Taiwan is part of China?

One of the interesting features of Skypeland is the opportunity to sample opinions of people from all over the world. I was speaking to a friend from Japan who speaks Chinese and someone from Mainland China in Skypeland recently. The lady from Mainland China said repeatedly that Taiwan was part of China. I pointed out that historically, there were only short periods of time that Taiwan was part of China in the last 100 years, or in the last 1000 years or longer (The same is true of Vietnam, of course).

I noted that Taiwan was about 75 miles away from China, and so well outside internationally recognized Chinese waters. Many other islands which are part of Japan and South Korea are also about the same distance from China, so the proximity argument is quite weak. The residents of Taiwan are not anxious to reunite with China, having been involved in overt and covert warfare with Mainland China for decades and having a different economic and political philosophy. Language claims are also weak since Mandarin was only widespread after the Nationalists arrived in Taiwan in 1949, and many other Chinese speaking areas in Asia, the Americas and Europe are not sought by China. Legally, the Japanese surrendered the island of Taiwan to the Chinese Nationalists, not to the Chinese Communists in 1949. So on the issues of (1) history (2) legality (3) desires of people (4) language (5) proximity, the claims of Mainland China on Taiwan are quite weak. I said that Taiwan would probably object less to reunification with China if the Chinese political system was liberalized.

At this, the Chinese lady objected, claiming that China clearly had a democracy. I asked what nonCommunist Party leaders had been elected to lead China in the last 50 years, but of course she had no answer to this. She tried to justify Chinese designs on Taiwan by mentioning Koxinga. However, Koxinga had fled Mainland China to set up a separate regime in opposition to that on Mainland China, so this was a weak example. She had no response to this.

Recent polls show that as few as 5 or 6 percent of Taiwanese want to reunify with China quickly, at least as things currently stand. And apparently this number has been dropping as China becomes more belligerent and warlike about this matter, and even threatened violence if Taiwan announces its independence. In spite of Chinese threats of violence if Taiwan announces independence, more than 20 percent of all Taiwanese are in favor of a rapid declaration of independence.[1][2]