mainland China can be expected to continue affirming, maintaining, and strengthening its policy stance towards Taiwan, a policy that has not changed since the founding of the People’s Republic of China on October 1, 1949. Beijing’s policy is this: Taiwan is an inalienable part of Chinese territory, Taiwan was wrested away from China by an aggressive and expansive militarist and imperialist Japan in 1895, reverted to China after Japan’s defeat in the Second World War, and will one day be reunified with mainland China, peaceably if at all possible but by military force if it proves absolutely necessary. Beijing has never wavered in these territorial claims and likely never will. Cross-strait relations between Taiwan and the mainland have evolved, and they are today much less tense than they were during the darkest years of the Cold War, the last few years of which I experienced as a young man in Taiwan between 1980 and 1985. Taiwan and the mainland now have direct telephone connections, direct flights, direct postal service, some internet connectivity, and extensively integrated economic relations – things that would have been beyond unthinkable in, say, 1982. But cross-Strait relations will never evolve to the point of Beijing fully and formally accepting independence for Taiwan. Let there be no wishful thinking about this. Attitudes in mainland China are hardening and becoming more strident, and not merely in rhetoric. China is preparing for war with and over Taiwan. If China ever concludes that all hope for peaceful reunification with Taiwan has been shattered, it will attack the island, regardless of who its friends and allies are. The longing for Taiwan to return to the Chinese motherland is by no means limited to the government of the PRC. Ordinary Chinese perhaps feel more strongly about this than even their government. I started learning and thinking about China in 1980, and since then I have met only three mainland Chinese who think Taiwan ought to become an independent country. The overwhelming majority of them feel differently, even those otherwise severely critical of the PRC government