Free Essay Example on the US-Taiwan-China Relations

The United States played a pivotal role in creating the contemporary Republic of China (Taiwan) and Peoples Republic of China (China) relations. The US influence in the mentioned relations dates back to 1945 after the end of Second World War. Prior to this period, Taiwan was a Japanese Colony. In 1945, Taiwan gained independence from Japan and reunited with China. In 1949 however, Taiwan (then Republic of China) led by Nationalist Party leader Jang Jieshi seceded from mainland China and Jang Jieshi relocated the party leadership to Taiwan after being defeated in the China Civil War. Mao Zedong, an ardent Soviet Union supporter was left with the Communist faction of the government in Beijing. The United States recognized Taiwan-based leadership as the Chinese seat of power since it disliked Zedongs Communist policies. This was the first incidence that created a rift between Taiwan and mainland China.

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Taiwan represented China in the United Nations from 1949 to 1971. In 1971, United States Secretary of State Henry Kissinger visits Beijing. In the same year, United States renounced its recognition of Taiwan as the representative of China in international affairs. In 1972, the United States releases a Joint Communique that established One China Policy. According to this policy, China was one nation and Taiwan was a Province inside China. In December 16, 1978, United States officially announced its support of Beijing. This move accentuated isolation of Taiwan from China, United States and many other countries in the world. It marked the beginning of Taiwans pursuit of independence and Taiwanization through internal political reorganization.

Originally, Taiwan was wholly occupied by aboriginals who practiced a totally different culture. Melisa notes that plain Taiwanese aboriginal bound the feet of their women. However, Japanese colonialists forbade this practice in 1915. Han Chinese migrated into Taiwan and established Chinese villages. The rampant intermarriage between the Chinese immigrants and aboriginal eventually resulted in harmonization of culture that gradually turned to Chinese. Therefore, Taiwan had its native inhabitants before they became assimilated my Han Chinese. In a move to make Taiwan an independent nation, Taiwanese leadership was given to Taiwanese inhabitants who had little or no links to the mainland China.

After United States renounced its recognition of Taiwan, Taiwan embarked on a process of democratization. The first step towards this dream was formation of a second party other than the Nationalist Party. As a result, those outside the Nationalist Party formed a party called dangwai. The 1977 County elections saw 39 of dangwai members take up elective seats. This victory strengthened dagwai as a political party and it engaged in many political demonstrations like the Kaosiungh demonstrations. In 1982, four dangwai parliamentarians visited the United States and made a joint statement. In the statement, the parliamentarians asserted the Taiwanese need for self-determination. In part, the statement read that the future of Taiwan was to be determined by its 17 million inhabitants. This statement was meant to shun any external political influence from mainland China and the United States. Apparently, the internal divisions of the country served to strengthen its vision towards and independent Taiwan. In the 1983 elections, the dangwai candidates used the slogan of self-determination in their campaigns.

To propel forward the process of independence, the nationalist party capitalized on Taiwanization. This implies that key government positions ware to be given to people who were purely Taiwanese and had no mainland relations. This was in response to Lan Yipings sentiments that democratization was precisely Taiwanization. First, the nationalist party noted that two thirds of its Standing Committee members had mainland connections. Two opposition legislators with mainland connections sparked discussions that would lead to defection of a Taiwan musician to China. The artist had sung songs about Taiwan and China. In mocking one of his songs, Chen Yingzen, a renowned Nationalist, said that the song was meant for a Chinese people and did not resonate with the people of Taiwan who had their culture, tradition and identity. This was the first time that the question of a Taiwan nation came into the limelight. The fruits of democracy and self-identity were evident by December 1985. President Jinnguo allowed the people of Taiwan to visit mainland China, a move meant to say that Taiwan was gradually establishing itself.

In conclusion, the United States position on Taiwan was influenced by its dislike for the opposite side that was Communist. However, the United States reconsidered its stand and declared Beijing as the legitimate Chines government base, thus renouncing its original support of Nationalist government in Taiwan. This broadened the rift between Taiwan and China and marked the beginning of Taiwanese political reformations that sought to establish a democratic nation in Taiwan.

Mao Zedongs Movements in the 1950

The major causes of the observed failures in Mao Zedongs movements in the 1950s were poor ideological implementation and organizational deficiency. Three major Maoist movements were established in the 1950s. One of them was dubbed let a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools contend. This campaign was a move by the socialists to finds flaws in the communists system while purging the opponents of the regime. Initially, Mao Zedong wanted to promote diversity in science, art and literature. Mao Zedong opined that social advancement could only be achieved if people embraced diversity. He linked art and literature diversification with literal diversity. It seems like he wanted people to understand Communist political dynamics by making philosophy and social sciences popular. It was his mission to instill independence of thought in the people through spread of social sciences and philosophy. Secondly, Mao thought that enhancing diversity in art, literature and science would enhance unity. Mao Zedong wanted to enforce unity for socialist ideologies. He was aware that there were certain intellectuals who were opposed to his doctrines. He wanted to issue a subtle warning against those who were against communist policies. This movement did not work in the long last. Specifically, a new generation of activists drawn from different fields of academia was brought into the limelight. They wrote books and produced art that was against Maoist policies. In his advocacy for diversifying art and science, Mao Zedong reiterated the need for constructive criticism for the betterment of communism. He later went against his word and prosecuted those who expressed feelings against the communist government. This is a case of poor ideological implementation which later backfired on Mao.

The second movement that faced a fateful end was the anti-rightist movement. This movement was a follow-up to the hundred flowers campaign to find and purge out anti-communists, advocated of capitalism, anti-revisionists and what the Mao regime considered counter-revolutionists. The campaign was a flop from the outset. It suffered intense ideological and organizational deficiency and its consequences were directly opposite with its expectations. In 1957, Mao Zedong issued a stern warning against government critics and dissents. It was a contradictory action because Mao was the one who had invited all manner of criticism to his government thorough the hundred flowers campaign. However, he sought to annihilate any kind of arising criticism by scholars and intellectuals who forwarded their grievances through philosophy and art. The dissidents were forced to undergo a period of thought reform passively or engage in hard labor that would have similar results.

The effects of this campaign remain written in the books of history. He left his government lean and the society void of intellectual who could run the social affairs. Again, the measures used to distinguish between the Party proponents and opponents were not very clear. In effect, he made enemies with his former and current friends who became victims of his campaign. Further, the movement created and widened a rift between Mao and his mentors in Communist Russia. He had adopted a new form of Communism that was totally different from the communism in Russia. To make the matters worse, he severely punished Chinese scholars and politicians who still adopted Soviet communism in China.

The Great Leap Forward campaign of 1958 was another disastrous Maoist ideology. The campaign aimed at revolutionizing Chinas steel production to compete with major world producers like Britain. The other aim was to integrate the political, military, social and economic aspects to create a utopian socialist way of production and leadership. However, many people think that this strategy was too radical and Mao disregarded every technical causes of failure that would lead to the failure of the policy.

The Great Leap forward campaign was radical in eliminating the Marxist class system that was typical of Marxism-Leninism. It was a move to collectivize agriculture and eliminate land ownership discrepancies that existed before the campaign was adopted. Mao thought that this class system was counterproductive in promoting the communist ideology. He created and perpetrated propaganda that would eventually upgrade the peasants lives in the society by keeping them at par with the landowners. To realize this, Mao expropriated land from bureaucratic capitalists and used the tactic of state capitalism to acquire land from national capitalists.

This collectivization of land led to the creation of communes that actualized social production of farm produce and industrial goods. The communes controlled how people produced food from the farms and steel from backyard furnaces constructed in peoples homes. Each commune was given a certain goal to meet by the regime. Therefore, farmers worked under pressure on their farms while backyard steel makers struggled to meet the set standards. They produced steel tools that broke up easily in the farms. Consequently, commune farmers worked bare handed. Production gradually decreased. The 1959 floods greatly affected communal production of food and in 1960, China felt a severe shortage of food and the country eventually plunged into famine that left over 700 million people dead.

Tiananmen Square Events

Tiananmen Square demonstrations culminated in June Fourth massacre in which 300000 troops were deployed to bring sobriety in the countrys capital after university students, professors and other political minded people camped on the square for seven days. The strategies used by the government authorities during this period were censorship, emphasis on national security and denial of right to access of information.

Censorship was a Communist strategy that was used by the government for long time even before the events in the Tiananmen Square. On daily and hourly basis, classified information was circulated in the city of Beijing to the Party Central from the government, intelligence and military. The information concerned the state of mind of anybody in the city streets contemplating resistance or anti-regime campaigns. The reports included the state of affairs from the perspectives of intellectuals as well as city peddlers. In this reports, all the minutes of intra-state meetings by provincial leaders and any other groups were circulated. One characteristic of these reports was the way in which they were handled. Some reports were only sent to five people while some were sent to as many as forty, as long as they were relevant.

In a conversation with Deng Xiaoping, Partys Secretary General said that the demonstrations in Beijing were not only perpetrated by the...