NOTE: This will be an ongoing post, as I hope it will really become a sort of primer on the claims China uses to assert its accession of Taiwan

I should not be writing this. I've got tons of work to do, but I've spent the last week buried in articles from a French luxury magazine -- mesmerized by a world I don't really want, but can't help to fascinated by.

Did you know really rich people don't shop at IKEA? Who'da thunk?

I'm treating myself to a little Taiwan fix and addressing a question I've had for a while now: completely irrespective of whether Taiwan deserves to be a completely sovereign nation -- and by all arguments I've read is a de facto sovereign nation -- what claim does China actually have over Taiwan?

As I mentioned, right now, I'm not concerned with the evidence that -- most would say overwhelming -- supports Taiwan's assertions of its own sovereignty: a democratically elected government, its own currency, a distinct national identity, a stable population, etc. I'm only concerned, here, in learning what entitlement China says it holds over the island.

The most obvious starting point is the oft repeated belief -- see stipulations below -- that Taiwan was a part of China dating back to the Qing Dynasty. It was under the Qing, if I remember correctly, that Taiwan officially became a part of (what was at the time) China.

The stipulations, though, are that (1) the Qing was not exactly a Chinese imperial body, being made up of invading Manchus who overthrew the previous Chinese government, and (2) the Qing never controlled the whole of Taiwan.* Moreover, some would also cite the general regard of the Qing towards Taiwan as one of ambivalence, seeing as they claimed the territory, but they didn't seem to want it for any other reason than to keep Japanese pirates from using it as a base. Qing officials on the island did not stay long, and didn't seem to want to, rotating out every three years, I believe.

Yet, for the KMT and the PRC -- though neither of the two recognize, to my knowledge, the Qing as a legitimate government -- its limited control over the island seems to be fundamental. The gist is that Taiwan was a part of the Qing Dynasty, and though they were a bunch of lousy foreigners, we -- the KMT or the PRC --are the successors to that empire, and, thus, the inheritors of their land.

So far, in my searches, I've repeatedly come up against the assertion that one of Taiwan's biggest hindrances when it comes to claiming its own sovereignty is the fact that the KMT, to this day, still claims to be the rightful representative of China (including Mongolia). While I find this hard to believe -- seeing as Lee Tung-hui renounced these territorial claims in 1991 along with accepting that the KMT was not going back to China and ending the tenure of all those legislators who had been elected on "the Mainland" decades before. I've been told that Lee's comments don't amount to an official end to the KMT's claims, though, seeing as they were just mentioned in a speech at Cornell.**

It might help to look to the Republic of China's Constitution, which has yet to be reformed (an issue that is, as I understand, very important to Frank Hsieh, be he elected president). From 阿午, talking about Ma's recent "Taiwan is the ROC" statement:

The presidential office asked the best question: Ma should state clearly if he believes the ROC's territory includes mainland China. Because the KMT has such problems answering questions like that, I believe they still can't convince people on the identity issue.

Even if Taiwan still claimed to be the sole legitimate representative of China, would it matter?

Although some might argue that the problem is that the "Republic of China" claims to be the sole representative of China, the UN had no trouble seating both East and West Germany, each of which claimed to be the legit government of Germany. The real problem is China threats. Taiwan should not complain too much: the island would probably lose a vote in the General Assembly. And that would be a terrible propaganda blow. Taiwan needs to finesse this so it never comes to a vote.

This is important because, by transfer, when the world changed its diplomatic recognition from the KMT to the PRC (NOTE: not from "Taiwan" to the PRC, because Taiwan at the time was a one-party state under the authoritarian KMT) the PRC by proxy is now the bona fide sovereign of all of China, including Taiwan.

Thus, when the grassroots democratic movement -- intimately, and almost by default, tied to a movement for independence -- starts in Taiwan, despite the fact that the KMT was vehemently opposed to it, it is seen by China as a threat to its territory. In reality, though, this was a group who was being oppressed by the government that was claiming China (and, I might add, for its corruption and mishandling, lost support from the outside world, and gave the PRC a foothold). To simplify, the movement for Taiwanese independence has less to do, it appears to me, with actually throwing off the shackles of the PRC, than of righting the wrongs that have been realized by the KMT, which was, let's face it, an outside regime tyrannizing a people that were not a part of their crusade.

I know this a confusing article. It might be hard to follow, but the truth is that it's because trying to learn all of the ins and outs of this ordeal is like trying to build a sandcastle in a hurricane. You always end up where you started.

The more I read, though, I'm constantly surprised at how tenuous Chinese claims over Taiwan seem to be.

Finally, though, I'm always asking myself, do China's claims over Taiwan mean jack-squat if the people of Taiwan themselves, decide and vote democratically to officially their independence.

*Some would say that the Australian government today still doesn't actually have control over all of Australia, but nobody would ever venture that the Australian government is not the rightful sovereign of Australia as a result.

** I would really like more information about whether the KMT still claims to be the sole, rightful representative of China.