China And Taiwan

This past January 12, Taiwan held its parliamentary

elections. In said elections, President Chen Shui Bian's

Democratic Progressive Party, which advocates the independence

of Taiwan and its participation as an independent State in the

United Nations, suffered a catastrophic electoral defeat at the

hands of the Kuomintang (KMT), which is the party that supports

a "One China" policy. The KMT won 81 seats out of the

113 seats in Parliament, against only 27 seats for the

President's party. So embarrassing was the defeat that

President Chen Shui Bian was left with no option but to accept

responsibility for such an electoral rout and resign from the

leadership of the party.

The result of the elections clearly demonstrates that the

people of Taiwan do not want the independence advocated by

President Chen. On the contrary, they wish to further tighten

the bonds with mainland China to the point of reaching a total

reunification, within the framework of the offer made by the

People's Republic of China of "one China and two

systems," similar to what occurred with Hong Kong a little

over ten years ago.

The Taiwanese will be able to keep the free market economy

and democratic systems they adopted many years ago, which is

looked upon favorably by the United States.

The recovery of Taiwan is the final link in the long

struggle of the Chinese people to complete the unification of

the territories that were taken from them and occupied by the

colonial powers, which obtained great advantages and enormous

profits during the XIX century and at the beginning of the XX

century. Hong Kong reintegrated itself into Chinese sovereignty

in 1997 and Macao did the same in 1999.

Torn from China by Japan in 1895, Taiwan returned to China

in 1945, at the conclusion of the Second World War. In 1949,

the defeated government of Chiang Kai-shek - the

Kuomintang - took refuge in the island along with its army and

established its new capital in Taipei, always under the premise

that it represented the whole of China. The Cold War determined

that the United States would become Chiang Kai-shek's

protector, and the power of the American naval forces

safeguarded Chiang from an eventual invasion by the legitimate

Chinese Government. Additionally, Chiang used his influence in

the United Nations to further the fiction that the Government

in Taipei represented all of China, thus keeping the

People's Republic from occupying its rightful place in the

world organization. However, on October...