Such questions may, on the surface, appear to have simple answers. The Montevideo Convention of 1933, for example, indicates that a state exists only if it possesses “a permanent population, a defined territory, government, and capacity to enter into relations with other states.” In fact, however, answers to these and other matters related to the issue of sovereignty are often nuanced and wreathed in semantics.
Situated approximately 110 miles across a ' narrow straight from China, the small island of Taiwan has been making big waves in international relations for decades. To understand the nature of these issues, one must first understand the history of Taiwan and its complicated relationships with its Asian neighbors.
Taiwan was originally settled by the ancestors of today’s Taiwanese aborigines, an ethnic group all to its own. By the 17th century, the ethnic Han Chinese had taken control of the island, integrating the island into the Qing dynasty’s empire on the mainland. Following a war with Japan in the late 19‘h century, Taiwan was ceded by China to Japan. Taiwan would again change hands following the conclusion of the Second World War, with Japan’s agreement to return Taiwan to China as part of its terms of surrender.
The Chinese Civil War complicated the matter of Taiwan’s return. From 1927 to 1937, forces loyal to the nationalist party of China clashed with those loyal to the communist party of China. The two ideological adversaries suspended hostilities in 1937, when they united to repel a Japanese invasion as part of the Second World War. China’s civil war resumed a year after the end of the Second World War, in 1946. Though Japan had officially surrendered control of Taiwan, a new, more vexing question arose: which China would control Taiwan?
Military operations in the Chinese Civil War effectively ceased in late 1949, whereupon the leader of the communist forces, Mao Zedong, proclaimed Beijing to be the capital of the newly founded People’s Republic of China (PRC). The nationalist forces, led by Chiang Kai-shek, left mainland China for Taiwan, proclaiming Taipei to be the capital of chine.
