Hmm, finally, a thread on China, something I expected earlier. Talk about thread derailment though.
I'll give a little information - my parents are from Taiwan. They moved here in the 70's for college and so on and have been extremely successful in American, well among the tops. Their parents went to Taiwan in 1949 after the Nationalist government fled China, both sides of my family for various reasons.
A little background - my family heritage can be traced back generations and generations to China. Mom's side would be from the Zhejiang province which is just a bit south of Shanghai. Dad's side is from Hubei province which is inland, a few hundred to a thousand miles west from the coast. As I stated earlier, my grandparents left China in the wake of the Nationalist defeat at the hands of the communists. On my dad's side, my grandfather fled without any family members except his new wife (grandmother), with little knowledge of what lay ahead - he fled because by this time he was a Captain in the Nationalist Army for well over 8 years (fought the Japanese and then the Communists). His family owned an estate and had a lot of land, but due to years and years of war, he had little contact with them and so could only flee without knowledge of what happened to them. He did know that his brother, who was older than him, had died leading men earlier in his life fighting the communists. It turns out that decades later when contact between Taiwan and China was allowed that my grandfather's mother had actually been sentenced to stone to death by the communists simply for being a landowner. Of all his family members, only his sister (who later immigrated to Houston) and two uncles (both of whom were generals in the Nationalist Army before even WW2) went to Taiwan.
So yes, I do have quite a stake in what happens. You see, what many people outside don't realize on this issue of Taiwan is what people do think. Taiwan itself has its own people - Taiwanese. To call my family Taiwanese would only be partially correct - from Taiwan, yes, my parent were (though I was not, born in the U.S. myself), but by no way do we even call ourselves Taiwanese or do others call us that. We consider ourselves Chinese, from Taiwan, simply separated by war and politics.
It would be akin to the division in Korea - almost everyone in America who is Korean is from South Korea. To call them South Korean would only be partially correct - yes, most of their parents/themselves came from S. Korea, but they're still Korean.
So to say somethings immediately, there are many misconceptions and notions floating around those on the outside looking in.
To begin with, the rift between China and Taiwan is largely a media and government play thing we like to hear about out here in the U.S./West. Yes, its a big part of politics in those two nations, make no mistake about it. But the idea that there is this distrust/hate between the two? No, not at all.
It has been 80 years since the original wars between the communists and the nationalists, 60 years since the end of WW2, and 56 years since the communists defeated the nationalists. My grandparents are old now, and time has healed many of the wounds. For one, direct flights between mainland China and Taiwan have been talked about and are going to resume after all these years. Other notes as well - up until Madame Chiang Kai-Shek's death, China every year held a compettion of students to write a letter in English to her, and the winners would be given a free trip to visit the U.S. The father of the Nationalist Party, Sun Yat-sen, is adored by both Taiwan and China.
Not only is there little animosity, indeed, much of Taiwan is now linked to China economically. You need only look at technology to see what has happened. Taiwan, in the 90's, boomed economically through the technology industry. Computers, chips, etc. were made in Taiwan. There was much talk of the 4 tigers/dragons in Asia among them Japan, Taiwan, Korea, and Singapore. Since then, however, Taiwan has been hurt by the technology bubble bursting, which we saw in the U.S.
Since then, companies in Taiwan have increasingly gone to China. Businesses have moved to China's ever-freer market. Manufacturing is going to China - cheap and abundant labor. Sales go to China - sell products to larger markets. My uncle, born in Taiwan, for instance has started a web-design and CD-manufacturing company in Shanghai.
This brings an interesting thing of note - beginning in the 60's and 70's, a larger and larger group of Asian peoples immigrated to America. We of course saw a large diverse amount. There were war refugees from Southeast Asia, which often made up the poorer immigrants from Asia. From Taiwan, many of the immigrants that came sought higher education in universities and colleges in America, and many of these immigrants originally had money, and quickly established themselves, taking much higher jobs. In the 90's, we saw a new wave of immigrants largely drawn due to the technology boom. With China opening up, we also saw some very poor and also some very rich immigrants from mainland China immigrate to the U.S.
But what has happened has been that Taiwan realizes that its independence cannot be maintained easily due to its own people. Not only has much of its young, best, and brightest moved out of Taiwan to around the world (including here), but also many have moved to China now to pursue capitalist gains in the growing market of China.
Google some articles that recently came up about the extremely low birth rates in Taiwan. Statistics show that 85% of married couples have to have at least two children to keep the population from falling in Taiwan. Long story short, its population is decreasing from a cominbation of people simply moving out to economic decline.
Some other misconceptions are that the people of Taiwan want independence. No, what has happened is that the politics involved have created a status quo, one where nothing is done because nothing happens, thus perhaps to the benefit as well as detriment of all sides involved. There is no clear cut majority in either fashion - instead, the political leaders have made their statements, made bluffs, called bluffs, and in the end, done just about nothing on either side.
From the 50's through 60's, U.S. forces were on Taiwan. In fact, my father learned his love of American music, such as the Beatles, Rolling Stones, and other bands through listening to American Armed Forces Radio beamed from the base. Heck, his family owned one of the first cars on the island buying a used Mercury from military men stationed there.
But as we saw, when the U.S. recognized the PROC, that meant the "One-China" thing kicked in and the U.S. removed recognition of Taiwan as an independent country. U.S. forces withdrew, and instead, left Taiwan in this position to this day.
What has happend of course is that there is this problem.
The people of Taiwan are a mixed bag - there are those who are native to China, aboriginals, and would probably want to see the Chinese from the mainland gone. There are those who call for independence. There are those who prefer reunification, citing economic gain. Others prefer gradual reunification, similar to what Hong Kong has, where its "One country, two systems."
As you can see, theres quite a wide range of thoughts on the issue, and to say they prefer independence or anything without knowing what the people believe, is at best hard to do. The government in Taiwan realizes this as well.
The Kuomintang (Nationalist Party - the right wing party in Taiwan) is part of the Pan-Blue coalition, which is more open to reunification than the Pan-Green colaition, which prefers independence. The Democratic Progressive Party (the left wing party in Taiwan) is part of the Pan_Green coalition. President Chen of Taiwan is currently of that party.
What is of note, however, is that when Chen came to power, the party has moderated its stance on China. It was thought to be very pro-independence and instead it has turned moderate on the issue, instead, preserving the status-quo. What has happened, actually, is that in legislative elections, the Kuomingtang and the Pan-Blue coalition did very well, holding a majority in the legislature.
So to simply say that Taiwan prefers independence is hard - they're split at best. Indeed, the fact that Taiwan's population is in decline, its economy as well as people are moving to China, there is growing reconciliation between once enemies (my grandparents actually lean towards reunification or are neutral at most), has pushed the pro-independence parties to seek actions that continue the status quo, to instead avoid any action.
What the U.S. and China has done in recent weeks and months is the old game of sabre rattling and bluffing. The idea that there was ever a military balance between just China and Taiwan is laughable - Taiwan relies on mandatory military service (a big reason why many of its best and brightest minds leave Taiwan early for college abroad to avoid service) and foreign aid (which is few and far now that China has much bigger economic power in the world). The only balance there would be if the U.S. was directly involved.
What is happening, however, is that the U.S. and China are playing a manuevering game of politics over a Taiwan that has little say in this affair.
Defense analysts and experts predict China to be on par with the U.S. military technologically within 20 years. Its Navy is projected to be larger than the U.S. Navy in 10 years. Its weapon systems have been designed to counter U.S. strenghts in technology, stealth, aircraft carriers, robots, and so on. Of course I cant say much about this because I dont live there, I doubt either country would tell their military secrets either
What is to be said on that is that Chinese analysts need only look at U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq to see doctrine, technology, and our military at work, and to plan ahead themselves. Though they're essentially neutral on our involvement in the Middle East, I get this feeling in my head that they're sitting back and chuckling a bit at us allowing ourselves to reveal and test our technology out there, for them to analyze and see.
I think, however, the biggest deterrent between the U.S. and China getting into a war within the next 20 years are our economies. We are so intertwined now that war would bring severe economic problems in the world. Too much is at stake between the country's companies, people, and militaries to risk it right now. Both sides have had their quarrels and problems, but both sides have done nothing.
I will tell you this though - my senses say that Japan and China are bumping heads again, and possibly in 10 years, may be at war. And when that happens, the U.S. will have to choose - stand with Japan, an economic giant in its own right, or China, an economic giant that will probably be a superpower as well. Then, we'll see what happens.