Taiwan has been an inalienable part of the Chinese territory since ancient times. On Oct. 1, 1949, the Central People’s Government replaced Chiang Kai-shek’s Republic of China government and became the sole legal government representing the whole of China. But China’s sovereignty and territory remained unchanged, and the government of the People’s Republic of China fully inherited China’s sovereignty, including sovereignty over Taiwan.
As a legacy of the Chinese civil war in the 1940s and due to interference by external forces afterward, the two sides across the Taiwan Strait have been temporarily separated. Despite the political confrontation across the strait, both sides maintain that there is only one China in the world, and the pursuit of reunification is a shared goal. In other words, China’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity have never been divided, and the fact that the mainland and Taiwan belong to one and the same China has never changed. This is the most fundamental fact about the Taiwan question and the most fundamental status quo of the cross-strait relations.
However, in recent years, Taiwanese Democratic Progressive Party authorities have engaged in changing the status quo in which the two sides belong to one China and both should pursue a national reunification. They refuse to recognize the 1992 consensus that reflects the one-China principle. They try every means to sever the historical and cultural bonds and national identity of the two sides; go all out to push forward “de-sinicization,” or the reduction of Chinese cultural elements; recklessly promote “incremental independence”; obstruct cross-strait exchanges and cooperation; provoke cross-strait confrontation; and seek U.S. support for their independence agenda.
