620 { China’s Quest
The PRC was the successor state to the Republic of China and, as such and
under generally accepted principles of international law, succeeded to the ter-
ritory of the previous state. The whole issue of relations between Taiwan and
the mainland of China, between the “Taiwan authorities” and China’s legit-
imate government in Beijing, the PRC, was an internal affair of China. No
foreign government had standing to intervene in, or even opine about, those
relations. To do so constituted interference in the internal affairs of China.
Part of the sovereign powers of a state over its recognized territory is the right
to use military force to uphold its territorial and administrative integrity. It
followed that the use or nonuse of PRC military force against Taiwan was part
of China’s sovereign authority, which Beijing would not bargain away. The
incorporation of Taiwan into the state system of the PRC was, from the CCP
perspective, the last remaining act of China’s national liberation. Taiwan had
been stolen from China by Japanese imperialism during China’s century of
weakness. But that weakness was now at an end. China was strong, and it was
time for Taiwan to return to the Chinese motherland.
Continuing with the PRC view, since normalization with the United States
on January 1, 1979, and out of a desire to build a cooperative relation with
the United States, China had promulgated a “fundamental policy” of striving
for peaceful unification of Taiwan and the “motherland.” It reiterated this
“fundamental policy” in the August 1982 arms sales communiqué. China had
advanced the one country, two systems framework to make possible peaceful
unification. The framework was applied first to Hong Kong, but was intended
for use with Taiwan as well. Beijing’s generous and lenient approach (as Beijing
saw it) in arranging the reversion of Hong Kong was partially inspired by a
calculation that such an approach would encourage Taiwan to embrace that
approach. Under the framework, Taiwan would become a special autonomous
region of the PRC, with foreign affairs and defense being the responsibility of
Beijing, but with Taiwan enjoying a high degree of autonomy over internal
affairs and international economic relations. From Beijing’s perspective,
the one country, two systems proposal was eminently fair and reasonable.
Beijing was prepared to be very generous in accepting Taiwanese autonomy
under nominal PRC sovereignty, and Taipei should enter into negotiations
with Beijing to iron out these matters. The rub was that few people in Taiwan
wanted to be subordinated to Beijing’s authority and control.
A fundamental civilizational difference underlay discrepant mainland
Chinese, Taiwanese Chinese, and American views regarding the nature of
political authority. For Americans, legitimate government authority derives
from the consent of the governed, that is, from the consent of those subject to
that political power. This is a core American belief rooted in the very forma-
tion of the American republic. This means that the people of Taiwan should
have a decisive say in whether they are ruled by the CCP government of the
PRC. Anything less is literally unjust, from the American perspective. A very