🔗 China's One China Policy

🔗 International relations 🔗 China 🔗 East Asia 🔗 Politics 🔗 Taiwan

The "One-China policy" is a policy asserting that there is only one sovereign state under the name China, as opposed to the idea that there are two states, the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (ROC), whose official names incorporate "China". Many states follow a one China policy, but the meanings are not the same. The PRC exclusively uses the term "One China Principle" in its official communications.

The One China concept is also different from the "One China principle", which is the principle that insists both Taiwan and mainland China are inalienable parts of a single "China". A modified form of the "One China" principle known as the "1992 Consensus" is the current policy of the PRC government. Under this "consensus", both governments "agree" that there is only one sovereign state encompassing both mainland China and Taiwan, but disagree about which of the two governments is the legitimate government of this state. An analogous situation existed with West and East Germany in 1950–1970, North and South Korea, and more recently, the Syrian government and Syrian opposition.

The One-China principle faces opposition from supporters of the Taiwan independence movement, which pushes to establish the "Republic of Taiwan" and cultivate a separate identity apart from China called "Taiwanization". Taiwanization's influence on the government of the ROC implies the change of self-identity among Taiwan citizens: after the Communist Party of China expelled the ROC in the Chinese Civil War from most of Chinese territory in 1949 and founded the PRC, the ROC's Chinese Nationalist government, which still held Taiwan, continued to claim legitimacy as the government of all of China. Under former President Lee Teng-hui, additional articles were appended to the ROC constitution in 1991 so that it applied effectively only to the Taiwan Area prior to national unification. However, former ROC president Ma Ying-jeou re-asserted claims on mainland China as late as 2008.