Taiwan’s president urges China to end threats as Beijing says independence is ‘dead end’

Geoff Bennett:

Today, lawmakers in Taiwan scuffled in Parliament one day after the island inaugurated a new president.

Beijing considers Taiwan a breakaway province and accused Lai Ching-te, known as William Lai, of advocating for Taiwanese independence. Lai promises status quo.

Nick Schifrin examines the tension and the history between Beijing and Taipei.

Nick Schifrin:

In downtown Taipei, pomp and circumstance, dancing, and an F-16 flyby to tell Beijing, back off.

Lai Ching-te, Taiwanese President (through interpreter):

I want to call on China to cease their political and military intimidation against Taiwan and ensure the world is free from the world of war.

Nick Schifrin:

Lai Ching-te, known as William Lai, is the eighth democratically elected president of Taiwan, known formally as the Republic of China. His inauguration message: Taiwanese democracy is here to stay.

Lai Ching-te (through interpreter):

I hope that China will face the reality of the Republic of China's existence, and engage in cooperation with the legal government chosen by Taiwan's people.

Nick Schifrin:

But Beijing is in no mood to cooperate and says the only legal government of Taiwan is the communist People's Republic of China.

Wang Wenbin, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman (through interpreter):

Taiwan independence is a dead end. Condoning support for Taiwan independence is doomed to failure, and no external forces can stop the historical momentum of China's unification.

Nick Schifrin:

Has the People's Republic of China ever controlled Taiwan?

Sulmaan Khan, International History and Chinese Foreign Relations Professor, Tufts University: Absolutely not. It has never controlled Taiwan.

Nick Schifrin:

Sulmaan Khan is an international history and Chinese foreign relations professor at Tufts University and the author of "Struggle for Taiwan: A History of America, China, and the Island Caught Between."

In the pre-modern era, Taiwan was an independent way station for maritime travelers.

Sulmaan Khan:

Let's say you were a pirate or a fisherman or a trader, and you were sailing from Southeast Asia to East Asia. You would probably stop off at Taiwan.

Nick Schifrin:

In the 1600s, the Qing Empire conquered the island. In 1895, it's ceded to Japan until World War II.

Narrator:

Now the communist leader Mao Zedong is winning one victory after another.

Nick Schifrin:

In the Chinese Civil War in the 1940s, Mao Zedong and his communists defeated nationalist soldiers led by Chiang Kai-shek.

Narrator:

Escaping by sea from communist China, some remnants of Chiang Kai-shek's nationalist army.

Nick Schifrin:

In 1949, nationalist troops fled from the mainland to the island then known as Formosa.

Narrator:

At Government House, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek.

Nick Schifrin:

Chiang became Taiwan's dictator and had his own dream, recapturing the communist mainland. After that, Mao would no longer tolerate Taiwan's self-determination.

Sulmaan Khan:

The goal in the civil war shifts from holding on to Mao's little piece of China to the complete extermination of Chiang Kai-shek in a fit of anger, more than anything.

And his withdrawal to Taiwan means that Taiwan has to be a part of China, especially because Chiang Kai-shek is still intent on taking back all of the mainland. There's a religious dimension to this. It's a fanaticism that takes hold in the '50s, and the quest to liberate Taiwan is written into everybody's soul in China, at which point walking away from that plan becomes difficult.

Nick Schifrin:

He says PRC President Xi Jinping's self-declared dream of reunification is based more on emotion that history.

Sulmaan Khan:

If you look at Xi's policies towards Taiwan, they policies are calculated to alienate the people there, but they are policies that come from a place of bitter hurt. And bitter hurts does not admit a rational negotiation or historical thinking.

Nick Schifrin:

And so, decades later, today's China has new ammunition to feed the dream. China has increased pressure on Taiwan militarily with unprecedented election interference, including cyberattacks and disinformation like deepfakes.

That's the real Lai on the left, manipulated Lai on the right. And as Beijing has became more aggressive, Taiwanese have considered themselves distinct.

Sulmaan Khan:

In many ways, China has sharpened the sense of independent identity that was already there in Taiwan, but has become more pronounced and more outspoken and more proud of itself than it once was.

Nick Schifrin:

That pride is now linked to democracy. Lai continues the legacy of fellow Democratic Progressive Party President Tsai Ing-wen, a quarter-century after Taiwan's first free and fair presidential election.

Sulmaan Khan:

We are a democracy, not a Chinese democracy, especially younger people would be quick to point out to you. We're a democracy, period, and that makes us different.

As you move through the democratic process and keep building successful power transition upon successful power transition, that sense of pride grows, that sense of we have created something here that's precarious, that's fragile, but that's worth protecting.

Nick Schifrin:

Even if that democracy is messy, as it was today in Parliament, Lai inherits divided government, but an island increasingly united in not wanting to be part of China.

For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Nick Schifrin.