Taiwan likes the status quo. Sure, no country in the world that wields any significant power, and some that don’t refuse to recognize it as a separate nation. But for all intents and purposes, it is one – the only thing it lacks is the international political weight it would normally have. However, for whatever personal reason they have, it seems that the majority of dislike the idea either independence or rejoining the mainland as a country. The most vocal elements of course tend to lean one way or another, but neither have enough general support to do anything that will set Taiwan down one course or the other.
But if Taiwan wants to choose independence or choose rejoining the mainland, it needs to do so within the next few decades. This is serious deal, lots of shit hitting the fan action, but if not, the decision will be made for it by other countries (AKA China and its allies or US and its allies), not necessarily in the best wishes of the citizens of the island. Here’s why I think this.
The Chinese government has already decided that it is not allowing any acceptance of Taiwan as an independent entity. China has enough weight, politically, economically, and otherwise, to ensure that no other country that China deals with on a global scale wishes to upset it for the sake of a much smaller “country.”
Ironically, China itself was never able to back out of this declaration after making it, because of its own government’s precarious position. (Instead, they’ve strengthened their resolve to stick to it over the last few years.) It’s still doing a pretty good job of nailing things straight whenever they decide to come up, but think about it; it’s a communist government in a country that is gradually becoming more and more capitalist, as well as more and more unstable on a political level. They don’t want to trigger something that makes everything fall apart, especially over this issue.
The only reason they haven’t done it yet is because the US has complete sea and air power in the region, and the PLA can’t exactly swim to Taiwan. Sure, China can theoretically act on Taiwan using long range weapons – bombs or such – but what does that create? An entire island aligned against reunification. An entire world watching as Chinese missiles kill Taiwanese nonbelligerents. And worst of all (for the Communist Party) a reason for the Western world to step behind Taiwan’s separation. Taiwan won’t be the target of a long-range attack without troops landing on its shores, and US dominance in the Pacific will deter that for a while.
But given that China does not implode and collapse over the next century, it will begin pushing the US away from the South Pacific (or basically, anywhere not near Japan) over the next few decades, replacing it as the regional watchdog. This has no happened yet due to the fact that China has no modern navy (or a blue-water navy for that matter) and no modern airforce, and therefore poses no direct challenge to the US’s carrier fleets. However, the gap between these two militaries will eventually diminish sometime over several decades, just like all the other gaps between China and the US, and I think a direct challenge to US fleets near Taiwan will more and more likely end with the US backing off.
Even then, the US will respond to an invasion of Taiwan, no matter what; not only does “losing” Taiwan a huge strategic loss, but the opportunity to create an ally a hundred miles off of the US’s main power rival in the coming century is probably an opportunity they would hate to lose, given the above scenario. A vicious week-long battle over Taiwan would result in China taking Taiwan back into the fold, or Taiwan declaring true independence as an US ally… because if they want to be under the protective sphere of US interests, there’s not much else to do.
The opinions of the Taiwanese themselves matters little with either result. So the Taiwanese need to decide in the next few decades to solidify under one banner or another, because without their full support for either one, there’s eventually only going to be one banner left to pick, and it’s going to be stained with blood.
