Taiwan, explained.
Different times...then Taiwanese President Tsai with former Solomon Islands Prime Minister Sogavare in 2017. (Dudley Kopu/Flickr)
It is untrue that Taiwan is an "inalienable part" of China, but that's not stopping governments from Kiribati to Honduras from saying it.
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Beijing’s "one-China principle" is spreadingBeijing’s "one-China principle" is spreading
Beijing is determined to win the world over to its one-China principle, which holds that Taiwan is an “inalienable part” of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Disinformation is central to that effort.
This includes Beijing’s regularly repeated claims that “Taiwan has been an integral part of China’s territory since ancient times” (it hasn’t), that “the one-China principle is a universal consensus of the international community” (it isn’t), and that United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2758 “fully reflects and solemnly reaffirms the one-China principle” (it doesn’t).
Much more mettle will be needed to combat the spread of Beijing’s misleading messaging about the supposedly universal acceptance of its one-China principle.
Australian parliamentarians last month directly challenged this last part of China’s misleading messaging about Taiwan. The Senate passed an urgency motion on 22 August calling out the Chinese government’s commonplace but incorrect claim that UN Resolution 2758 accorded the PRC sovereignty over Taiwan. Although that 1971 resolution gave the UN seats previously occupied by the authorities in Taipei to the PRC, it didn’t make any determination regarding Taiwan’s status or hand Beijing sovereignty over the island.
Australian parliamentarians are clearly committed to combatting Beijing’s disinformation about UN Resolution 2758 and won’t sign up to the PRC’s one-China principle. Yet China continues to win other converts to its position on Taiwan.
Countries that recently switched recognition from Taiwan to the PRC, including Kiribati and Solomon Islands in 2019, Nicaragua in 2021, Honduras in 2023, and Nauru in 2024, have all made formal declarations endorsing Beijing’s view that the island is an inalienable part of China.
Some of these new PRC partners, including Solomon Islands, have even been willing to express their firm support for “all efforts by the Chinese government to realise national reunification,” which could include the annexation of Taiwan via military means.
The Chinese government is also persuading countries to endorse Beijing’s one-China principle as they expand ties with the PRC. In the early 2000s, Timor-Leste had a “one-China policy,” which didn’t publicly detail Dili’s precise position on Taiwan’s status. But over the course of a series of joint statements in the 2010s and onwards, Timor-Leste’s pronouncements progressively approached the PRC’s view.
By 2014, Dili was echoing Beijing’s claim that “Taiwan is an inalienable part of the Chinese territory.” In 2023, Timor-Leste’s position was even closer to that of the PRC and was described as “the one-China principle” when the two sides agreed to establish a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. That trend continued in July this year, when Dili expressed its “firm unequivocal adherence” to the one-China principle while also pledging support for “all the efforts of the Chinese government to realise national reunification.”
China continues to win converts to its position on Taiwan.
The PRC has also persuaded Bangladesh and Vanuatu to incrementally replace their various one-China policies with Beijing’s one-China principle.
With more capitals likely to upgrade ties with Beijing or sever state-to-state relations with Taiwan in coming years, the number of nations that formally subscribe to the China’s line is likely to continue increasing.
Even more concerning for Australia and other countries trying to combat the PRC’s misleading Taiwan messaging, the international embrace of the one-China principle is compounding the problem of Beijing’s disinformation about UN Resolution 2758.
In a subtle but significant shift, the 2024 joint statement between Beijing and Dili also suggested a shared understanding of that resolution. Sandwiched between references to Timor-Leste’s unshakeable commitment to the one-China principle, the 2024 joint statement “stressed that the authority of UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 brooks no dispute”, implying that Dili shares Beijing’s inaccurate interpretation.
Pakistan also issued a joint statement with the PRC in June this year that included a reference to UN Resolution 2758 brooking “no dispute or challenge”, alongside strong statements of support for Beijing’s one-China principle. This was followed in July by similar language in a China-Bangladesh communique stating that the “authority” of UN Resolution 2758 “is beyond question and brooks no challenge.”
It remains to be seen how many countries the PRC can formally sign up to its one-China principle. And it’s unclear how far Beijing can push its effort to recast UN Resolution 2758 as conferring the PRC sovereignty over Taiwan. Yet it’s already obvious that Beijing is winning the war of words over Taiwan’s status in many capitals.
The recent Australian Senate motion notwithstanding, much more mettle will be needed to combat the spread of Beijing’s misleading messaging about UN Resolution 2758 and the supposedly universal acceptance of its one-China principle.
Research for this article was supported by an Australian Centre on China in the World Travel Grant. This article draws on material from a chapter in the recently published Center for Strategic & International Studies volume U.S.-Australia-Japan Trilateral Cooperation on Strategic Stability in the Taiwan Strait.
About the author
Benjamin Herscovitch
Dr Benjamin Herscovitch is a Research Fellow in the School of Regulation and Global Governance at the Australian National University (ANU).
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