China-Taiwan-US

The Road to War?

 Understanding the complex web that make up Taiwan, US and  China relations is not easy and requires some understanding of the history of their relations.

Note: this is rather long and might get cut off by email servers if receiving by email

From  Sterling Seagraves “ The Soong Dynasty”

Great Britain declared war on October 1, 1839. British opium merchants had campaigned long and hard for this war, and they were its chief beneficiaries. A fleet led by the thirty-two-gun paddlewheeler Nemesis made short work of the Chinese navy. Humiliated, China paid a huge indemnity, opened five additional ports to British trade and residence, and exempted British subjects from Chinese justice. Of all the new treaty ports, Shanghai was the gem. It was only a squalid coastal enclave when the British arrived in force.

Not only did Shanghai command the mighty Yangtze for the movement of agricultural produce; it was connected by canals and lakes to the silk capital of Soochow, and by the Grand Canal to Peking. All the goods of China could easily flow out there, and all the goods of Europe and America could flow in.

The leading American hongs were Russell & Company, Heard & Company, Wetmore’s, Olyphant’s, and Wolcott, Bates & Company. Among these, the most powerful was the established opium trader Russell & Company, linked to the famous Yankee merchant clans of Roosevelt, Delano, and Forbes.

Samuel Russell, founded the successful merchant trading firm Russell & Co. in 1823. His cousin was William Huntington Russell who was an American businessman, educator, and politician. Notably, he was a co-founder of the Yale University secret society Skull and Bones, along with Alphonso Taft.

In 1856, with several other Bonesmen, he incorporated Skull and Bones as the Russell Trust, later the Russell Trust Association.The Russell Trust Association is a tax-exempt association; it holds possession of the Skull and Bones Hall at Yale University and the society's holiday island, Deer Island.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Huntington_Russell

The Yale connection to the Opium Trade is interesting, even though William supposedly had nothing to do with his cousins business. Yale and their alumni would play a bigger role in the 20th century

In 1919 Mao, aged 26, was in Changsha, having finished his middle school education, he visited Peking and while there received a serious introduction to communist theory in Leeteuk Charles’ Marxist study group”.

“Now, if he was to develop a reputation in socialist circles, he had to find a form to propagate his views. At this crucial point The Student Union of Yale and China invited Mao to take over the editorship of their journal. Mao accepted the position and changed the format of the student magazine. It would now deal with social criticism and current problems and focus on ‘Thought Reorientation’.”

(Source: Yale Daily News no. 96 February 29 1972 | Time Reference: 18:59)

‘Thought Reorientation’, that is a very intriguing name for brainwashing or reprogramming or whatever we want to call it but, again a very tantalizing piece of the puzzle and there has been a certain amount of hay made from this.

There was a Yale in China connection to Mao and Yale of course the home of Skull and Bones, so there is the specter of Skull and Bones over this relationship, and again there has been some hay made of that connection. For example perhaps most notably in an oft-cited article from the January 26th 1990 edition of The New Federalist called ‘Bush’s China Policy – Skull and Bones’, and this article reads ,quote:

George Bush, one of the first US diplomatic representative to the People’s Republic of China back in [1974-1975] was a member of skull and bones. So were his father, brother, son, uncle, nephew and several cousins.

Back in 1903 Yale Divinity School established a number of schools and hospitals throughout China that were collectively known as ‘Yale in China’. It has since been shown that Yale In China was an intelligence network whose purpose was to destroy the Republican movement of Sun Yat-sen on behalf of the Anglo American establishment. The Anglo American establishment hated Sun because he wanted to develop China.

On the other hand they loved the Chinese Communists because they intended to keep China backward and were committed to growing dope. One of Yale In China’s most important students was Mao Tse Tung.

(Source: Bush’s China Policy: Skull And Bones | Time Reference: 21:03)

https://www.corbettreport.com/episode-297-china-and-the-new-world-order/

The first thing one must understand of todays China is its Economy was Made in USA, or at least USA Elites, under the leadership of David Rockefeller who called Maos China a successful social experiment and whose protege -Henry Kissinger-opened the door to China

David Rockefeller's own Wikipedia entry:

In Henry Kissinger, Rockefeller found a political operative with an international and domestic perspective similar to his. They first met in 1954 when Kissinger was appointed a director of the seminal Council on Foreign Relations Study Group on Nuclear Weapons, of which David was a member. The relationship developed to the point that Kissinger was invited to sit on the Board of Trustees of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Rockefeller consulted with Kissinger on numerous occasions, as for example in the Chase Bank's interest in Chile and the possibility of the election of Salvador Allende in 1970 . . . [interestingly] . . . and fully supported his "opening of China" initiative in 1971 as it afforded banking opportunities for the Chase Bank

Today China is Capitalist with Chinese Characteristics.  By Chinese Characteristics I mean the States Wealth was transferred to the Party and privatized by party members under Deng Xiao Ping, while the money losing state enterprises was socialized (like in US).

Only 6% of the population are permitted to be CCP members (or more correctly CPC) and many of Chinas many billionaires are CCP/CPC members.

How China gave up its Communism and became Capitalist, at around the same time as Gorbachev did the same in the Soviet Union is an interesting story and beyond the scope of this post,  but I don’t believe they are unrelated.   Communism was an experiment facilitated by Western Elites who financed the Bolshevik Revolution and facilitated Maos victory over Chiang Kai  Shek in the Civil War.  However, the Elites,  who also brought about Fascism in Italy and Nazi Germany after their success with neoliberal economics and public private partnerships in the 80’s decided that Fascism was a better economic model for them as it allowed for Private Ownership.  So it was time to pull the plug on the Communist Experiment.   

At least, thats my opinion.

I believe Deng Xiao Ping and Gorbachev/Yeltsin were sold on the idea . It was explained to them how neoliberal Capitalism really works and how the party elites and future oligarchs would benefit. The party elite in both the Soviet Union and China jumped on the idea.  They saw how Western Elites lived and were envious.  They wanted a piece of the action. Many of them got it.

Gorbachev went on to become an Honorary Club of Rome Member working with the Globalists for a Green New World Order.

Yeltsin being recruited in Texas-1989

It’s September 1989 and the Berlin Wall has not yet fallen. Yeltsin, who had not yet replaced Mikhail Gorbachev as leader of the Soviet Union, visits a small town in Texas and makes an unscheduled stop in a grocery store. It’s the kind of store where all Americans regularly shop to find everything they could want to satisfy a hunger or household need.

https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/402140-a-socialist-visits-a-texas-grocery-store/

Deng Xiao Ping-Texas 1979 a month before Carter stabs Tawan in back and provides China with diplomatic recognition

And this

China policy was for­mu­lated and imple­mented by a Tri­lat­er­alist troika: Jimmy Carter, Cyrus Vance and Brzezinski. And this policy was only a con­tin­u­a­tion of a policy begun under a “Repub­lican” Admin­is­tra­tion, that of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, another Trilateralist.

The heady effect that these vast policy making exer­cises have on these men, almost an infan­tile reac­tion, is well reported in the Wash­ington Post on Feb­ruary 8, 1979 with the head­line, China Policy: A Born-Again Brzezinski,describing how Brzezinski excit­edly describes his meeting with Teng [aka Deng Xiaoping]:

FEBURARY 1979 — The eyes sparkle with excite­ment even days later. The arms erupt in sudden sweeping ges­tures when he talks about it. And that causes the photos — about a dozen of them — to fly out of Zbig­niew Brzezinski’s hands and scatter over the floor of his office as he is speaking.

 “Here’s Cy… and here I am… and there is Teng right between us.… ”

 Brzezinski is talking in that quick. clipped, excited style that is his way, and he is pointing at one photo that remains in his hand while he bends to scoop up the rest, talking all the while.

 “It’s amazing, when you think of it. The leader of a bil­lion people — having dinner in my house just two hours after he arrived in this country!

 “I mean, it really is rather amazing!”

The transfer of tech­nology was a key aspect of early Tri­lat­eral policy. Admit­tedly, their stated goal of “fos­tering a New Inter­na­tional Eco­nomic Order” was not fully under­stood in 1978 – 79. How­ever, by June 2001, at least one writer for Time Mag­a­zine (con­nected with the Tri­lat­eral Com­mis­sion, by the way) got it per­fectly in Made in China: The Revenge of the Nerds:  China had been con­verted into a Tech­noc­racy! According to the author, Kaiser Kuo:

The nerds are run­ning the show in today’s China. In the twenty years since Deng Xiaoping’s [Ed. Note: count back­ward to 1978 – 79] reforms kicked in, the com­po­si­tion of the Chi­nese lead­er­ship has shifted markedly in favor of tech­nocrats. …It’s no exag­ger­a­tion to describe the cur­rent regime as a tech­noc­racy.

After the Maoist mad­ness abated and Deng Xiaoping inau­gu­rated the opening and reforms that began in late 1978, sci­en­tific and tech­nical intel­lec­tuals were among the first to be reha­bil­i­tated. Real­izing that they were the key to the Four Mod­ern­iza­tions embraced by the reformers, con­certed efforts were made to bring the “experts” back into the fold.

During the 1980s, tech­noc­racy as a con­cept was much talked about, espe­cially in the con­text of so-called “Neo-Authoritarianism” — the prin­ciple at the heart of the “Asian Devel­op­mental Model” that South Korea, Sin­ga­pore, and Taiwan had pur­sued with apparent suc­cess.

The basic beliefs and assump­tions of the tech­nocrats were laid out quite plainly: Social and eco­nomic prob­lems were akin to engi­neering prob­lems and could be under­stood, addressed, and even­tu­ally solved as such.

The open hos­tility to reli­gion that Bei­jing exhibits at times — most notably in its obses­sive drive to stamp out the “evil cult” of Falun Gong — has pre-Marxist roots. Sci­en­tism under­lies the post-Mao tech­noc­racy, and it is the ortho­doxy against which here­sies are mea­sured.

Thus, during the 1980’s Tech­noc­racy (and sci­en­tism) took deep root not only in China, but also in South Korea, Sin­ga­pore and Taiwan. Sim­ilar gains were seen in Europe during the 1990’s and in the United States since 1973.  The Tri­lat­eral Commission’s utopian “New Inter­na­tional Eco­nomic Order” is Tech­noc­racy, and China was the first modern exper­i­ment and trans­for­ma­tion. And, why not China? Dealing with a single Com­mu­nist dic­tator was a lot easier than dealing with a par­lia­ment, con­gress or senate in more demo­c­ratic nations. 

The so-called “Neo-Authoritarianism” men­tioned above is ample evi­dence that the cham­pions of Tech­noc­racy knew full-well that it would be easier to trans­form an already author­i­tarian nation into authoritarianism one; in fact, as far back as 1932, orig­inal mem­bers of Tech­noc­racy, Inc. in the U.S. called for a dic­ta­tor­ship in the U.S. in order to imple­ment Technocracy.

https://www.technocracy.news/trilateral-commission-converted-china-technocracy/

The Trilateral Commission was founded by David Rockefeller in 1973 after China was admitted to the UN to facilitate Asian, European and American Trade and Cooperation in the New World Order

1986 work by Michel Chossudovsky, Towards Capitalist Restoration where he writes:

The 1979 visit of Deng Xiaoping to the US was followed in June 1980 by the equally significant encounter in Wall Street of Rong Yiren, chairman of CITIC, and David Rockefeller. The meeting, held in the penthouse of the Chase Manhattan Bank complex, was attended by senior executives of close to 300 major US corporations. A major agreement was reached between Chase, CITIC, and the Bank of China, involving the exchange of specialists and technical personnel to "identify and define those areas of the Chinese economy most susceptible to American technology and capital infusion."

From this

https://archive.ph/1FIxo

Within months, Wang Jun, the general’s son [that's General Wang one of the Immortals] was made head of business operations at the newly formed CITIC, known then as China International Trust & Investment Corp. The group, founded by Rong Yiren, was set up to attract overseas investment at a time when the country’s foreign exchange reserves were $840 million. He turned it into a sprawling empire to drive China’s growth. CITIC now runs China’s biggest listed securities firm, backs a Beijing soccer team and develops luxury real estate projects. China’s reserves today stand at $3.3 trillion.

From this

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2005/11/chin-n29.html

Rong senior played a key role in the further opening up of the Chinese economy after the suppression of the anti-government protests in May and June of 1989. Deng Xiaoping justified the massacre of workers and students in Tiananmen Square on the grounds that it was necessary to defend the 'socialist system'. In reality, it was aimed at crushing the opposition of the working class to the impact of the regime’s free market policies.

In 1993, Rong was promoted to Vice President of China, as a symbol of Beijing’s determination to accelerate “market reform”......“The post was mainly ceremonial, but it sent a clear message: China’s new blend of communist politics and market economics was here to stay. And it was the ‘red capitalist’ who had shown the way.”

The same year, China received $111 billion of contracted foreign direct investment—nearly four times the amount that had been invested in the entire 10-year period from 1979 to 1989.

And from here

https://www.corbettreport.com/the-great-decoupling-how-the-west-is-engineering-its-own-downfall/

The Chinese industrial juggernaut did not just spring up overnight; the infrastructure for China’s economic marvel of the last decade was laid in the decade before. In the seven years from 1994 to 2001 alone, direct investment of US-based multinational corporations in China quadrupled from $2.6 billion to $10.5 billion.

In the same period, China rose from the 30th-largest target of US R&D investment to the 11th on the back of a doubling of US affiliates in the country. The list of companies that started major R&D activities or facilities in China in the 1990s reads like a 'Who’s who?' of the CFR-nested Fortune 500 set: DuPont, Ford, General Electric, General Motors, IBM, Intel, Lucent Technologies, Microsoft, Motorola, and Rohm and Haas all had a significant stake in China by the beginning of the 21st century.

A 1999 report , "U.S. Commercial Technology Transfers to the Peoples Republic of China," from The Bureau of Export Administration Office of Strategic Industry and Economic Security Defense Market Research Report:

The phenomenal economic growth witnessed in China since Deng Xiaoping first declared China's "A Open Door" policy in 1978 has led many to predict China's certain emergence as an economic superpower in the early 21st century. Indeed, China has followed a structured path toward gradual market reform of its still largely state-owned industrial sector, which has been transfused with increasing amounts of foreign capital and technology.

There have been numerous reports over the last several years, however, of US companies being "forced" to transfer technology to China in exchange for access to this enormous market. The purpose of his study is to assess the extent to which US commercial technology is being, in effect, "coerced" from US companies engaged in normal business practices and joint ventures in China in exchange for access to China’s markets. The cumulative effect these transfers may have on China’s efforts to modernize its economy as well as its industrial and military base is also examined. Finally, this study addresses the impact of US technology transfers to China on the issues of long-term US global competitiveness and broad economic and national security interests.

[. . .]

Although it is not possible to make a clear determination of the US national security implications of commercial US technology transfers to China, the continuation of the trends identified in this study could pose long-term challenges to US national security interests. This study does not identify any specific Chinese military advances made as a result of US commercial technology transfers, but does suggest that continued pressures on foreign high-tech firms to transfer advanced commercial technologies, if successful, could indirectly benefit China’s efforts to modernize its military.

To understand China one must understand the difference between Maoism and Dengism. Mao was the Father of Chinas Communism, and Deng was the Father of Chinas Capitalism

Deng once said who cares if its a White Cat (Communist) or a Black Cat (Capitalist) so long as its a Good Cat (Riches for the Party Elite)

From Socialism and Governance by Henry Wang.  My excerpts here don’t do it justice and recommend you read the whole thing if possible

https://www.amazon.com/Socialism-Governance-Comparison-Between-Chinas/dp/141201655X

Mao at heart was committed to socialism but this  was unattainable due to Chinas inadequate capitalist base.   As Marx said socialism is possible only through capitalism.

Under Maoism, the state had only a right to manage the property of the whole people, it did not have any right to own this property. Any attempt to own it on the part of any official was dealt with relentlessly as in the Cultural Revolution

The 'legitimization' of state ownership that happened under Dengist governance only opened the way to the looting of people's property , much like in Russia. State-ownership became privatization into the hands of the party elite.

Unlike Russia , Deng sought to maintain the supremacy of the Party and the illusion of socialism.  Unlike Mao,  Deng saw the proletariat as the threat to the party and not vice versa, and used the military to crush dissent and threatened to impose martial law if needed to protect the party.

The essence of  the so called ‘socialist market economy' is market economy led by the party elite with an unholy alliance between power and capital and the rapid enrichment of some chosen individuals (called oligarchs in Russia) .

China today has wealth inequality that matches the neoliberal capitalist West and neoliberal Russia under Yeltsin and Putin

Total state ownership of economy or concentrated ownership by a powerful elite minority can only be prevented by society and citizens in a truly democratic country. Only when society possesses economic and political rights in the most extensive way possible can there be true socialism. That is why true socialism means true democracy, and a true democracy may be true socialist.  China is neither.

[Note:  I don’t think there is such a thing as True Socialism. Thats a pipe dream. I believe there is such a thing as True Democracy, and this includes a mix of Socialism, Competitive Capitalism and a dash of Monopoly Capitalism where needed in proportions that benefit the General Welfare of all and not just a select group]

True statism , which more aptly describes China today means true totalitarianism, which is the enemy of socialism and democracy. Contrary to conventional belief, market economy is nearer to socialism than planned economy. Planned economy with centralized political power (statism) is antithesis of genuine socialism. This is China.

The Chinese people are told they have or are striving for real ‘Socialism'   in the same way as the people were told to believe in the emperor's 'new clothes.'  They have used the concept of 'socialism to keep their people in a state of deception.

Much like the West uses Democracy as a deception to cover the elites rule via their control of  both parties

The fact is China is not socialist , Communist  or democratic. So what is it? A more apt description is  Technocratic Fascism.  Same in the West.  Fascism is simply the synthesis of Authoritarian Communism and Monopolistic Capitalism .  Technocracy is simply the mechanism of control of people and resources by unelected Technocrats on behalf of the Ruling Corporate and Political Elites. They are the Managers.

But of course Communism  or Fascism can not be imposed on the West unless its named something else.  The Fabian socialists said as much a century ago.  So we in the West continue to call ourselves Democratic and Capitalist to disguise our true nature, much like China continues to call itself Communist on its Long March toward a Socialism that will never come.

China was the Wests Experiment to create the Worlds first Fascist Technocracy.  Here is what David Rockefeller says.

“The social experiment in China under. Chairman Mao's leadership is one of the most important and successful in human history. How extensively China opens up and how the world interprets and reacts to the social innovations and life styles she has developed is certain to have a profound impact on the future of many nations.”

David Rockefeller-1973

https://www.nytimes.com/1973/08/10/archives/from-a-china-traveler.html

It was a perfect choice in the 70’s as it was already Authoritarian and there was no pesky Constitution that protected peoples rights.   Culturally, after almost 3 generations under Mao or various War Lords during the Civil War people had little expectation of rights and individual freedom.

While China as a Social Experiment under Mao was a tremendous success, with its Cultural Revolution adopted by the Western Elites Long March on Institutions  starting in the early 1970’s , at the same time as the World Economic Forum, Trilateral Commission  , Club of Rome and Business Round Table were set up, Chinas Economy under Mao was a total disaster.  Fortunately for China David Rockefeller and his protege Henry Kissinger came to the rescue.  By getting into the UN China was able to obtain badly needed investments, loans and conclude trade agreements.

In any event the Experiment would become the Technocratic Model for the World under WEF vision of a Global Republic of Technocratic Feudal States where the Elites (Party and/or Corporate) own everythingand the workers or useless eaters become renters and own nothing while following the edicts of the unelected Corporate Party Controlled Technocrats (CPC-T)

The West provided China Most Favored Nation Status starting in 1980 despite China’s “Communism”, something they never did with Communist Cuba or the Soviet Union. This opened up the flood gates for Capital inflows and technology transfers.

China required every Western company who wished to do business in China to set up a Joint Venture with a Chinese Company which would typically be set up by and owned by CCP members for this purpose.

The Western Corporations provided the capital ($$$$), experts and technology , the Chinese side of the JV typically controlled the HR and Administrative functions that dealt with following government regulations and paying the bribes when caught violating these regulations.

The 1979 visit of Deng Xiaoping to the US was followed in June 1980 by the equally significant encounter in Wall Street of Rong Yiren, chairman of CITIC, and David Rockefeller. The meeting, held in the penthouse of the Chase Manhattan Bank complex, was attended by senior executives of close to 300 major US corporations. A major agreement was reached between Chase, CITIC, and the Bank of China, involving the exchange of specialists and technical personnel to ‘identify and define those areas of the Chinese economy most susceptible to American technology and capital infusion’.”

(Source: Towards Capitalist Restoration?: Chinese Socialism after Mao | Time Reference: 31:43)

I had been visiting China from Hong Kong starting in 1986. Mostly Shenzhen across the border from Hong Kong which was one of Dengs first regions open to the Wests Capitalism. In 1993  I made my first trip to Shanghai. A dreary place that was.

I remember walking on the Bund and staring at Pudong across the River.  Mostly a bunch of small story  grey buildings belching black smoke from the chimneys. My wife wondered how we could cross the river. I remember sarcastically saying why would we want to go to that hell hole

10 -15 years later while living in Shanghai the view was quite different.

It wasn’t the CCP /CPC that did this on its own.  Trillions of dollars flowed the West flowed to China and American manufacturers and those manufacturers from the Asian Tigers (Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore)  and Japan searching for cheaper labour (in some cases deficit slave labour) set up shop.

None of that happens without the US MFN which continued even after Tiananmen Square under Poppy Bush (who was the US first defacto Ambassador to China in 1975).  In fact, Chinas acceptance into the UN Security Council occurred while Bush was UN Ambassador.  In 2001, after China held the US spy plane/crew hostage , the US with Poppy’s Son as President voted to allow China into WTO under favorable circumstances.

After living in Taiwan and Hong Kong for many years where the people were very open in expressing their views I found the Chinese while in Shanghai to be rather hard to penetrate.  On the surface they were friendly and likable, but when discussing certain topics of a political nature or which might reflect an opinion on government handling of certain matters people were very guarded, indeed at times one sensed a palpable fear.   While technically the head of the company,  the local staff would hesitate to go against our JV partner if they felt he was opposed to one policy or another (which was quite often).

The local partner controlled HR and the employees file which would be a permanent record following them the rest of their career (called  Dang'an (檔案 ) .  A powerful means of control. As a foreigner I would most likely leave one day and leave little trace.

Even speaking to me in private would cause some to be visibly uncomfortable for fear they would be suspected of disclosing hidden secrets.  I recall many private chats in my office where staff could barely be  heard as they whispered so softly.

So a word to the wise, don’t think you can take what you have been told by Chinese on your short China trips at face value. They are unlikely to tell you anything more than the party line. They have no freedom of speech there.  Polls are equally useless.

One subject did open up the Chinese . That subject was Taiwan. Having a Taiwanese wife was of great interest to them. They were passionate on their belief that Taiwan was part of China and that Taiwanese would happily join their family if not for US interference. Taiwan, along with their belief they would achieve True Socialism was key part of their Nationalism

I must confess, I tended to avoid disclosing my true feelings on the subject except to my closest associates since it was a hot button topic. Even a hint at the fact that Taiwanese had no desire to be part of China or did not believe China had a legitimate rights to Taiwan would cause an upset.  Having dodged a few close calls I learned to choose my words wisely

I have no such need here.  Taiwan never meant much to China historically.  Most of the early immigrants were Fujian fishermen or traders who along with some aborigines made up the population. The population expanded over time with colonial and then Japanese occupation but Taiwan never was much to China given its lack of resources and mountainous terrain.   

A brief history of Taiwan might be helpful

In 1642, the Dutch East India Company on the southwest coast of Taiwan established a small colony that is known as Tainan in the present day. Some years after that, they founded a new base on the north side at Tamsui.

In 1683, the forces of Qing planned and attacked the island which surrendered and as a result, the island became part of the empire of China. Taiwan was incorporated into the empire but the migration from the mainland of China to the island was not allowed.

In 1859, the first-ever Christian missionaries arrived. Late in the year 1871, a shipwreck took place, which resulted in the invasion of Japan. The Anping in Tainan, Kaohsiung, and Keelung, and Danshui near Taipei developed into treaty ports, and citizens from Japan, Russia, and the British empire used to enjoy the privileges.

In the years 1884 to 1885, when the French were involved in a fight with China over Vietnam, French fighters involved Penghu and the Keelung islands. Due to these attacks, the supreme court in Beijing had to give appropriate consideration to Taiwan, appointing fortresses and a rail route. Likewise, Taiwan was at last moved up to a region in its own right; before 1885, it had been treated as a part of Fujian.

https://www.edrawmind.com/article/history-of-taiwan.html

Following Qing's defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895), Taiwan, its associated islands, and the Penghu archipelago were ceded to the Empire of Japan by the Treaty of Shimonoseki, along with other concessions.

Whatever you may think of the justness or lack thereof of the War, borders throughout the world have been drawn and redrawn by the outcomes of these Wars.  Unlike Hong Kong, Taiwan was not leased to the Japanese it was surrendered. Much like much of the Southwest of the US was taken from Mexico, justly of not, Mexico has lost it forever.

The Japanese did a lot to build the infrastructure of Taiwan and provide an efficient Administrative Government.  The Taiwan people were educated and many like my in-laws were fluent in Japanese.  Many Taiwanese who lived during the Japanese era (not many left) had fond memories. My father in law was sent to Burma in WWII as part of the Japanese Army

Initial air attacks and the subsequent invasion of the Philippines were launched from Taiwan. The Imperial Japanese Navy operated heavily from Taiwanese ports, and its think tank "South Strike Group" was based at the Taihoku Imperial University in Taipei. Military bases and industrial centres, such as Kaohsiung and Keelung, became targets of heavy Allied bombings, which also destroyed many of the factories, dams, and transport facilities built by the Japanese. In October 1944, the Formosa Air Battle was fought between American carriers and Japanese forces in Taiwan.

During the course of World War II, tens of thousands of Taiwanese served in the Japanese military. In 1944, Lee Teng-hui, who would become Taiwan's president later in life, volunteered for service in the Imperial Japanese Army and became a second lieutenant. His elder brother, Lee Teng-chin (李登欽), also volunteered for the Imperial Japanese Navy and died in Manila.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan

After WWII, the Japanese left. Those remaining hoped to run things themselves but soon the Chinese Nationalists under Chiang Kai Shek seeking a safe refuge from the Civil War with the Communists came over and asserted control.  Although not welcome they were well armed.   As the War was being lost their numbers multiplied and before long Taipei , Taiwan was adopted by the KMT as the temporary capital of the Republic of China until they could recover the Mainland.

The legal status of Taiwan was somewhat murky

In September 1945 following Japan's surrender in WWII, ROC forces, assisted by small American teams, prepared an amphibious lift into Taiwan to accept the surrender of the Japanese military forces there, under General Order No. 1, and take over the administration of Taiwan.

On 25 October, General Rikichi Andō, governor-general of Taiwan and commander-in-chief of all Japanese forces on the island, signed the receipt and handed it over to ROC General Chen Yi to complete the official turnover. Chen proclaimed that day to be "Taiwan Retrocession Day", but the Allies, having entrusted Taiwan and the Penghu Islands to Chinese administration and military occupation, nonetheless considered them to be under Japanese sovereignty until 1952 when the Treaty of San Francisco took effect.

In the Treaty of San Francisco and the Treaty of Taipei, which came into force respectively on 28 April 1952 and 5 August 1952, Japan formally renounced all right, claim and title to Taiwan and Penghu, and renounced all treaties signed with China before 1942. Neither treaty specified to whom sovereignty over the islands should be transferred, because the United States and the United Kingdom disagreed on whether the ROC or the PRC was the legitimate government of China.

In the 1943 Cairo Declaration, US, UK, and ROC representatives specified territories such as Formosa and the Pescadores to be restored by Japan to the Republic of China.  Its terms were later referred to in the 1945 Potsdam Declaration, whose provisions Japan agreed to carry out in its instrument of surrender.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan

The UN officially came into existence on 24 October 1945 upon ratification of the Charter by the five then-permanent members of the Security Council and by a majority of the other 46 signatories.  China (ROC) was a member of the Security Council. ROC would remain on the Security Council until 1971 when it was replaced by PRC after a General Assembly vote sanctioned by US Ambassador to UN George HW Bush

Taiwans importance to the US began in 1950 with the Korean War and the conflict with China.   

Due to the eruption of Korean war, and in the context of the Cold War, US President Harry S. Truman decided to intervene again and dispatched the United States Seventh Fleet into the Taiwan Strait to prevent hostilities between Taiwan and mainland China.

Continuing fierce combat between both sides of the Chinese Civil War through the 1950s, and intervention by the United States notably resulted in legislation such as the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty and the Formosa Resolution of 1955. By virtue of aforementioned pacts, the KMT regime received substantial foreign aid from the US between 1951 and 1965.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan

Before this the US was somewhat ambivalent to Taiwans status after the formal declaration of the PRC on October 1, 1949

Throughout the months of 1949, a series of Chinese Communist offensives led to the capture of its capital Nanjing on 23 April and the subsequent defeat of the Nationalist army on the mainland, and the Communists founded the People's Republic of China on 1 October.

On 7 December 1949, after the loss of four capitals, Chiang evacuated his Nationalist government to Taiwan and made Taipei the temporary capital of the ROC (also called the "wartime capital" by Chiang Kai-shek).

Some 2 million people, consisting mainly of soldiers, members of the ruling Kuomintang and intellectual and business elites, were evacuated from mainland China to Taiwan at that time, adding to the earlier population of approximately six million. These people came to be known in Taiwan as "waisheng ren" (外省人), residents who came to the island in the 1940s and 50s after Japan's surrender, as well as their descendants. In addition, the ROC government took to Taipei many national treasures and much of China's gold and foreign currency reserves.

There is a bit more history to go before we get to the present so unfortunately this will be rather long.

From the Soong Dynasty

Few thought Chiang would survive on Taiwan more than a year. The smell of defeat was strong. Britain had recognized Peking. It seemed only a matter of time before the United States would follow suit. The State Department notified its diplomatic posts to expect the fall of Taiwan to the Communists and said the United States would not provide Chiang with military aid or advice.

American conservatives were shocked, and counterattacked. Senator Joseph McCarthy made the first of many accusations that the State Department was full of Communists. President Truman retaliated that McCarthy and a handful of other Republican Senators, including New Hampshire’s Styles Bridges, were “the Kremlin’s greatest asset” in the Cold War.

This new China debate was driven to the edge of hysteria on June 25,1950, when North Korea invaded South Korea, and the United States plunged into one of the darker periods in its history. Fear of the witch hunt paralyzed debate. Before the first year of the Korean War was over, policy was reversed, and Washington decided to defend Taiwan.

The CIA made the Chiang regime its principal operational base in Asia, became a partner in Chennault’s airline, and the dictatorship was given precious time to find its footing and remodel its image.

The American press at the end of the 1940s was just getting accustomed to the sound of a new editorial policy — “Tell Chiang he is finished, and that the U.S. is finished with him” — when the Chiang government poured millions of dollars into a counteroffensive.

The China Lobby belonged to the Soong clan and the Nationalist Chinese government. The people involved thought they were working for the greater glory of God, or for “the survival of the democratic system.”

A large segment of the American public believed that Chiang was the essence of virtue and his cause a just one. Similar amounts were spent during the Korean War and the periodic crises over the defense of the Formosa Strait. Guesses at the grand total spent by Taiwan to stupefy Americans ran as high as $1 billion each year. Taiwan exercised a particularly strong influence on American newspapers of the far right, notably the influential Oakland Tribune, owned by Senator William F. Knowland, a dominant figure in West Coast politics and one of the most powerful Republicans in Washington. His Capitol Hill colleagues called him “the Senator from Formosa.”

Another unabashed Chiang supporter was New Hampshire’s William Loeb, far-right publisher of the Manchester Union Leader, who backed Senator Bridges in the China Lobby. Others were Roy Howard of the Scripps-Howard Newspapers, John Daly of ABC News, and, of course, Henry Luce.

Biographer Swanberg gives an assessment: Luce now saw the most grandiose project of his lifetime in danger of ruin. Wrapped up in the ruin was not only the fate of China and of Christianity and the Asian hegemony of the United States but also his own peace of mind and reputation. Chiang-in-China was to have been the crowning of a decade and a half of planning in the Chrysler Building and Rockefeller Center and of countless thousands of words of Lucepress propaganda.

The nightmare rise of Mao-in-China brought a powerful Luce counter-strategy. For one thing, his China Institute of America, founded as a haven for Chinese students, now was registered (with Luce as trustee) as a foreign agent working for the Nationalists.

Many of the activists in the lobby were people whose families had worked in China as missionaries, and now thought their heritage was being thrown away. Among them were the directors of the American China Policy Association and the Committee to Defend America by Aiding Anti-Communist China, which issued blizzards of paper urging the U.S. government to provide more aid to China. There were powerful people on the committee’s board of directors: David Dubinsky of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union and second vice-president of the American Federation of Labor; James Farley, chairman of the board of Coca-Cola Export Corporation and former Postmaster General. The American China Policy Association was headed by Alfred Kohlberg, that wealthy importer of Nationalist textiles and friend of Clare Luce.

Last but far from least was the Committee of One Million (which included Henry Luce in its membership). It was created in 1953 to keep Communist China out of the United Nations; later it was reborn as the Committee for Free China. It was still lobbying for grassroots support for Taiwan even after U.S. relations with Peking were normalized in 1979. Among its members were twenty-three senators, including Knowland, Mike Mansfield, Everett Dirksen, and Jacob Javits, plus eighty-three congressmen, a number of generals and admirals, and a plethora of tycoons.

These groups were periodically supported by campaigns waged in Chiang’s behalf by the executive council of the AFL-CIO, the American Legion, the American Security Council, the American Conservative Union, and Young Americans for Freedom. To many conservative organizations, Taiwan became synonymous with anti-Communism.

So Taiwan became a rallying point for America against Communism, especially among those on the Conservative Right

During this period a couple of organizations set up in the War on Communism that enlisted Taiwan support

The United States collaborated with Chiang Kai-shek and South Korean intelligence in founding the Asian People’s Anti-Communist League (APACL) established in South Korea in 1954. The WACL emerged in 1966, when the APACL merged with another fascist organization, the Anti-Bolshevik Block of Nations (ABN), a co-ordinating center for anti-Communist émigré political organizations from Soviet and other socialist countries.

The ABN took its current name in 1946 and claims direct descent from the Committee of Subjugated Nations, which was formed in 1943 by Hitler’s allies, including the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). The roots of the OUN/UPA may be traced to the militantly anti-Communist and nationalist Ukrainian underground founded by Colonel Eugen Konovalets in the 1920s. Although opposed to Stalinism, the group was Fascist, with strong links to the German intelligence service of Admiral Wilhelm Canaris.

The League of Nations had publicly condemned the OUN as a terrorist syndicate and Polish courts had handed down death sentences to OUN leaders Mykola Lebed (1909 – 1998) and Stepan Bandera (1909 – 1959) for their roles in the 1934 murder of Polish Interior Minister General Bronislav Pieracki, among others. Once released in 1939, after his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, Bandera organized OUN sympathizers into armed squadrons under an Abwehr program code-named Nachtigall, or Nightingale.

On 8 September 1954, SEATO, based on the NATO model, is established. This brings together Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand, the United Kingdom and the United States. On 2 December, the system was completed by a US-Taiwan bilateral defence treaty

While this is going on, the CIA, led by Allen Dulles, structures the intelligence services of these States and puts in place an organization to put anti-communist parties in the region in contact with each other. And so around Chiang Kai-Shek, the Asian People’s Anti-Communist League (APACL) is born.

In addition to the President of Taiwan (Chiang Kai-Shek), APACL’s membership included the following:

Park Chung-hee, the future President of South Korea;

Ryiochi Sasakawa, a war criminal who became a billionaire and a benefactor of the Japanese Liberal Party;

Reverend Sun Myung Moon , the prophet of the Church of Unification;

General Prapham Kulapichtir (Thailand);

President Ferdinand Marcos (Philippines);

Prince Sopasaino (Laos)

Colonel Do Dang Cong (representing President Nguyen Van Thieu, Vietnam), etc.

APACL was totally controlled by Ray S. Cline, the then CIA Chief of Station in Taiwan and the future Vice-Director of the CIA .

From 1958, the President of the Anti-Bolshevist Bloc of Nations (ABN) participated in the annual conferences of the Anti-Communist League of the Asian People held in Taipei. Cline and Stetsko supervise the establishment of the Political Warfare Cadres Academy at Taiwan.

This academy was tasked with training cadres from the Regime of Chiang Kai-Shek for anti- communist repression.

The academy was the Asian equivalent of the Psychological Warfare Centre at Fort Bragg (USA) and the Panama School of Americas . Gradually, the CIA formed a global network of political groups and instructors in counter-insurrection.

In 1967, ABN and APACL merge under the banner of the, “World Anti-Communist League (WACL)” and extended their activities across the entire “free world”.

The League experienced  its first development phase in the period 1973-1975, when Richard Nixon and his security adviser Henry Kissinger resided in the White House.

Funding was extravagantly guaranteed by the Church of Unification. However from 1975, this is no longer acknowledged. Reverend Sun Myung Moon then claimed to break ties with the League but continues to exercise his leadership through his Japanese representative Osami Kuboki.

WACL’s role in implementing the Phoenix Plan (1968-71) and the Condor Plan (1976-77), providing for the assassination of thousands of people suspected of sympathizing with communists in South East Asia and Latin America.

The Phoenix Plan was probably implemented in Vietnam by the Joint Unconventional Warfare Task Force of General Major John K. Singlaub, who went on to become President of WACL. However Singlaub has consistently denied any involvement in this operation.

On entering the White House in 1977, Jimmy Carter hoped to put an end to his predecessors’ sordid practices. He appoints Admiral Stanfield Turner to head the CIA and sets about toppling authoritarian regimes in Latin America. It is a difficult period for WACL which is no longer financed by its members.

Thus WACL becomes the den of the anti-Carter preparing for better days and spontaneously creates ties with the principal anti-Carter organization in the US: the National Coalition for Peace Through Strength. This front of rejection is an off-shoot of the American National Security Council, that President Eisenhower designated under the term “the military-industrial complex” It is co-chaired by General Daniel O’Graham (who participated with CIA Director George H. Bush in the Pipes Commission – known as Team B, re-evaluating the Soviet threat) and General John K. Singlaub

A number of officers in the League are involved in Campaign Committees for Ronald Reagan’s election. For many of them, the Republican Governor of California is not an unknown quantity. In fact, at the end of the Second World War, Reagan participated as spokesperson for the Crusade for Freedom, raising the necessary funds to settle Eastern European immigrants fleeing communism in the United States.

In actual fact, the funds were used to transfer Nazis, fascists and Ustashis into the ABN. As for Vice President George H. Bush, he is also a friend. As head of the CIA, he was the leader of Operation Condor.

The Golden Age of WACL

When Ronald Reagan and George H Bush enter the White House, WACL regains its strength and continues developing. The former contacts bear their fruit. The US industrial military complex finances the establishment of a US section of WACL called Council for World Freedom (USCWF).

General John K. Singlaub is the president and General Daniel O’Graham, the Vice President. But matters do not end there. The military industrial complex makes WACL a central tool for anti-communism repression all over the world. Singlaub is thus elected the president of WACL.

The League acts on all fronts:

In order to combat Soviet presence in Afghanistan, the American Security Council financed a thematic section of WACL: the Committee for a Free Afghanistan. Its headquarters are provided by the Heritage Foundation. The operation is launched when Margaret Thatcher and Lord Nicholas Bethell (Head of MI6) are on an official visit to the United States. The operation is led by General J. Milnor Roberts. The Committee is directly involved in providing logistical support to “freedom fighters” authorized by the CIA’s Director, William Casey and managed by Osama Bin Laden

The link between WACL and the Saudi businessman is guaranteed by two men: Sheik Ahmed Salah Jamjoon (who works with the public works giant, the Saudi Bin Laden Group), and a former Prime Minister of South Yemen.

In the Philippines, WACL is represented by President Ferdinand Marcos. But when he is ousted in 1986, John K. Singlaub and Ray Cline go to the Philippines to choose new partners. They put in place a paramilitary unit of counter-guerrillas and choose General Fidel Ramos friend of Frank Carlucci (who would go on to found the Carlyle Group) , George H. Bush and the Bin Laden family.

To fight the Sandinistas revolution in Nicaragua, WACL sets up a logistical base with Argentine trainers at John Hull’s premises in Costa Rica. It also uses facilities in Honduras offered by the Chief-of-Staff, General Gustavo Alvarez Martinez, who recruits mercenaries by using the humanitarian cover of Refugee Relief International.

In Guatemala, WACL’s man is Mario Sandoval Alarcon, leader of the National Liberation Movement. Sandoval, vice president from 1974 to 1978, is the only true master of the country; General-President Romeo Lucas Garcia is nothing but a puppet. He sets up death squads that will slay more than 13,000 victims in five years.

In Salvador, WACL relies on the safe hands of Roberto d’Aubuisson, who had been trained at the Taiwanese academy and who is the recipient of aid from the Guatemalans. D’Aubuisson becomes both the head of ANSESAL, the local equivalent of CIA, and the leader of an extreme right-wing paramilitary organization, the nationalistic Republican Party (ARENA). D’Aubuisson sets up death squads and notably murders Archbishop Oscar Romero

But the success of WACL will also be its downfall. In 1983, the Under-Secretary for Defense, Fred C. Iklé, establishes the Council for Defense of Liberty within the Pentagon. This Council is a secret committee of eight experts, that is chaired by General John K. Singlaub .

We know that the Committee decides that its secret intervention in Afghanistan would also be a model to follow in Nicaragua, Angola, Salvador, Cambodia and Vietnam but the detail of its actions is insufficiently documented.

In 1984, Ronald Reagan chooses to entrust to the League generally, and to John Singlaub particularly, all the private financing of Irangate under the direct authority of Colonel Oliver North in the National Security Council. The scandal that erupted in 1987, revealing everything and destroying the WACL.

https://www.autistici.org/poderobrero/articulos/the-world-anti-communist-league-the-internationale-of-crime

While WACL passed into oblivion in the late 80’s with the scandal and winding dawn of the Cold War with China and the Soviet Union joining the Capitalism West, no doubt the ties still remain and no doubt have some role in the New Cold War thats being organized against Russia and CCP/CPC China

Another organization is worth mentioning

COCOM

NATO established the Coordinating Committee of commerce with communist states in 1949 by informal agreement to prevent the flow of strategic goods and technologies to Soviet bloc states.

In the 1950s, CHINCOM, a similar organization regulating trade with the PRC, merged with COCOM, and Japan joined COCOM. Australia joined in October 1989. When it expired at the end of March 1994, COCOM was based in the U.S. embassy in Paris and had seventeen member states (Iceland, a NATO member, did not join).

In October 1991, the United States granted Hong Kong the intra-COCOM trading status.

At the beginning of the Reagan administration, COCOM put China in virtually the same category as the USSR even though the U.S. called China a “friendly and nonallied country.”

Relaxing COCOM restrictions with respect to China was the first task for Zhang Wenjin, who succeeded Chai Zemin as the ambassador to the U.S. On March 18, 1983, he met Secretary of State Shultz, Secretary of Defense Weinberger, and other U.S. officials to point out that any concern about transfer of technology from China to the USSR was farfetched.

Zhang indicated that China did not expect export restrictions to be dropped entirely. In October 1985, COCOM halved the number of items it must approve before export to China, and gave China a new classification, Country Group V .

In 1986 and 1987, certain items in 5 additional categories were made eligible for liberalized treatment. These changes significantly reduced the China caseload in COCOM, and sped up licensing of high-technology by the United States and other COCOM members.

In the summer of 1990, COCOM slashed its overall export control list by two thirds, making former Warsaw Pact states equal with China. In June 1992, COCOM curbed nine categories of exports to China.

So clearly Reagan and Bush opened the door to high technology transfer to China.

One interesting story connecting the Bushes to China has some parallels to Hunter Biden and his Dads China connections today

Neil Bush, a younger brother of President Bush, had a

$400,000-a-year contract to provide business advice to a Chinese computer

chip manufacturer, according to court documents.

At the same time the Bush administration was promising to crack down on alleged trade abuses by the Chinese, Neil Bush has agreed to strategize with China's Grace Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp., the documents show.

The younger Bush's relationship with Grace Semiconductor, first reported in the Houston Chronicle, is detailed in a two-page contract filed as part of divorce proceedings between Neil and Sharon Bush was finalized in April.

The China contract was not Neil Bush's first brush with controversy. In the 1980s, he was a director of Silverado Banking, Savings & Loan, a Colorado thrift whose failure cost U.S. taxpayers $1 billion. He was one of 12 defendants who agreed to pay $49 million to settle a negligence lawsuit brought by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

According to the consulting contract, Neil Bush was to receive $2 million worth of Grace Semiconductor preferred stock over five years, issued in annual increments of $400,000.

In return, Bush agreed to "provide GSMC from time to time with business strategies and policies; latest information and trends of the related industry, and other expertized advices," the contract states.

In addition, Bush was to attend meetings of Grace Semiconductor's board of directors, and the firm agreed to pay him $10,000 per meeting to cover expenses. Bush signed the contract Aug. 15, 2002.

https://web.archive.org/web/20210126050034/https://corpwatch.org/article/us-bushs-brother-has-contract-help-chinese-chip-maker

So lets get back to Taiwan.  About 20% of Taiwans population after 1949 was made up of newly arrived Mainlanders.  They took the leading positions in government and the government seized much land for corporations that were set up as government backed monopolies.  Martial Law was Declared and remained in place for almost 40 years

During the 1960s and 1970s, GDP grew about 10% (7% per capita) every year. The greater part of this development can be clarified by increments in elements of production. Investment funds rates started increasing after the stabilization of currency and reached practically 30% by 1970. In the meantime, schooling, in which 70% of Taiwanese kids had partaken under the Japanese, got widespread, and students in advanced education maximized widely.

In the 1970s, Taiwan became the second fastest growing economy in Asia after Japan.   In 1978, the combination of tax incentives and a cheap, well-trained labor force attracted investments of over $1.9 billion from overseas Chinese, the United States, and Japan, especially in the manufacturing of electrical and electronic products.

By 1980, foreign trade reached $39 billion per year and generated a surplus of $46.5 million, while the income ratio of the highest to the lowest 20 percent of wage earners dropped from 15:1 to 4:1 between 1952 and 1978, less than even that of the United States. Along with Hong Kong, Singapore, and South Korea, Taiwan became known as one of the Four Asian Tigers.

Chiang died in the year 1975. Later under the rule of Chiang's son, Ching-Kuo at the end of 1978 USA broke off its ties with Taipei in order to establish diplomatic relations with the Republic of China. After the death of Chiang Ching-Kuo in 1988 after he lifted Martial Law, Lee Teng-hui became the  president of Taiwan in 1988

Chiang Ching-kuo, Chiang Kai-shek's son and successor as the ROC president and chairman of the KMT, began reforms to the political system in the mid-1980s. He sought to move more authority to "bensheng ren" (residents of Taiwan before Japan's surrender in World War II and their descendants) instead of continuing to promote "waisheng ren" (residents who came to the island in the 1940s and 50s after Japan's surrender and their descendants) as his father had.

In 1984, the younger Chiang selected Lee Teng-hui, a Taiwan-born, US-educated technocrat, to be his vice-president. In 1986, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was formed and inaugurated as the first opposition party in the ROC to counter the KMT. A year later, Chiang Ching-kuo lifted martial law on the main island of Taiwan (martial law was lifted on Penghu in 1979, Matsu island in 1992 and Kinmen island in 1993). With the KMT lifting martial law, moving toward democracy, and choosing the native Taiwanese Lee Teng-hui to lead the country, the opposition DPP groped for a message; it would go on to lose the first direct presidential election in 1996.

1987 was clearly an inflection point where it suddenly did become possible to travel to China.

The governing Nationalist Party removed another barrier between Taiwan and China today by announcing that Taiwan residents would be allowed to visit relatives on the mainland.

A party statement said that the 38-year-old ban on travel to China would be lifted for humanitarian reasons, but that the party remains determined to recover the mainland, which it left after losing a civil war to the Communists in 1949.

Even so, easing the travel restrictions is a major shift in the Nationalists' ''three no'' policy - no contact, no negotiations and no compromise with the Communist Government.

https://www.nytimes.com/1987/10/15/world/taiwan-to-allow-travel-to-chinese-mainland.html

Prior to that, was still that the era of the Three Nos. You couldn’t mail a letter, make a direct phone call, or travel. So this happened, though, at a particularly lucky moment for Taiwan too, because this is just at the moment when made in Taiwan was coming to an end due to higher production costs (Taiwan would transition to higher end products and technology products over the next 20 years)

Taiwan’s policy on overseas travel and investment on the mainland was in response to the closing of the window of opportunity for domestic manufacturing due in part to significant appreciate of the NTD against the USD in 1987 response to pressure from the US over the growing trade imbalance

So the Taiwanese businesspeople, started moving to China and they knew that when they cross that water, they were leaving behind the legal protection that they could take for granted in Taiwan.  Because many Taiwan business owners spoke poor English China was also attractive due to a common language . They were walking into a kind of wild, wild west and many would be taken advantage of.  And they chose to do it. But what that meant was no one could really keep track of what they were doing and no one could control what they were doing.

So, one of the more interesting things to note is that among China’s top 10 sources of foreign direct investment are the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands and Panama. None of which is actually originating anything close to the amount of money that’s coming through. These were pass-throughs for Taiwanese money, they’re also pass-throughs for Hong Kong money, and they’re pass-throughs for PRC money, round-tripping.

Since travel to China was frowned on except to visit relatives (many Taiwan business people had no relatives) and would draw attention, China cooperated by not stamping Taiwan passports so there would be no evidence of their mainland visit on return to Taiwan

So what happened in 1989 after Tiananmen Square was a lot of foreign countries  backed away from China for political reasons (living in Hong Kong at the time it was a real ghost town for almost a year). And they were slow to return, in part because it wasn’t clear the direction of the Chinese economic policy for the first couple of years until 1992.

That created an opportunity for the Taiwanese businesses to fill because they were was not much competition. So, they just kept coming, and they got an even bigger foothold.

One PRC official allegedly said, “Our economy would never have recovered from the Tiananmen crisis if it were not for the Taiwan businessmen.”

Anyways, Lee continued promoting democratic principles, lifting the Period of National Mobilization for the Suppression of the Communist Rebellion in April 1991. Taiwan no longer considered itself at war with China.

In January 1991 the government created the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), a cabinet-level agency in charge of developing cross-Strait policy, along with the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), a quasi-private organization put in place to deal with the Chinese government as any official contact with China was still officially forbidden.

The Chinese government responded in kind, creating the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) in December of the same year. Everything was in place for contact to resume between the two sides after a 40-year hiatus.

While talks did in fact begin, and did result in technical agreements on issues such as the transfer of registered mail and the repatriation of Chinese illegal immigrants in Taiwan, practically no progress was made toward the betterment of relations between the two sides

Lee Teng-hui was re-elected as the KMT candidate in 1996, in the first direct presidential election in the history of the ROC, defeating DDP candidate Peng Ming-min. With democratization, the issue of the political status of Taiwan gradually resurfaced as a controversial issue where, previously, the discussion of anything other than unification under the ROC was taboo.

In 1999, ROC President Lee Teng-hui proposed a two-state theory (兩國論) in which both the Republic of China and the People's Republic of China would acknowledge that they are two separate countries with a special diplomatic, cultural and historic relationship.  This however drew an angry reaction from the PRC who believed that Lee was covertly supporting Taiwan independence.

President Chen Shui-bian (2000 – May 2008) fully supported the idea that the "Republic of China is an independent, sovereign country" but held the view that the Republic of China is Taiwan and Taiwan does not belong to the People's Republic of China. This is suggested in his Four-stage Theory of the Republic of China.

Due to the necessity of avoiding war with the PRC however, President Chen had refrained from formally declaring Taiwan's independence. Government publications have implied that Taiwan refers to the ROC, and "China" refers to the PRC.

After becoming chairman of the Democratic Progressive Party in July 2002, Chen appeared to move further than Lee's special two-state theory and in early August 2002, by putting forward the "one country on each side" concept, he stated that Taiwan may "go on its own Taiwanese road" and that "it is clear that the two sides of the straits are separate countries."

In 2016, Tsai Ing-Wen of the DPP won a landslide victory on the Presidential election, and was later re-elected for the second term in 2020. She refused to agree that Taiwan is part of China, and also rejects the One country, two systems model proposed by the PRC. Instead she said that Taiwan is already an independent country and Beijing must face this reality

Until March 16, 2018, informal relations between the two states since 1979 were governed by the U.S. Taiwan Relations Act (TRA), which allows the United States to have relations with the "people on Taiwan" and their government, whose name is not specified. U.S.–Taiwan relations were further informally grounded in the "Six Assurances" in response to the third communiqué on the establishment of US–PRC relations.

Following the passage of the Taiwan Travel Act by the U.S. Congress on March 16, 2018, relations between the United States and Taiwan have since maneuvered to an official and high-level basis.

Both sides have since signed a consular agreement formalizing their existent consular relations on September 13, 2019.

The United States removed self-imposed restrictions on executive branch contacts with Taiwan on January 9, 2021.

For many decades there was a divide between the Taiwanese (those who were on Taiwan during Japanese Rule) and the Mainlanders (those Mainlanders who came over after WWII) . Time has pretty much eliminated these divisions among the young people. During my first visit in the early 80’s when it was still noticeable. I rarely see any trace today.

There is still a KMT party, but they seem to have lost their way or been pushed away and seem to have lost the support of the people, especially the younger people.  The ruling party is the DPP, which is known as the pro-independence party, but they were always were careful to toe the line .  Recently the US seems to have enticed the government to move the line closer to Chinas Red Line

I dont get involved in politics here which is probably why I never paid attention to what some call the Sun Flower Revolution in 2014.  This was the same year as the Umbrella Revolution in Hong Kong and the Maidan Coup in Ukraine.

Taiwans Sunflower Revolution-2014

The Sunflower Student Movement is associated with a protest movement driven by a coalition of students and civic groups that came to a head between March 18 and April 10, 2014, in the Legislative Yuan and, later, also the Executive Yuan of Taiwan. The activists protested the passing of the Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement (CSSTA) by the then ruling party Kuomintang (KMT) at the legislature without clause-by-clause review.

The Sunflower protesters perceived the trade pact with the People's Republic of China (China; PRC) would hurt Taiwan's economy and leave it vulnerable to political pressure from Beijing, while advocates of the treaty argued that increased Chinese investment would provide a necessary boost to Taiwan's economy, that the still-unspecified details of the treaty's implementation could be worked out favorably for Taiwan, and that to "pull out" of the treaty by not ratifying it would damage Taiwan's international credibility.

The protesters initially demanded the clause-by-clause review of the agreement be reinstated,  later changing their demands toward the rejection of the trade pact, the passing of legislation allowing close monitoring of future agreements with China, and citizen conferences discussing constitutional amendment.

While the Kuomintang was open to a line-by-line review at a second reading of the agreement, the party rejected the possibility that the pact be returned for a committee review.

The KMT backed down later, saying that a joint review committee could be formed if the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) agreed to participate in the proceedings. This offer was rejected by the DPP, who asked for a review committee on all cross-strait pacts, citing "mainstream public opinion." In turn, the DPP proposal was turned down by the KMT.

The movement marked the first time that the Legislative Yuan had been occupied by citizens.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunflower_Student_Movement

When the Sunflower students, much to their own surprise, found themselves inside the Legislative Yuan on March 18, 2014, and logged onto social media, their message was received as an S.O.S. by a network of NGOs and foundations run by an older generation of activists who arrived on the scene within minutes and served as political advisors and problem solvers throughout the siege.

Yet what gave the protest its legitimacy were the hundreds of thousands of citizens who descended on Taipei last spring to support the students and to register their collective angst over Taiwan’s expanding economic and political links with China.

So where are the people one year later? “The energy unleashed by the Sunflower Movement was absorbed into the November local elections and resulted in a landslide victory for the Democratic Progressive Party,” said Wu.

Taiwan’s Elections-2015

The elections, held on November 29, put up for grabs 11,130 public offices spanning nine administrative levels from the county to the villages — hence their nickname, the Nine-in-One.

The ruling Kuomintang, or KMT, lost ground even in its some of its traditional strongholds. The opposition DPP won 10 out of 16 mayoral and commissioner races. And, most surprising of all, a political outsider, a medical doctor, Ko Wen-je, became the first independent candidate to win the office of Taipei mayor, which is often a springboard for a later run for the island’s presidency.

Taiwan newspapers declared it a rout, and it was perceived as such in Washington and at U.S. private think tanks.

Clearly, Taiwan’s domestic politics underwent a sea change post-Sunflower. The DPP’s Tsai Ing-wen, who declared her candidacy on February 15 for the upcoming 2016 presidential election, is widely viewed as frontrunner, even though the KMT has yet to declare its candidate for the contest.

Ma’s rapprochement with China is on hold as well, knocked off course by two or three years. The cross-strait trade agreement remains in limbo, post-Sunflower.

When he was elected in 2008, Ma said his plan of engagement with China targeted “economics first, politics later” and “easy tasks first, difficult ones later.” During his first term, he quickly plucked the low-hanging economic fruit. When re-elected in 2012, Ma was expected to pivot toward political objectives, and it seemed highly likely that Ma and a Chinese president, then Hu Jintao and now Xi Jinping, would meet at a third-country venue before his second term ended. Now, with Ma a lame duck, the chance of such a career-capping Taiwan-China summit is remote.

https://fpif.org/taiwans-sunflower-revolution-one-year-later/

Formosa Association for Public Affairs (FAPA)。Formosa Association for Public Affaires is tight connection with USAID. And they invited leaders of Taiwan Sunflower Movement just after the end of occupation of the parliament on April 9 and 10th., 2014. Moreover, they had several meetings with NED at Washington.

KMT then lost the 2016 Presidential to pro-independent DPP Candidate Tsai Ing-Wen.

Since then license to a TV station with a pro-China bias has been revoked sending a message to all.

A pro-China TV station will be taken off air after Taiwan’s media regulator found it had failed to address serious and frequent findings of bias and disinformation.

The national communications commission (NCC) announced it had unanimously decided not to renew the broadcast licence for Chung T’ien Television (CTi), which it said had a “self-discipline problem”.

The commission’s chairman, Chen Yaw-shyang, said the panel found CTi had failed to implement internal controls despite NCC requests to do so after repeated violations. He said CTi was the subject of about 30% of complaints received by the NCC from the public.

Chen also said CTi’s biggest shareholder had directly interfered in CTI’s newsdesk – a reference to the Beijing-friendly tycoon Tsai Eng-meng, who runs CTi’s parent company Want Want China Holdings. The Guardian has attempted to contact Tsai.

CTi has said it will challenge the decision and accused the Taiwanese government of shutting down the station for political purposes. “Today is the darkest day for freedom of the press and freedom of speech in the 30 years since Taiwan’s liberation,” it said.

The unprecedented NCC panel hearing was convened in October to examine the station’s request to renew its licence, due to expire on 11 December.

CTi has been accused of acting as a mouthpiece for Beijing and lobbying against the Democratic Progressive party (DPP) government, led by Tsai Ing-wen, and in favour of the opposition Kuomintang (KMT), seen to have more favourable relations with the mainland government.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/18/pro-china-tv-station-in-taiwan-ordered-off-air-over-disinformation

In 2019 In Taiwan, an "online army," also known as "1450" was established and allegedly comes from government’s allocated NT$14.5 million to employ a small number of editors to "correct" information on the internet.

The practice was accused of taking taxpayers' money to support the online army to clarify information deemed unfavorable to the DPP. From then on, "1450" became the code name of the DPP's "online army," media reported. Some people questioned whether any news that was not conducive to the DPP authorities would be classified as "false news."

[In 2020] Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Article 14 of the COVID-19 Act penalizes the dissemination of rumors or false information regarding COVID-19, either on the internet or by word of mouth. Punishment for violating this provision is a fine of up to $100,000.

https://www.theregreview.org/2020/06/11/huang-soft-regulation-hard-compliance-taiwan/

I might say more on Taiwans Technocracy and what appears to be an erosion of its Democracy with its handling of COVID over the last 18 months in a separate post .

And of course as relations with the US under Trump improved tensions between China and Taiwan are escalating, and may indeed soon come to a head with Pelosis provocative trip meant to poke the China Bear

7-25-22

Taiwan kicked off its largest annual military exercises Monday, with trench warfare and shoulder-launched Stinger missiles deployed against simulated Chinese attacks in drills informed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

https://www.ibtimes.com/taiwan-stages-chinese-invasion-war-games-ukraine-mind-3585350

China state sources are reporting that - in a moment perhaps intent on humiliating the US administration - Xi warned Biden "those who play with fire will get burned."

In the face of Xi's firm words on the Taiwan issue, Biden affirmed that the United States does not back Taiwan independence. 

Not only did Xi again lay down China's 'red lines' on Taiwan, but the Chinese leader stressed Beijing vehemently opposes the "intervention of other powers," according to quotes in China state media.

The warning comes just hours after the USS Ronald Reagan nuclear-powered 'super carrier' has entered waters of the South China Sea, triggering PLA snap military drills in the area in response. After multiple US Navy sail-throughs of both the Taiwan Strait and near the Paracel islands this summer, Beijing has ramped up its rhetoric threatening a "forceful response" - particularly if House Speaker Nancy Pelosi follows through with her trip to Taipei next month.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/xi-warns-biden-those-who-play-fire-will-get-burned-over-2-hour-call

The below article strikes me as pure psyop theater with Pelosi being set up as the patsy to be blamed for triggering a War rather than the President and Military.  Make no mistake about it, War with China would mean living standards in the US would drop below that of the Great Depression and be the end of whats left of Democracy, which is exactly what the WEF Agenda of Net Carbon Zero and a Great Reset want

President Joe Biden, speaking to reporters, stated that "the military thinks it's not a good idea right now" for Pelosi to travel to Taiwan. 

It should be noted that the President is not the normal conduit of information between US military leadership and the Speaker of the House (who is second in the line of succession for the presidency and, as such, is kept well briefed.) Indeed, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff himself, General Mark Milley, was among the senior military officials who were briefing Pelosi on issues like China, Taiwan question, and the potential ramifications of a visit by what would be the highest-ranking US delegation ever to the island of 24 million people that stands at the center of US-Chinese tensions today. The fact that Joe Biden felt compelled to echo what the military had already told Pelosi underscores the reality that the Speaker of the House appears to be bound and determined to make the trip, regardless of the consequences. 

The military's job is the defense of the nation. To the extent that senior military leadership interfaces with the civilian leaders of the United States, it is for the purpose of providing professional advice on military matters. The military does not make policy, but rather implements it. However, as the ones who will be called upon to undertake the heavy lifting for any task set forth by their civilian masters, it is the responsibility of senior military officers, especially those who have been selected to serve as a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to apprise those who make policy of the military consequences of that policy. It is clear from the stance taken by President Biden in echoing the warnings that had been provided by General Milley and others to Pelosi that the senior leadership of the US military believed that a Pelosi visit to Taiwan would trigger a Chinese response which the armed forces of the United States would not be in position to contain and/or defeat.

In short, Pelosi's planned trip to Taiwan would trigger a military clash with China that the US could not, at this point in time, win.

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202207/1271397.shtml

As for those of us on Taiwan, I prefer not to think about it but it would be horrendous

Conclusion:

What I will say about the Taiwan people today IMO is that hardly anyone considers they are part of China nor do they want reunification. They identify as Taiwanese of Chinese descent. Much like an American of Irish or Italian or Russian descent.  I don’t know a single Irish American who wants America to become part of Ireland. Same on Taiwan

Taiwanese here know they are already independent. They are a sovereign country. Even if the rest of the world wont recognize it for fear of antagonizing China it does not change the fact.  Frankly, not being able to join WHO or the UN is probably the best thing that ever happened to Taiwan although there are many bureaucrats/technocrats who wish otherwise

China for its part realizes Taiwan has little value asides from its people, economy, semiconductors and the treasure the KMT brought over from the Mainland and is housed in and around the National Palace Museum.  There may even be a pile of Japanese Gold in some Mountain Caves although I cant verify this beyond my memory of a story printed in a local newspaper 15-20 years ago showing piles of gold bullion in one cave

From the Soong Dynasty

Chiang set his most trusted men to systematically emptying China’s banks, her arsenals, and her museums. Across the countryside there were scenes reminiscent of the last frenzied days in Nazi Germany when stolen Rembrandts were being spirited away to private vaults for recovery at a more suitable time. Years earlier, at the suggestion of Curio Chang, long-range plans had been put into action for the “evacuation” of the Palace Museum treasures collected by Ch’ien Lung, the fourth Emperor of the Manchu Dynasty. His reign, from 1735-96, had been a golden age of the arts. Frugal personally, but anxious to display his fine taste, the Emperor furnished his residences with a magnificent collection of art master-works that later formed the nucleus of China’s national museum.

It was this collection that long had been coveted by Curio Chang and his art world friends. The Generalissimo regarded these treasures as his dynastic heritage. In the early 1930s, he had them moved from Peking to Nanking. As the Japanese advanced, Chiang’s agents hauled the art works around the country in thousands of crates, “to keep them away from the Japanese” or (alternatively) “the Communists.”

Nearly a quarter of a million paintings, porcelains, jades, and bronzes ultimately were spirited away to Taipei before the conclusion of the Battle of Huai-hai.

There are no significant resources to speak of and Taiwan is heavily reliant on imports. Its basically a beautiful green rock in the sea and its Mountainous Terrain makes an invasion by sea a very tough task.  There is a reason the US did not invade during WWII. Its too tough.  Casualties would have been enormous.

Should China choose to invade, rest assured, everything of value would be lost or inaccessible to them afterwards. Gold, Art, Chips, Economy.  Due to low birth rates that are even lower of late, the population is quite old.  Without a viable economy the people would become Chinas burden, not to mention the cost of rebuilding should they choose to do so.

I suspect China prefers the status quo. Letting Taiwan be independent but diplomatically isolated, yet kept as a goal for its people to strive for, united under the PRC Flag against the US Hegemony thats is keeping Taiwan from Reunification.  Thats their myth and who knows, after a couple of generations and if  Western Nations continue with their Controlled Demolition of their Economy and Democracy, Taiwan people might  desire closer relations with China.

As an American I say let Taiwan decide their own fate. We should stay out of Taiwans business unless China uses force, and we should not be provoking China or pressuring Taiwan to do so and risk turning Taiwan into Ukraine

Like Russia,  China has its Red Lines.  A formal declaration of Independence, or an overt show of defacto Independence would most likely cause the CCP/CPC a problem among its citizens and its military who have both bought into the myth that Taiwan and its people are an  indispensable part of China .  This might very well lead them to lash out at Taiwan even if it destroys its value to China and harms its own economy and people

Of course, China has its own problems at home that a War might solve

Now, faced with a continued “zero-COVID” future, China’s rich are plotting their escape. Around 10,000 high-net-worth individuals (HNWI) in China are seeking to leave their country this year and could take $48 billion in wealth with them, according to a new wealth migration report by Henley and Partners, an investment migration consultancy. Hong Kong’s numbers also rank high. The special autonomous region of China—which has pursued a similarly strict “dynamic-zero” COVID policy under Beijing’s watchful eye—is home to around 3,000 HNWI who are planning to leave this year, worth $12 billion

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/june-shanghai-billionaire-set-social-110000784.html?

The US and Western Elites no doubt see War with Russia and China as a way to bring on the Fourth Industrial Revolution. They will no doubt fight to the last Ukrainian and Taiwanese with their Air Craft Carriers safely tucked away far from any threat of being sunk by Chinese “carrier-killer” missiles

War allows them to funnel more money into the Military Industrial Complex and National Security State, reduce freedoms and rights at home, introduce austerity measures and reduce consumption with lower living standards, inflation and supply disruptions, reduce populations.

Maybe there are some Russian and Chinese Elites who are in on this too.

Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) always used to be a pretty good reason for large nuclear powers to avoid military confrontations.  I don’t know whats changed.  Perhaps a secret deal not to use them?

Or maybe this coming War with Russia and China will be straight out of 1984. A Perpetual War  to depopulate the proles and keep everyone else in line with terror and hate while reducing consumption . I can’t say for sure but its making more sense to me than the Elites risking their wealth and lives for Ukraine or Taiwan with a real War that risks nuclear annihilation

Now I will End this beast of a post for anyone who made it this far.