China’s Xi Jinping told President Donald Trump on Thursday that he hoped the US will adhere to the “correct position” of opposing Taiwan independence, and that the Chinese stance on “reunification” is clear-cut.
Mao set up the People’s Republic of China, and claimed it was the only legitimate Chinese government for the whole of China, including Taiwan, as the Republic of China’s successor state. Any change in official US wording on Taiwan would upend decades of policy set by both Republican and Democratic presidents. Following the Qing’s defeat in a war with Japan, it became a Japanese colony in 1895. In 1945, it was handed over to the Republic of China government at the end of World War Two. In 1949 after being defeated by Mao Zedong’s Communist forces, the Republic of China government fled and moved its capital to Taiwan, and Republic of China remains the island’s formal name. For decades, the Republic of China in Taipei also claimed to be the legitimate Chinese government , but in 1971 Beijing took over the China seat at the United Nations from Taipei. The US severed official ties with Taipei in favour of Beijing in 1979 but is bound by the Taiwan Relations Act to provide the island with the means to defend itself. Among the assurances made in 1982, but never previously formally made public, are statements that the US has not set a date for ending arms sales to Taiwan, nor agreed to prior consultation with Beijing on such sales, or to revise the Taiwan Relations Act that underpins US policy towards the island.
The US officially takes no position on Taiwan’s sovereignty under Washington’s “One China” policy.
