Why Taiwan is not part of China

Original from BBC NEWS :
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Comment from anderh:
A close look at the island's history shows that Taiwan was only very briefly a part of Imperial China (from 1887 until 1895). Before that time, it was a loose-lying area, not ruled by anyone. In fact, when the Dutch East India Company established a settlement in the southern part of the island in the 1620s, they found no signs of any Chinese administrative structure.

The people who emigrated from the coastal areas of China in the 17th and 18th century moved to the island to escape wars and famines in China, not to conquer the island on behalf of the Imperial dynasty. In fact, in the 1870s, when the governments of the United States, Japan and France protested to the Manchu emperor in Peking that pirates around Taiwan were attacking ships passing the island, they were told by the Chinese authorities: "Taiwan is beyond our territory.

"In 1895, the island became Japanese territory, having been ceded "in perpetuity" to Japan by the Chinese Manchu rulers under the Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895. For the following 50 years, it was an integral part of the Japanese Empire.

In 1945, it was "temporarily occupied" by the Chiang Kai-shek's troops on behalf of the Allied Forces. When Chiang lost his Civil War in 1949, he moved the remainder of his troops and government to Taiwan, and ruled with an iron fist. In the "February 28" incident of 1947, his troops massacred between 18,000 and 20,000 Taiwanese elite. The Taiwanese people, who comprise 85% of the island's population, were thus oppressed, and became unwilling pawns in a bigger chess-game between the two Chinese adversaries.

The "One China" policy is a confusing concept. From 1949 through the late 1960s the United States recognized the Kuomintang regime in Taipei as the government of "China." It held the seat in the United Nations, and kept up the pretense of representing China.

When in the 1970s the United States and other Western nations recognized the Communist regime in Beijing as the government of China, the KMT's fiction was discarded, but was replaced by another fiction: the "creative ambiguity" of the Shanghai Communiqué, in which the Beijing authorities were recognized as the government representing China, but in which the United States stated that it "acknowledged" the Chinese position, that there is but one China, and that Taiwan is part of China.

Did the wording of the Shanghai Communiqué mean that the US, and other nations which used similar wording, recognized or accepted that Taiwan is part of China ? The answer is an equivocal no. These nations simply took note of the Chinese position, but did not state their own position on the matter. However, over time, this distinction started to blur, and some began to interpret the wordings of the 1970s as to mean precisely what they were not meant to be: "accept or recognize."

In the meantime, however, the Taiwanese achieved their transition towards a democratic system, and for the people of Taiwan any communiqué's between other countries such as the United States and China are not binding and of little relevance, because they were made without any consultation with, or representation of, the people of Taiwan.

Thus, the need to move towards a new "One Taiwan, One China" policy. This would not alter international recognition of the authorities in Beijing as the government of mainland China, but would specifically state that according to the basic principles agreed upon in the context of the United Nations, it is up to the Taiwanese people themselves to determine their own future. It is up to the international community to guarantee that this is done freely, without any coercion by China.
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Remark:
Shanghai Communiqué From Wikipedia
The Joint Communique of the United States of America and the People's Republic of China, also known as the Shanghai Communiqué (1972), was an important diplomatic document issued by the United States of America and the People's Republic of China; on February 27, 1972 during the U.S. President Richard Nixon's visit to China. The document pledged that it was in the interest of all nations for the United States and China to work towards the normalization of their relations, although this would not occur until another joint communiqué seven years later.
The US and China also agreed that neither they nor any other power should "seek hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region". This was of particular importance to China, who shared a militarized border with the Soviet Union.
Regarding the political status of Taiwan, in the communiqué the United States acknowledged the One-China policy (but did not endorse the PRC's version of the policy) and agreed to cut back military installations on Taiwan. This ambiguity would continue to hinder efforts for complete normalization.
The Communique included wishes to expand the economic and cultural contacts between the two nations, although no concrete steps were mentioned.
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