1
00:00:00,120 --> 00:00:01,960
Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of I

2
00:00:02,040 --> 00:00:11,799
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, Hello and welcome to This Day in History Class,

3
00:00:11,840 --> 00:00:14,560
Speaker 1: a show that tries to look at both sides of

4
00:00:14,640 --> 00:00:19,680
Speaker 1: important moments in history. I'm Gay Bluizier, and today we're

5
00:00:19,680 --> 00:00:23,120
Speaker 1: looking at the origin of the heated cross straight relations

6
00:00:23,320 --> 00:00:27,480
Speaker 1: between the inhabitants of Taiwan and those of mainland China.

7
00:00:33,240 --> 00:00:40,040
Speaker 1: The day was December eighth nine. The defeated nationalist forces

8
00:00:40,200 --> 00:00:43,960
Speaker 1: of the Republic of China established a new capital on

9
00:00:44,000 --> 00:00:49,480
Speaker 1: the island of present day Taiwan. The nationalists, also known

10
00:00:49,560 --> 00:00:54,200
Speaker 1: as the Kuomntang, were led by soldier and statesman Xiang

11
00:00:54,280 --> 00:00:58,440
Speaker 1: Kai Shek, in a long running war against the revolutionary

12
00:00:58,840 --> 00:01:03,240
Speaker 1: mounts Or Dong and his communist forces. The r o

13
00:01:03,400 --> 00:01:08,119
Speaker 1: C government's forced retreat to Taiwan signaled that the Chinese

14
00:01:08,120 --> 00:01:12,200
Speaker 1: Communist Party had finally won a civil war that had

15
00:01:12,280 --> 00:01:16,800
Speaker 1: raged for more than two decades. To understand how that

16
00:01:16,880 --> 00:01:20,240
Speaker 1: war began, we need to go back to nineteen twelve,

17
00:01:20,560 --> 00:01:24,720
Speaker 1: when a Chinese revolution put an end to the Qing dynasty.

18
00:01:25,360 --> 00:01:29,200
Speaker 1: Rather than continue that two thousand year tradition of imperial

19
00:01:29,319 --> 00:01:34,200
Speaker 1: rule in China, the rebels instituted a one party military

20
00:01:34,200 --> 00:01:38,679
Speaker 1: dictatorship known as the Quo Mung Tang or k MT

21
00:01:38,959 --> 00:01:43,440
Speaker 1: for short. To further cement the change in leadership, they

22
00:01:43,480 --> 00:01:47,400
Speaker 1: also renamed the country, declaring it the Republic of China

23
00:01:47,920 --> 00:01:52,840
Speaker 1: or r o C for short. However, many citizens were

24
00:01:52,880 --> 00:01:57,000
Speaker 1: dissatisfied with the new regime. They wanted a government that

25
00:01:57,120 --> 00:02:03,200
Speaker 1: adhered to the principles of communism nationalism. This unrest led

26
00:02:03,240 --> 00:02:09,200
Speaker 1: to armed rebellions across mainland China. Eventually, the scattered rebels

27
00:02:09,320 --> 00:02:14,160
Speaker 1: organized themselves into the Communist Party of China or CPC

28
00:02:14,520 --> 00:02:18,840
Speaker 1: for short. There were now two rival governments vying for

29
00:02:18,919 --> 00:02:22,720
Speaker 1: control of the r o C, and in nineteen seven,

30
00:02:23,120 --> 00:02:28,359
Speaker 1: their conflict escalated to full scale civil war. By nineteen

31
00:02:28,480 --> 00:02:32,560
Speaker 1: forty nine, the war was finally winding down, with the

32
00:02:32,680 --> 00:02:37,079
Speaker 1: KMT losing more and more ground to the communist forces.

33
00:02:38,000 --> 00:02:42,720
Speaker 1: On December eight, nationalist leader Xiang Kai Check was left

34
00:02:42,760 --> 00:02:46,760
Speaker 1: with no choice but to abandon Nanjing, which at that

35
00:02:46,840 --> 00:02:50,880
Speaker 1: point was the capital city of China, by moving the

36
00:02:50,919 --> 00:02:56,640
Speaker 1: government's capital to Taiwan, a hundred miles offshore. Jiang Kai

37
00:02:56,800 --> 00:03:02,600
Speaker 1: Check was effectively acknowledging that he and the KMT had lost.

38
00:03:03,639 --> 00:03:07,280
Speaker 1: As far as chairman Mao was concerned he had already

39
00:03:07,360 --> 00:03:11,320
Speaker 1: won the war two months earlier. On October one, he

40
00:03:11,440 --> 00:03:15,560
Speaker 1: claimed victory by asserting that mainland China was no longer

41
00:03:15,680 --> 00:03:19,880
Speaker 1: the Republic of China but the People's Republic of China

42
00:03:20,320 --> 00:03:24,520
Speaker 1: or p r o C for short. He also proclaimed

43
00:03:24,639 --> 00:03:28,880
Speaker 1: that the new capital city was Beijing. To go along

44
00:03:28,919 --> 00:03:32,239
Speaker 1: with the new name and the new capital, Mao also

45
00:03:32,400 --> 00:03:36,320
Speaker 1: established a new communist form of government, which was modeled

46
00:03:36,360 --> 00:03:38,960
Speaker 1: after that of his Soviet allies in the U S

47
00:03:39,200 --> 00:03:44,840
Speaker 1: s R. So, to summarize, by December nine, you had

48
00:03:45,160 --> 00:03:49,240
Speaker 1: the victorious communist forces of the People's Republic of China

49
00:03:49,280 --> 00:03:53,560
Speaker 1: and the mainland and the defeated nationalist forces of the

50
00:03:53,600 --> 00:03:58,560
Speaker 1: Republic of China on the island of Taiwan. However, even

51
00:03:58,640 --> 00:04:02,760
Speaker 1: after fleeing the May main land, Xang Kai Shek didn't

52
00:04:02,800 --> 00:04:07,240
Speaker 1: give up the KMT S claim of Chinese leadership. He

53
00:04:07,360 --> 00:04:11,320
Speaker 1: and his two million nationalist followers set up the same

54
00:04:11,360 --> 00:04:15,360
Speaker 1: government in Taiwan that had previously ruled on the mainland.

55
00:04:16,200 --> 00:04:19,799
Speaker 1: This means there were now two separate entities that each

56
00:04:19,839 --> 00:04:24,800
Speaker 1: claimed to be the one true China. This situation became

57
00:04:24,839 --> 00:04:29,919
Speaker 1: known controversially as the two China's issue, but today the

58
00:04:30,000 --> 00:04:33,240
Speaker 1: dispute is a bit more nuanced than it was when

59
00:04:33,400 --> 00:04:38,720
Speaker 1: both governments asserted themselves as competing republics of China. At

60
00:04:38,720 --> 00:04:41,680
Speaker 1: the heart of the argument is a disagreement about what

61
00:04:41,800 --> 00:04:46,400
Speaker 1: Taiwan is. The Chinese government a k a. The p

62
00:04:46,680 --> 00:04:50,520
Speaker 1: R o C views the island as a renegade province,

63
00:04:50,960 --> 00:04:54,239
Speaker 1: a piece of itself that has broken away and which

64
00:04:54,320 --> 00:04:59,039
Speaker 1: someday must be reclaimed, perhaps even by force. As for

65
00:04:59,080 --> 00:05:05,000
Speaker 1: the Taiwanese people, most today don't consider themselves Chinese. They

66
00:05:05,040 --> 00:05:08,039
Speaker 1: feel the island is now a separate nation, whether that

67
00:05:08,120 --> 00:05:13,320
Speaker 1: independence is officially recognized or not. After all, Taiwan has

68
00:05:13,360 --> 00:05:17,560
Speaker 1: its own constitution, democratically elected leaders, and even its own

69
00:05:17,680 --> 00:05:21,679
Speaker 1: armed forces. It has pretty much all of the characteristics

70
00:05:21,720 --> 00:05:25,480
Speaker 1: of a sovereign state, but because of its thorny origins,

71
00:05:25,760 --> 00:05:30,000
Speaker 1: its legal status remains disputed. As for the rest of

72
00:05:30,000 --> 00:05:33,920
Speaker 1: the world, most countries officially recognized the p R o

73
00:05:34,120 --> 00:05:37,920
Speaker 1: C as the ruling party of China, with some nations

74
00:05:37,960 --> 00:05:43,320
Speaker 1: also recognizing the sovereignty of Taiwan. Back in nineteen nine,

75
00:05:43,760 --> 00:05:48,000
Speaker 1: many foreign governments had hoped the nationalist move to Taiwan

76
00:05:48,400 --> 00:05:53,400
Speaker 1: would make it easier to cooperate with both competing governments. However,

77
00:05:54,160 --> 00:05:57,760
Speaker 1: this proved more difficult in practice, as it's hard to

78
00:05:57,800 --> 00:06:01,320
Speaker 1: acknowledge the terms of one party without upsetting the other.

79
00:06:02,360 --> 00:06:08,040
Speaker 1: Relations between China and Taiwan are contentious and somewhat precarious,

80
00:06:08,440 --> 00:06:12,440
Speaker 1: but the piece has held so far. The Chinese government

81
00:06:12,480 --> 00:06:17,160
Speaker 1: continues to push for reunification, while the Taiwanese government spurns

82
00:06:17,200 --> 00:06:22,560
Speaker 1: all such advances, asserting independence instead. It's an open question

83
00:06:22,680 --> 00:06:26,239
Speaker 1: whether or not decades of tension will once again erupt

84
00:06:26,320 --> 00:06:30,080
Speaker 1: an armed conflict, but one thing that everyone agrees on

85
00:06:30,480 --> 00:06:34,120
Speaker 1: is that there aren't to China's though why that is

86
00:06:34,200 --> 00:06:40,479
Speaker 1: exactly depends on who you ask. I'm Gay Bluesier and

87
00:06:40,640 --> 00:06:44,080
Speaker 1: hopefully you now know a little more about history today

88
00:06:44,400 --> 00:06:47,480
Speaker 1: than you did yesterday. If you'd like to keep up

89
00:06:47,520 --> 00:06:50,520
Speaker 1: with the show, you can follow us on Twitter, Facebook,

90
00:06:50,520 --> 00:06:54,720
Speaker 1: and Instagram at t d I HC Show, and if

91
00:06:54,760 --> 00:06:57,760
Speaker 1: you have any comments or suggestions, feel free to send

92
00:06:57,800 --> 00:07:02,360
Speaker 1: him my way at this Day at heart media dot com.

93
00:07:02,360 --> 00:07:05,360
Speaker 1: Thanks to Chandler Mace for producing the show, and thank

94
00:07:05,400 --> 00:07:08,520
Speaker 1: you for listening. I'll see you back here again tomorrow

95
00:07:08,920 --> 00:07:21,720
Speaker 1: for another Day in History Class. For more podcasts from

96
00:07:21,720 --> 00:07:24,520
Speaker 1: i heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple podcasts,

97
00:07:24,600 --> 00:07:26,239
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.