Opinion | Historical Revisionism with a Taiwan Recipe
By Tom Fowdy
It has been a common line of Taiwan's "Democratic Progressive Party" (DPP) to insist that the island was "never part of China." This hardline separatist position relies on manipulation of logic and omission of truth to infer that the island is a separate country, as recently echoed by a speech from its President William Lai, who insisted that Taiwan or "The Republic of China" was in fact older than China PRC. Therefore, it was "not the motherland." Such a claim is a political point that is being pushed relies on a disregard for context and people's ignorance of history to deliver blatant untruths, carefully omitting the facts the Republic of China State (of which Taiwan is the remainder) was founded following the collapse of the Qing Dynasty in 1911 and established by Chinese statesman Sun Yat-Sen.
This is only the tip of the iceberg of the DPP leadership's broader trend to push and fund "historical revisionism," better termed "negationism," through its political influence channels and circles in Western countries. We should understand "historical revisionism" in this context not as legitimate scholarly attempts to empirically verify the facts of the historical record but rather to utilize deliberate deception, twisting of facts, and omission of information in order to deliver falsified conclusions that have a blatant political propaganda purpose. In other words, emphasis is placed on pushing a specific narrative or point of view than historical fact.
UN Resolution 2758
In 1971, the United Nations General Assembly passed resolution 2758 that affirmed the People's Republic of China as the sole representative of "China." Subsequently, it expelled the Republic of China under Chiang Kai Shek, which by this point only had sovereignty over Taiwan. Chiang, of course, believed he was the legitimate representative of all China, and there was no such concept of "Taiwan independence" or separatism within this period. He was not advocating that he represented an independent country, but rather China as a whole, from what was in his words, and Beijing, too, Taiwan, which still constituted lawful and recognized Chinese territory. Thus, for all intents and purposes, the resolution settled China's representation, with Taiwan as a part of that.
Despite this, the DPP leadership has increasingly funded pseudo-research and politicians to push the line that "UN Resolution 2758" did "not in fact resolve Taiwan's status" and use it to push a political argument that the island should still receive representation at the United Nations, despite the fact that the UN has for the past 50 years referred to it as a "province of China." This constitutes a blatant act of historical revisionism and negationism that omits the broader context of the time in which Taiwan's status was not being debated. Those who contested the resolution deemed it to constitute a rightful part of China and nothing different. Just because the word "Taiwan" is not mentioned does not mean it is somehow unresolved. Rather, it did not need to be mentioned because it was not up for debate.
However, the DPP, through the organization their government funds, the unhinged "Interparliamentary Alliance on China" (IPAC) have coordinated anti-China legislators to hold motions in parliaments across the western world to denounce UN Resolution 2758 pushing this narrative that it "does not resolve the status of Taiwan." Although these motions are non-binding, they attempt to chip away at the established One China Policies of the given Western countries by essentially denying history as it were and pretending Taiwan "never was part of China." Of course, this is deliberating omitting the historical, legal, and cultural context and instead appealing to a very clever grey area by noting Taiwan as an island "never was ruled by the People's Republic of China" and then juxtaposing that with the idea of "China" as a whole, all while pretending that their island did not ever profess to represent "China as a whole."
Deception
When you look at it this way, this politically motivated argument is premised on deception, not facts. It is designed to appeal to people who are not aware of this context, or at least give them a misleading excuse to dismiss it if they are aware of it superficially, as when Taiwan's leader stands there and says, "China is not the motherland" this statement when rightfully scrutinized can only be understood as a lie. Yes, the island's government today did not "originate" from the PRC, but that does not mean Taiwan is not a part of China. Thus, here we see the Taiwan separatist argument is built on endless straw man arguments full of holes and reliance on deception and playing around with terminology rather than actual facts. It isn't the PRC who is trying to make false claims about Taiwan and rewrite history, it's Taiwan's DPP.
The author is a well-seasoned writer and analyst with a large portfolio related to China topics, especially in the field of politics, international relations and more. He graduated with an Msc. in Chinese Studies from Oxford University in 2018.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
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