Post-Russia Invasion of Ukraine The world is slowly marching towards years full of conflicts. One of the most problematic conflicts which can speed up the process of instability is China's aspiration of annexing and assimilating Taiwan to the mainland again, as Mao has longed for. Xi Jinping and the leaders before him never shied away from making official statements from time to time making it evident that China intends to take back Taiwan, either by force or via the choice of the Taiwanese government and people. Despite having a technologically cutting-edge military and some of the best weapon platforms in the world, China is in a decision-making deadlock of employing those to achieve a territory which has been under The USA security pact, and to make things more complicated for the PRC is a rise of Taiwanese identity driven out of democratization over the years. This article will delve into the non-military intricacies within ROC which have held China out from employing brute force to seize a democratic island in the east of its coast. This article assumes that both the PRC and the ROC are militarily advanced and partway equivalent (taking in the account of the USA's staunch backing to the ROC in the event of war)
Domestic politics of the island
Taiwanese politics is dominated by two pole-apart ideologies. One still aspires to get back to the mainland and debate the legality with the PRC counterpart on who is the real "China". The other ideology doesn't want to get back to the mainland or doesn't assert to be real China but expects to be recognized as "Taiwan", an independent state of Taiwanese people. The former is KMT, the Party of Chiang Kai Shek, and the latter is DPP, which came into existence after the end of martial law. 1992 consensus on the "One China" principle dictated the cross-strait relation for the coming decade and a half until a full-fledged DPP-led government formed in Taipei in 2016. Over the years, The popularity of KMT has gone down immensely. The credit for this waning popularity goes to the rise of Taiwanese identity, booming economy, new southbound policy, a purpose of independence, and frequent arm-twisting from the PRC in trade, airspace, Stealing cultural identity and influencing politics (domestically and internationally).
Learning from the classical cases of colonization, China desires to not just capture the physical territory of Taiwan but also capture the hearts and minds of the islanders in its favor as an element of soft assimilation to set grounds for China to arrive. Taking on the territory through swift and persistent military operations in and around the strait is questionable whereas what is not debatable is the Taiwanese approval for the PRC post the reunification. In 2023, as per the survey of National Chengchi University, 61.7% of the islanders consider themselves as purely Taiwanese whereas only 2.4% consider themselves as Chinese. The contrast between these two is a clear manifestation of the political will of the nation as well as the evolution of a Strong Taiwanese identity over the old Chinese identity. 2024 Taiwan's General election is fought on the agenda of the "future of Taiwan as a nation", the results of which are highly disappointing for the PRC as the DPP came into power consecutively for the 3rd time. It's now apparent that KMT outlived their times and no sign of them coming into the leadership is perceptible hence making it more tricky for China because now they have lost an assertive agent for reunification on the island to a party, DPP, which aspires for independence from the whole "one China" debate.
Despite Xi Jinping's fervent pursuit of the "by 2027" goal, the potential costs of attempting to take Taiwan by force would likely outweigh any perceived benefits. The deepening economic interdependence between mainland China and Taiwan has created a mutual reliance, where disruption to one economy could have detrimental effects on the other. However, the Chinese government's commitment to the reunification of Taiwan has elevated it to a matter of prestige and legitimacy, leaving little room for diplomatic resolution. As such, the path to resolving the Taiwan issue remains fraught with challenges and complexities, with both sides balancing strategic objectives against the realities of interdependence.
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