Debunking the Hypocrisy of the West’s Taiwan Self-Determination Myths

Recently, YouTube recommended a video to me featuring a discussion from several years ago between Professors Zhang Weiwei and Eric X. Li and Western scholars at a European think tank called the Nexus Institute.(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZ2DDFSDfTQ&t=357s) During the forum, the Western scholars repeatedly pressured them to explain why China does not allow Taiwan to declare independence and why the people of Taiwan cannot choose their own system. Profess Li used the example of Spain’s opposition to Catalonia’s independence to illustrate why China opposes Taiwan independence. To me, this answer is unsatisfactory. They are younger than me and seem to have forgotten how the Taiwan question came about in the first place.

I was born in the 1940s, so my earliest childhood memories date back to the time before the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) liberated Chongqing. There was no water from the taps, a massive fire had reached Chaotianmen Wharf, and machine-gun fire echoed through the night. But the moment the PLA entered the city the next day, order was immediately restored. That was in 1949—I was only five years old.

Then, in 1953, when I was nine, my family moved from Chongqing to Shanghai. At the time, I hadn’t started elementary school yet because I was often sick. One of my clearest memories from that period is the Kuomintang (KMT) air raids on Shanghai, with the sound of anti-aircraft guns firing near our home. This experience left a deep impression on me.

A poster to condemn KMT’s bombing of Shanghai

The very reason the Taiwan issue exists today is because of the Truman administration’s intervention in China’s internal affairs. Toward the end of the Chinese Civil War, the U.S. saw the corruption of the Kuomintang (KMT) and announced that it would abandon the Nationalist government, withdraw aid, and stay out of China’s internal conflict. Later, the Nationalist government was defeated by the PLA and retreated to Taiwan. When the Nationalist government fled, it took with it China’s gold reserves, cultural relics from the Forbidden City, and a significant number of elite intellectuals. This was a key factor in Taiwan’s later prosperity. Under Japanese colonization, Taiwan was extremely impoverished because the Japanese only allowed Taiwanese people to study medicine and agriculture. Schools run by the Japanese exclusively trained Japanese students, offering no real education to the local population. So, the Taiwan independence movement’s goal to revive the so-called “glory” of the Japanese colonial era, is nothing more than a fabrication of history.

Lai Ching-te, Taiwan’s regional leader,  openly described himself as a “pragmatic worker for Taiwan independence”, has pushed the narrative that “Taiwan’s security is Japan’s security, and Japan’s security is Taiwan’s security”.

Had it not been for the later U.S. intevention, China would have reunified Taiwan right after the founding of the People’s Republic. However, when the Korean War broke out, even before China had sent the People’s Volunteer Army to aid North Korea, the United States once again changed its stance. It deployed the Seventh Fleet to the Taiwan Strait, effectively blocking the mainland from reunifying with Taiwan. This is the sole reason why Taiwan has yet to be reunified with the motherland to this day—U.S. intervention in China’s internal affairs.

The Seventh Fleet “cruised” in the Taiwan Strait for nearly three decades, from invading the Strait in 1950 to withdrawing after the establishment of formal diplomatic relations between China and the United States in 1979.

Yet now, the United States slanders China’s unification efforts with Taiwan as an act of invasion, claiming that China does not respect the will of the people in Taiwan. This narrative is a complete double standard. Take American history as an example to explain. When the Civil War began, according to the original Confederate Constitution, the Southern states had right to secede from the Union. However, the North, representing industrial and commercial interests, imposed protectionist policies to safeguard its domestic market, preventing the agricultural South from trading with Britain. To reunite the Union, the North used military force to defeat the South. Did they ever consider respecting the will of the Southern states? Additionally, practice of the North directly contradicted the so-called principles of globalization and free trade that the West advocates today.

So, is a government’s legitimacy really determined by elections, as Western countries claim? Nonsense. Throughout history, the construction of most Western nations has been the result of war. One could argue that some leaders won because of their strategic brilliance—take Napoleon, for example, who led from the front and commanded effectively. On the other hand, if a leader lost a war, people might say it was because they lacked public support. But the notion that a political system’s legitimacy is established through voting has never been historically true.

So, I believe that when Professor Li responded to the European scholars’ questions, he used Spain’s opposition to Catalonia’s independence as an analogy to explain the issue of mainland China and Taiwan’s unification: Taiwan’s independence must be agreed upon by the people of mainland China. I think this logic is sound, but I also believe it is not strong enough.

Since the 1950s, the United States has viewed Taiwan as an unsinkable aircraft carrier, using it as a crucial geopolitical tool to contain China’s rise and prevent it from becoming a powerful nation. If Taiwan were like Hong Kong and Macau, peacefully coexisting with the mainland and developing together, there would be no issue. China could become a “one country, two systems” model—or even “one country, three systems.”

However, Taiwan has now sold itself to China’s enemy, namely U.S. imperialism, becoming a strategic pawn to curb the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. As a result, no matter who governs China—whether the Communist Party or another party is in power—a war to reunify Taiwan is inevitable. Why? Because the U.S. uses Taiwan to directly threaten China’s southeast coastal economic zone, as well as its industrial and military development. That’s why China has endured hardships and developed its defense and military industries. Even during the period of Reform and Opening-up, China did not suspend military development. This is entirely determined by geopolitics.

In this sense, I believe that China’s military power today has grown strong enough to compete with the United States in areas such as nuclear weapons, aerospace technology, and naval and missile capabilities. China is fully capable of pushing the U.S. out of the first and second island chains and even forcing it back to the third island chain. Therefore, Taiwan is not a chip to bargain with China.

China’s dual aircraft carrier fleet conducts military drill in East China Sea

I believe that China’s diplomatic think tanks can rightfully use the same methods that the U.S. employs to counter U.S. actions. I have publicly stated before that the most effective solution to prevent the U.S. from threatening world peace would be to get Texas and California seceded. If these two states were to secede, the U.S. would have no possibility of waging war. But the U.S. Constitution doesn’t allow referendums for Texas and California to secede.And to amend the Constitution, 38 states and two-thirds of the Congress would have to agree.

So, even if we take a hypothetical step back, if Taiwan were to seek independence, using the U.S. Constitution as a reference, China would need to hold a vote across all its provinces. No province would support Taiwan’s independence. Therefore, I believe that when China asserts its position on reunification, in addition to referencing the history of China’s civil war, it can also use U.S. history as a basis to demonstrate that Taiwan’s reunification is non-negotiable.

Another argument I can add is the case of Cuba, a small island nation that has been under a U.S. blockade for nearly a century. Neither Russia nor China has armed Cuba to the extent that Taiwan is today. Yet, the U.S. continues to violate United Nations resolutions and maintains its blockade of Cuba.

On this issue, China’s diplomatic think tanks and media should not hesitate to fight fire with fire, using the West’s own tactics against them. They should completely dismantle the Western narrative of so-called freedom and democracy.

On the other hand, we can also discuss why the European Union is so weak today, unable to compete with Russia or free itself from U.S. control. One key reason is that while EU countries talk about democracy, the true power lies in the hands of Germany and France, but their voting rights are the same as those of smaller nations which are free-riders. So the EU cannot ever compete with the U.S., China, and Russia in terms of economic scale.

In today’s economic development, the rise and fall of great powers hinges on one thing: the competition of economies of scale. And large economies depend heavily on political, economic, and cultural unity. In this regard, China has a significant advantage. But China’s media and theorists need to effectively communicate the historical and cultural strengths of China. This is not just a Chinese story; it’s a Chinese worldview. If we can clearly express this worldview, not only will we tell China’s story well, but we will also be able to tell the stories of the West, the Arab world, and Islam.

Editor: Chang Zhangjin