Tension between Taiwan and mainland China has been a constant since the nationalist Kuomintang government fled the island after losing the civil war to Mao Zedong in 1949.
The current crisis between China and Taiwan is not the first and will not be the last. Since the nationalist Kuomintang government took refuge on this island after losing the civil war to Mao Zedong in 1949, the Beijing regime has been on track to reunite it.
The first attempt, with the ensuing crisis, took place between September 1954 and May 1955, when the communist army captured two chains of small islands occupied by Taiwan close to the coast.
In August 1958 there was a second attack and until December Mao’s forces furiously bombed the Kinmen and Matsu Islands, ten kilometers off the Chinese coast. But they failed in their mission to occupy them and reach Taiwan.
The third crisis, more similar to the current one, occurred between July 1995 and March 1996, at the height of the economic opening of mainland China and the democratization of Taiwan. During those months, Beijing launched numerous rockets, first in retaliation for then-Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui’s visit to the United States, and later for the island’s first democratic elections.
As now, Beijing mobilized its army with naval exercises and amphibious tests and fired live ammunition. To protect Taiwan and deter China from invasion, the US has also stationed two aircraft carriers with their respective flotillas near the island. Finally, the Chinese intimidation has failed and Taiwan has already held seven presidential elections.
The latest crisis has been sparked by the trip of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan, whose sovereignty is being claimed by China despite being a ‘de facto’ independent country with its own government.
Source: La Verdad
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