Editor’s note for Wednesday, August 10, 2022

Dear reader,

A quick reminder: We’re changing our name to The China Project on September 1.

The future is certain, it is only the past that is unpredictable, according to an old joke from the Soviet Union that applies perfectly to the new “white paper” on Taiwan issued by the Chinese government, which is the subject of our top story today.

Here is the first main section of the paper, titled “Taiwan Is Part of China — This Is an Indisputable Fact”:

Taiwan has belonged to China since ancient times. This statement has a sound basis in history and jurisprudence. New archeological discoveries and research findings regularly attest to the profound historical and cultural ties between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait. A large number of historical records and annals document the development of Taiwan by the Chinese people in earlier periods.

It was not always thus. As former Dutch diplomat and scholar of Taiwan affairs Gerrit van der Wees puts it in a recent article:

By the late 1920s, the young CCP…did develop a very distinct position vis-à-vis Taiwan, which was totally the opposite of the Party’s present position…

This was expressed most clearly by Chairman Máo Zédōng 毛泽东 in his 1937 interview with American journalist Edgar Snow, who quoted Mao as saying: “…we will extend them (the Koreans) our enthusiastic help in their struggle for independence. The same thing applies for Taiwan.” This position was reiterated in subsequent years by CCP luminaries like Zhōu Ēnlái 周恩来.

The latest episode of ChinaEDGE: Live with Lizzie Lee is out on YouTube, and the guest is Professor Taylor Fravel of MIT, who discusses the significance of the Chinese military drills surrounding Taiwan: Xí Jìnpíng 习近平 has “many more options” than his predecessors did, says Fravel, “up to and including invasion, but also far short of invasion. One option would be a blockade.”

For more on Taiwan and how we may be sleepwalking into war, see this piece by CIA veteran John Culver, who says the status quo in the Taiwan Strait has really changed, but no one in the U.S. seems to be paying attention. You can hear more from Culver about the Taiwan situation on last week’s Sinica Podcast.

Upcoming events:

• I’ll be speaking at a three-day conference in London at SOAS from September 19 to 21: China and the Media — Who Decides the Stories?
• Our NEXTChina 2022 conference is on November 9 and 10, virtually and in meatspace in New York.

Our word of the day is white paper (​​白皮书 báipíshū).

—Jeremy Goldkorn, Editor-in-Chief