Taiwan: What China Really Wants

THE world in general, and the United States in particular, badly misunderstands China’s Taiwan policy. We have an urgent need to see it for what it is.

Judged solely by official pronouncements from Beijing, that policy isn’t a policy at all, but Chinese holy writ—an emotional, nationalistic position that is not open to compromise. “It remains the sacred mission and lofty goal of the entire Chinese people to achieve reunification of the motherland,” declared President Jiang Zemin in 1995. This is his most important statement about Taiwan.

RH

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Ross H. Munro

THE world in general, and the United States in particular, badly misunderstands China’s Taiwan policy. We have an urgent need to see it for what it is.

Judged solely by official pronouncements from Beijing, that policy isn’t a policy at all, but Chinese holy writ—an emotional, nationalistic position that is not open to compromise. “It remains the sacred mission and lofty goal of the entire Chinese people to achieve reunification of the motherland,” declared President Jiang Zemin in 1995. This is his most important statement about Taiwan.