Taiwan’s 100 year fight for freedom
5/27/202625 min
For decades, Taiwan has existed in political limbo: claimed by China, governed separately, and shaped by a history far more complicated than most people realise.
After the Second World War, Taiwan was handed back from Japan to China just as the mainland descended into civil war. Mao Zedong’s Communists eventually defeated Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists, who fled to Taiwan and rebuilt the Republic of China government there. Taiwan was marketed internationally as “Free China” but on the ground, it was a different story. Taiwanese people were subject to nearly 40 years of martial law: censorship, political persecution, arrests, and violent crackdowns on dissent. Eventually the people started to push back.
Today, Beijing considers Taiwan a breakaway province. But in Taiwan, a growing number of people see themselves as something entirely separate: not Chinese, but Taiwanese.
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Transcript preview
First 90 secondsSpeaker 10:00
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Rob Bergen0:31
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Matt Bevan· Host0:40
So we have a bit of a problem. Nobody can agree on what Taiwan actually is.
Speaker 6· Soundbite0:47
Taiwan is a cork in a bottle.
Alan Brinkley· Soundbite0:49
A country that isn't a country, or then again, maybe it is.
Speaker 3· Soundbite0:52
It's an international pressure point.
Speaker 8· Soundbite0:54
Taiwan is Taiwan and China is China.
Speaker 9· Soundbite0:56
There is only one China, Taiwan being part of China.
Matt Bevan· Host0:59
[gentle music] Obviously, it's complicated. The short, simplified version we usually tell goes like this. More than 100 years ago, the ancient Chinese Empire was overthrown in a revolution. What followed was a decades-long civil war, where the communists under Mao Zedong and the nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek fought over who would control the new Republic of China.
Speaker 10· Soundbite1:26
On both sides, the war is fought savagely without quarter.