Flags of the People's Republic of China (left) and Republic of China (©Reuters)
As geopolitical tensions run high across Northeast Asia, former Taiwanese Vice President Lu Hsiu-lien cuts through the abstractions. "Taiwan has never been part of China," she says, "and China has never exercised effective control over Taiwan."
Her remarks come amid a deepening row between Tokyo and Beijing, following the Japanese prime minister's comments that a Taiwan contingency could pose a survival-threatening situation.
Beijing continues to invoke its One China Principle to assert sovereignty over Taiwan, claiming the island as an inalienable part of its territory. Japan, the United States, and many others adopt a more measured stance, adhering instead to the One China Policy.
The distinction may sound semantic. But Lu says this terminological fault line is precisely where the self-governing island's independence endures. She elaborates on her views in an interview with JAPAN Forward.
Lu entered the Legislative Yuan in 1992 as a Democratic Progressive Party lawmaker and later served as Taiwan's vice president from 2000 to 2008 under President Chen Shui-bian.
Excerpts follow.
The One China Principle and One China Policy are often conflated, even in mainstream coverage. Why does that distinction matter?
Beijing officials often cite the so-called One China Principle to claim that Taiwan is part of China. But the mere existence of a political concept does not confer sovereignty.
The United States, for example, recognizes diplomatically that the People's Republic of China (PRC) — not the Republic of China — represents China. It does not, however, recognize Beijing's claim of sovereignty over Taiwan.
This distinction lies at the core of the difference between the One China Principle and the One China Policy. The similarity in terminology often obscures this point, but the two concepts rest on fundamentally different premises and carry very distinct implications.
Why do historical and legal grounds undermine the claim that Taiwan belongs to China?
First, the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911) permanently ceded Taiwan to Japan in 1895. From that point onward, Taiwan ceased to be part of China, and no subsequent development has altered that legal fact.
Second, since the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, Beijing has never exercised effective control over Taiwan. Sovereignty cannot rest on assertion alone. It requires physical governance, which the PRC has never possessed over the island.
Third, when the People's Republic of China assumed China's seat at the United Nations in 1971, UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 determined only that the PRC would represent China. The resolution made no reference whatsoever to Taiwan and its status.
Regrettably, Beijing's misinterpretation of the resolution as granting sovereignty over Taiwan has gained unwarranted traction internationally.
How do Taiwanese people balance resistance to Beijing's pressure with a desire to preserve stability?
Most Taiwanese have little desire to live under the Chinese Communist Party's rule. They also prefer to retain the national name Republic of China or Taiwan, a preference that reflects political reality rather than nostalgia.
For more than seventy years, the Chinese Communist Party has threatened Taiwan, much as North Korea continues to menace South Korea and other free societies.
The people of Taiwan are well acquainted with these threats. They simply refuse to be governed by them. As a democracy, Taiwan also enjoys a form of protection that cannot be measured in missiles and bullets alone.
That said, this confidence has not bred recklessness. Roughly 70% of Taiwanese still believe in maintaining the peaceful status quo. War, after all, is not a solution but a failure. Brutal, open-ended, and ill-suited to resolving political disputes in any century.
Why does geography make Taiwan particularly vulnerable in the US–China competition, and how should Taiwan respond moving forward?
Washington and Beijing are locked in a sustained contest for influence worldwide. But geography still matters. The US is an ocean away from China. Taiwan is not.
This asymmetry naturally raises concerns in Taiwan that it could be treated less as a subject and more as a political setting, or worse yet, transformed into a battlefield for others' ambitions. It is for this reason that the people of Taiwan approach the current moment with particular caution.
Ukraine and Russia share Slavic roots and a long, intertwined history as neighboring societies. China and Taiwan face a comparable reality. That is why, in my book Crisis and Turning Point in East Asia, I introduce the "One Chinese" framework.
Because many ancestors of both Taiwanese and Chinese people moved from the mainland, this idea, which does not hinge on statehood, is one many Taiwanese can accept. Shared bloodlines and cultural ties, properly understood, offer no inherent reason for hostility between the two.
To what extent will Taiwan's semiconductor industry, particularly TSMC, function as a "silicon shield" against potential invasion?
Global attention has increasingly settled on TSMC and the semiconductor industry.
As TSMC's CEO once put it plainly, semiconductor manufacturing depends on constant, real-time integration with partners in the United States, Europe, Japan, and elsewhere. In the event of an attack on Taiwan, therefore, that network would collapse, and production would come to a halt.
TSMC's strength, however, is not reducible to fabs and machinery. It rests on an accumulation of talent and Taiwan's distinctive ecosystem of trust and collaboration.
These are not assets that can be captured intact. Force may seize buildings, but it cannot seize the conditions that make them function.
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Author: Kenji Yoshida
