Everything you always wanted to know about Taiwan

America and China: one is messy, free-spirited and loves meddling in the affairs of other countries, the other is organised, repressive and enjoys annexing its neighbours. They're the original Odd Couple! But when China's wife leaves him, China is forced to move into America's apartment until he... uh... I think I may have over-stretched that analogy.

Yet despite having as much in common as chalk and plutonium, America and China's lives are inexorably entwined because America gives China quite a lot of money and China gives America affordable mass produced goods. But China also gives America a super-sized serving of 'tood from time to time, and nothing is more liable to really get things all heated up in Sino-American relations than a tiny little island off China's coast known as Taiwan. Recently this has taken the shape of mass outrage, a suspension of military exchanges, and threats of trade restrictions after America floated the prospect of selling $6.4 billion worth of helicopters and missiles to Taiwan.

But what's the deal? Why do two otherwise largely sensible adults lose their freaking minds over a tiny band of islands just off the Chinese mainland? Well, despite having grown up on a diet of Taiwanese clothes and toys (using them, not eating them), I realised that I didn't really know either. So I figured I'd ask some questions, and then answer them myself. With the aid of some serious Wikipedia riding. So you know they're going to be totally informative. Here goes:

A/S/L?

Age: 65 - Taiwan has been under the control of the Republic of China since Japan's surrender in 1945. Sex: Country. Location: 180 km east of China.

Wait, the Republic of China? Aren't they in power now?

Ah, yeah, this is where things get wacky/mass slaughter-y. So, basically the Republic of China took over the entirety of China and some of Outer Mongolia in 1912 after a few years of good ol' fashioned civilian rebellion. This was all well and good for 15 odd years, but not being a country to rest on its laurels for long, the Communists kickstarted a full blown Civil War in 1927. This dragged on for two decades (with a small break for the Second World War, where everybody forgot their differences and started hating on the Japanese), until the Communists won in 1949, leading to the establishment of the really rather different People's Republic of China (PRC). Because, y'know, Mao treated the people so well and stuff.

It's probably fair to assume there was a fair bit of killing in all of this too.

So, where does Taiwan feature?

Well, the Republic of China (ROC) honchos were no fools and saw the little red writing on the wall, so they retreated to Taiwan en masse (alongside one to two million refugees) in December 1949, taking the entirety of China's gold reserves with them. This was, as you might expect, a bit of a blow for the newly formed PRC, but worked out just fine for the new government-in-exile in Taiwan. However, despite having migrated from one of the largest land masses in the world to an island that slips in at 39th on the 'World's Largest Islands' lists, the ROC have - to this day - continued to claim ownership of mainland China and Outer Mongolia. Meanwhile, the PRC have - perhaps justifiably - continued to insist that given they won the Chinese Civil War really quite comprehensively they kinda own Taiwan too.

But how did America get involved?

It's America. Of course it's involved. With that said, it wasn't always a foregone conclusion. In the aftermath of WWII, America dabbled in peace talks between the Communists and the ROC, but these didn't go fabulously well and so America just left them to it. When the ROC retreated to Taiwan, America was perfectly inclined to just let nature take its course and watch the ROC be summarily demolished by some pissed off Communists to the west, and some pissed off Taiwanese in Taiwan. However, when Korea got all serious in 1950, America needed to get all serious about fighting Communism, so President Truman dispatched a fleet to hang out in the Taiwan Strait, thereby putting America's big meaty body squarely between the two feuding parties. This did not go down well with the PRC.

Then what happened?

Well, not a lot, really. The ROC and PRC essentially just stand at opposite sides of a waterway, shaking their fists at each other while yelling obscenities and claiming to own the other side. Meanwhile, Mao managed to kill off a remarkably large number of people while still expanding China's population at a rate of knots, and the ROC became surprisingly rich through a combination of gold reserves, savvy investments in technology and manufacturing and close to forty years of brutally enforced martial rule.

In 1971, the United Nations Security Council quietly replaced the ROC with the PRC, which made sense what with the whole nuclear weapons malarkey. This was accompanied in the broader international community by a widespread transference of diplomatic recognition from the ROC to the PRC. In 2010 only 23 countries recognise the ROC as the legitimate government of Taiwan. This is largely because the PRC tends to sever diplomatic relations with any country that deigns to recognise Taiwan as being independent. Hardball. Of course, this does not stop anybody (up to and including the PRC) from enjoying a very healthy trade relationship with Taiwan. This fact has, in all likelihood, contributed emphatically to the continuing existence of the ROC.

Then in 1979, the US - coasting on the Cold War successes of the Vietnam War - passed a law essentially requiring them to intervene militarily if the PRC tried to invade the ROC. Because nuclear Armageddon wasn't already close enough. Despite the ending of the Cold War, this law hasn't been repealed - because significant portions of the US still view China as a deep existential threat - and thus we end up with situations where the US sells Taiwan weapons to be used in case of invasion from mainland China while still remaining one of China's main trading partners.

That Samuel Beckett was onto something.

So, who's right in all this?

Um... next.

Wow, Luke. This is FASCINATING. Please, tell me more about Taiwan.

I always think the best way of coming to understand a nation and its peoples is by examining their advertisements. Here, for example, is a Taiwanese advertisement for KFC.

In this advertisement, a man who is about to be executed is served his last meal. Naturally, he has asked for KFC. They serve him a poor substitute. He cracks the shits and breaks down crying and screaming. He is then, presumably, executed. Cue jaunty music.

And, um, that's about all you, uh, need to know really. See ya!