Taiwan

Taiwan is an island of twenty-three million people, a hundred and sixty kilometres off the Chinese coast, that has been governed separately from the mainland since 1949. The People's Republic of China holds that it is a Chinese province awaiting reunification, by agreement if possible and by force if necessary. Taiwan's government holds that it is already a sovereign state, under the name Republic of China, and that only its own people can decide its future. The United States arms Taiwan, recognises Beijing, and declines to say what it would do in a war. Taiwan makes most of the world's advanced computer chips.

Where it stands · September 2026

On 12 September 2026 China said it would cancel a planned summit with the United States if Washington approved new arms sales to Taiwan. At their meeting on 22 September, Xi Jinping pressed Donald Trump to halt those sales. On 25 September Xi called on the United States to oppose Taiwan independence, and Trump described China as a World War II ally. On 26 September the US ambassador said there was no change in US policy on Taiwan. On 28 September the ambassador said Trump had offered to sell US weapons to China.

What the dispute is about

Whose island. Both governments were once agreed that there is one China and Taiwan is part of it, and differed on which of them was its government. Taiwan's democracy has since produced a majority who see themselves as Taiwanese, not Chinese, and a governing party that rejects the premise.

The status quo. Nearly everyone says they want to keep it, and each means something different: for Beijing no move towards formal independence, for Taipei no subordination, for Washington no use of force. Each accuses the others of eroding it.

Time. Beijing believed for decades that trade and kinship would bring the island back. The trend of opinion on Taiwan has run the other way, while China's military advantage grows every year.

How each side explains it

Beijing's account

Taiwan has been Chinese since the seventeenth century, was seized by Japan in 1895 and returned in 1945, as the wartime allies declared it would be. The civil war of the 1940s left the defeated side on the island under American protection, and that unfinished war is the only reason for the separation. The United Nations and a hundred and eighty states recognise one China. Beijing offers peaceful reunification with wide autonomy. What it will not accept is separatists in Taipei, with American weapons and encouragement, making the division permanent. Foreign warships in the strait and arms sales are the provocation, and China's exercises are the response.

In our coverage

Taiwan, the SCS and the Senkakus are Chinese territory; foreign interference provokes →208 headlines
Covered by:Global Times · CGTN · China Daily · RT · People's Daily · Press TV

The account of Taiwan's government

The People's Republic has never governed Taiwan for a single day. The Republic of China on Taiwan has its own territory, army, currency, passport and elected government, and needs to declare nothing. Its people built a democracy out of a dictatorship and watched what "one country, two systems" meant in Hong Kong. China's aircraft, ships and coast guard press closer every month. Taiwan does not provoke; it arms because it is threatened, and it asks fellow democracies not to leave it alone with a neighbour sixty times its size.

What each account leaves out

Beijing's leaves out that the islanders were not asked in 1945 and have been asked many times since, and that fewer than one in ten now wants unification; that its offer of autonomy lost its audience when Hong Kong's was dismantled; and that its law of 2005 gives itself the right to attack.

Taiwan's government leaves out that its own constitution still describes a China that includes the mainland, and that it leaves the text alone because it knows what changing it would bring; that most voters in 2024 chose parties wanting more dialogue; and that a third of its exports go to the country it calls the threat.

The opposition's leaves out that Xi Jinping redefined the old formula in 2019 to mean the Hong Kong model; that its party ruled the island under martial law for thirty-eight years; and that it meets China's leaders while Chinese ships circle the island, and has held up military budgets at home.

Washington's leaves out that its formula was designed to leave the question open, that each upgrade in contacts and arms is for Beijing a change in the status quo, and that its president has offered to discuss arms sales with Xi.

The ledger

China

Wanted: reunification, or at least no drift away.
Did: built the forces to take the island and showed them.
Gained: near-total diplomatic isolation of Taipei, a say in American arms sales.
Paid: each show of force has moved Taiwanese opinion further from it.

Taiwan

Its government wanted: recognition and security; its people were divided over how much to risk for either.

Gained: a democracy the world notices, record arms budgets.
Paid: life under daily military pressure, and a politics split over whether Washington or Beijing is the greater danger.

The United States

Wanted: no war and no loss of the chips.

Words in dispute

Names and terms the sides do not share. This page keeps them out of its own voice.

reunification / annexation
Taiwan independence, separatists / sovereignty
the mainland / China
one-China principle / one-China policy
status quo
median line
renegade province

Taiwan

What the dispute is about

How each side explains it

Beijing's account

The account of Taiwan's government

What each account leaves out

The ledger

China

Taiwan

The United States

Words in dispute

Also involved

The account of Taiwan's opposition

Washington's account

What changed the course