Historically, Taiwan was under the control of China. The Qing Dynasty ruled Taiwan during the 17th century, when it was regarded as a part of China. However, the territory came under the control of Japan after the Sino-Japanese War, when China lost the war in 1895. China again acceded to Taiwan’s territory in 1945 when Japan lost the Second World War.
A civil war erupted between the Nationalist Government and the Communist Party in mainland China. The communist party won in 1949 and took control of Beijing. After that, the nationalist party fled to Taiwan and ruled there for several decades. The communist party was led by Mao Zedong, and the nationalist party by Chiang Kai-shek. According to history, China points out that Taiwan was part of its territory, but the Taiwanese argue the same point of view that Taiwan was never part of it.
Strategic Location of Taiwan
However, the root cause of the conflict is the strategic location of Taiwan. Taiwan is located in the southeast of China. It is an Island and considers itself a sovereign country. Approximately 13 countries accepted Taiwan as a Sovereign country. The remaining countries did not accept it as a sovereign country because of its diplomatic and economic bond with China. Taiwan Island has its essential in the economic Market.
Taiwan has many industries that are imminent in the world, especially the computer chips industries. Computer chip industries dominate the global Economic Market, which equals half of the Global Market Production and Revenue. Because these Taiwanese computer chips power so much of the world’s electronic devices, including computers, watches, and video games, it dominates. One of the main reasons for the conflict is that China wants to take over the Taiwanese industries.
As we have already discussed, its strategic location, It mainly located near some crucial regions of the USA. China is emerging as an economic power and wants to become a superpower. But the existing superpower, the USA, wants to regulate its dominance and status over the world.
In such a case the strategic location of Taiwan could create tensions for the USA. That’s why the USA wants Taiwan must remain a sovereign country. However, the USA himself did not recognize Taiwan as a Sovereign territory. America also has good diplomatic relations with China. But if tensions arose between China and Taiwan, the USA would provide military and Ammunition assistance to Taiwan for defense. American president Joe Biden expressed his views regarding this in his press conference in 2021.
This would be better for the whole world if this issue could be resolved through peaceful negotiations. Otherwise, this conflict could cause many economic challenges for the whole world.
The Author is a student at the School of Politics and International Relations, Quaid i Azam University, Islamabad.
