Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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Photo Credit: Kremlin.ru/WikiCommons/CC BY 4.0
IT PROVES NOTEWORTHY that in recent comments to US President Donald Trump about Taiwan, Chinese President Xi Jinping claimed that the return of Taiwan to China was an important part of the post-war political order. In this sense, Xi was attempting to reinforce Chinese claims over Taiwan on the basis of the history of World War II.
Such comments are ironic. The People’s Republic of China was founded in 1949, as a result of which it has never controlled Taiwan throughout its 70-year history. The modern territory of the PRC is largely inherited from the Qing dynasty, which, after all, ended in 1911–but during this period, Taiwan was only a province of the Qing for a mere seven years. Nor did the Qing control all of Taiwan, viewing it as a remote hinterland, as was the case with the preceding Ming dynasty. In this sense, the PRC claiming Taiwan as territory for itself on the basis of an anachronistic history draws back to imperial China, rather than the history of the post-war international order.
Indeed, Taiwan’s unsettled status can be seen in that Mao himself entertained the thought of Taiwan as an independent country. Mao largely began to claim Taiwan as an integral part of China after the KMT fled there. Even so, Mao’s eventual assertion of claims over Taiwan is also not surprising, given that regional powers have frequently claimed Taiwan because of its important geopolitical position in the Asia Pacific.
With the uncertainty in US global power due to the presidency of Donald Trump and abrupt reversals in decades of prior policy, China has increasingly sought to position itself as a champion of the post-war international order. China has framed itself as the new guardian of international order, aiming to take up a position similar to how the US framed itself as the defender of the “rules-based international order” after World War II.
In this sense, China is appealing to the US on this historical basis regarding Taiwan. Still, this may be a strange appeal at a time that Elon Musk and other political figures in America aligned with the Trump administration have demonstrated an unusual degree of nostalgia for Nazi Germany, a historical enemy of the US during World War II, inclusive of Musk performing a Nazi salute at the presidential inauguration.
Yet it is notable how Taiwan has also sought to insert itself into a historical narrative that traces itself to World War II in recent months under the Lai administration. The Lai administration made several unusual moves commemorating World War II earlier this year, including commemorating Victory in Europe Day, and the end of the Pacific War.
For one, Taiwan does not usually commemorate Victory in Europe Day due to, of course, being an Asian country. But commemorating Victory in Europe Day was a way to situate Taiwan alongside the victory of democratic countries over authoritarian ones in World War II. Likewise, the move was probably aimed at shoring up ties with European countries at a time when Taiwan’s traditional reliance on the US faces the uncertainties of the Trump administration.
Likewise, during the Pacific War, Taiwan was part of the Japanese empire. Taiwanese soldiers fought and died under the Japanese flag in Southeast Asia. Taiwan was, too, firebombed by the US during World War II as part of Japan.
Lai was, at the time, criticized for downplaying the question of Japanese responsibility for the Pacific War by the KMT. Nevertheless, Lai Ching-te’s framing was to suggest that the fate of all aggressor countries that invade other countries, as Japan did during World War II, would be China’s fate in the event of an attack on Taiwan.
Still, one notes that KMT politicians such as Hung Hsiu-chu were themselves also criticized for traveling to China to participate in China’s World War II commemorations. Hung came under fire in light of the fact that China, of course, threatens to militarily annex Taiwan.
In this sense, whether Taiwan or China, the historical memory of World War II often has to do much more with present-day political concerns. This in itself may not be surprising, a way in which history proves all quite malleable to contemporary political concerns.