Comment: China’s “one China” policy. (1994, 20 Marks)
Beijing’s “one China” principle holds that there is only one China, that Taiwan is an inalienable part of it, and that the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is its sole legal government. It descends from the civil war of 1949, when the Kuomintang’s Republic of China retreated to Taiwan, and it is the precondition Beijing sets for diplomatic relations with any state. The principle should be distinguished from the “one China policies” of other states, which merely recognise or acknowledge the PRC’s position.
How the principle prevailed
- UN representation: UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 (25 October 1971) seated the PRC and expelled the representatives of Chiang Kai-shek, ending Taipei’s claim to speak for China, though Washington argued in 2024 that it did not settle Taiwan’s own status.
- The American formula: in the Shanghai Communiqué (1972) the United States “acknowledged” that Chinese on both sides of the Strait maintain there is one China. It recognised the PRC in 1979 but passed the Taiwan Relations Act the same year to supply defensive arms, the basis of strategic ambiguity.
- Diplomatic squeeze: Taiwan’s formal partners fell to twelve, eleven states and the Holy See, when Nauru switched in January 2024.
- Unification doctrine: Deng Xiaoping’s “one country, two systems” was offered to Taiwan and applied to Hong Kong (1997). The 1992 Consensus blurred differences, and the Anti-Secession Law (2005) authorises “non-peaceful means” if peaceful unification becomes impossible.
Interpreting the policy
- Sovereignty and recognition: in Stephen D. Krasner’s terms (Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy, 1999), Taiwan has domestic and Westphalian sovereignty, as a self-governing democracy of about 23 million, but lacks international legal sovereignty because most states accept Beijing’s terms.
- Nationalist legitimacy: for the Communist Party, unification completes national rejuvenation, which is why the principle is non-negotiable.
- Realist geography: Taiwan sits at the centre of the first island chain and makes most of the world’s most advanced semiconductors, so the question is about regional primacy as much as identity.
The present test
The policy is increasingly enforced by coercion. After Lai Ching-te took office in May 2024, the People’s Liberation Army staged the Joint Sword and Strait Thunder-2025A exercises, and on 29–30 December 2025 “Justice Mission-2025” rehearsed blockades of Keelung and Kaohsiung and fired 27 rockets into nearby waters after a US arms package of over $11 billion. Beijing also turned on Japan after Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said in November 2025 that a blockade of Taiwan could be a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan. Washington has wavered: at his May 2026 Beijing summit Donald Trump called a pending $14 billion Taiwan arms package “a very good negotiating chip” and the sale stalled, and at their Washington meeting of 24 September 2026 Xi Jinping urged him to “oppose” Taiwan independence, though no new arrangement emerged.
India’s position
India recognised the PRC on 30 December 1949. It followed the one China policy but has not repeated it in joint statements since 2010, after China issued stapled visas to residents of Jammu and Kashmir; in 2014 External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj linked any reaffirmation to China accepting a “one India” policy. India keeps economic and cultural ties with Taiwan through the India–Taipei Association and Taiwan’s representative office, both set up in 1995.
Conclusion
The one China principle has been diplomatically victorious but politically unfulfilled: Beijing has won recognition almost everywhere yet not the consent of Taiwan’s people. As China’s power grows, it is enforced less by persuasion and more by military pressure, which makes the Strait the likeliest trigger of a great-power war. India’s calibrated silence turns the policy into leverage for its own sovereignty claims.