Taiwan's Retreat from ROC Symbols Undercuts Its China Counter — SkimNews
Get the Geopolitics newsletter
Daily geopolitics — wars, elections, sanctions, the diplomatic moves that move markets. Free.
- The Trump-Xi summit described the US and China as WWII allies who 'fought side by side,' collapsing the Republic of China (which fought Japan) with the People's Republic of China (founded 1949, four years after Japan's surrender).
- Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council pushed back, calling the ROC the 'true ally' and noting the PRC did not exist during WWII; Deputy Foreign Minister Wu Chih-chung labeled the framing 'de-ROC-ization,' saying, 'We should feel very distressed.'
- Taiwan's Los Angeles representative office sent out 2025 National Day invitations branded 'Taiwan National Day,' replacing the previous year's 'Republic of China 114th National Day' wording.
- President Lai Ching-te marked the 80th anniversary of Japan's surrender as the 'end of the war' (終戰) rather than the traditional 'victory in the War of Resistance' (抗戰勝利), drawing opposition criticism for omitting the ROC's wartime role.
- The Tsai Ing-wen-era 'Republic of China (Taiwan)' formulation and Lai's insistence that the ROC and PRC are 'not subordinate to each other' have produced a more Taiwan-centered conception of sovereignty, critics argue at the cost of the ROC's pre-1949 history.
- Successive Taiwanese governments have softened ROC historical claims because citizens increasingly identify as Taiwanese rather than Chinese, and to avoid reviving a rival claim to 'all of China.'
- The strategic paradox: the more Taipei reduces the visibility of the ROC's historical identity, the more narrative space Beijing gains to portray wartime 'China' as an uninterrupted predecessor of today's PRC.
Why it matters: Taipei invokes the ROC's historical continuity and postwar arrangements like the San Francisco Peace Treaty to contest Beijing's territorial claims — arguments that depend on the ROC's wartime and postwar history being understood internationally as distinct from the PRC's. By retiring ROC symbolism in its own diplomatic and commemorative practice, Taiwan narrows the very space it needs to make that case, giving Beijing room to claim an unbroken 'China' lineage that doesn't distinguish the two governments.
Ask SkimNews
