Name: Why Is TAIWAN Threatened By CHINA? - VisualPolitik EN
Uploaded: 2018-01-08T01:41:32.000Z
Duration: 13 min 11 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Many of you have asked for this video, and
to be honest we're not surprised…

The Republic of China, better known as Taiwan,
is has some of the most strange and controversial

political and diplomatic situations in the
entire world.

Let me explain, at the time of publishing
this video, Taiwan has only received formal

recognition from 20 of the world's countries...

And some of these countries are pretty small,
like the Vatican, Tuvalu and Swaziland.

Despite all of this, Taiwan has managed to
become one of the richest and freest countries

It has a well-equipped army and it is one
of the spearheads of the United States in

But, before we really get into it, let's
take a look back and see where it all began:

The situation Taiwan finds itself in has its
origin in the Chinese Civil War which took

(It was a war between the conservative forces
of the Chinese Nationalist Party led by Chiang

Kai-shek and the forces of the Communist Party
of Mao Tse-Tung).

On 10th December 1949, the last city, Chengdu,
fell into hands of the nationalists...

The war had ended and the Communists had gotten
their way.

Shortly before Chengdu fell, a plane carrying
the nationalist leader, Chiang Kai-shek, left

bound for Taiwan, the last province under
nationalist control…

(With Chiang Kai-shek, two more million people
took shelter in Taiwan as well as the survivors

Since then, and even though Mao tried to take
the island back, Taiwan has received support

The US continued recognizing the government
of the island as the legitimate government

As a curious note, Taiwan is the only country,
other than the US that has continually operated

Their mission was to monitor Mao's China.

The CIA itself was actually in charge of conducting
these operations.

1979 is an important date… at that time
the United States was trying to build trust

with Beijing, in order to create some form
of double envelopment against the Soviet Union.

We actually talked about this in a previous
video, I'll leave a link to that in the

Well, the thing is, in 1979, the President
of The United States, Jimmy Carter, decided

to establish diplomatic relations with Beijing,
and that meant they had to stop recognizing

the government of the Republic of China, that
is, the government based in Taipei.

You see, Taiwan never declared its independence...

For years, the government in Taipei kept the
considering itself as the legitimate government

And, of course, a country can only have, diplomatically
speaking, one government.

And yep, that is how the One-China policy
started and today this is supported by Washington

This is a change, by the way, that caused
Taiwan to lose its place in the UN as well

as other important international organisations.

But, it is true that the United States was
still committed to the security of Taiwan.

That same year, in 1979, the American congress
passed the Taiwan Relations Act.

This was a document that, among other things,
reserved the option for the US to ensure the

And since that act was passed, the US has
done just that.

But as I was saying at the beginning of this
video, none of these things have kept Taiwan

from being the star of one of the greatest
stories of economic and social success.

In the 1950s, Taiwan was a very poor place…

It had a pretty rudimentary economy, where
there exports were mostly basic products like

So the question at the time was: How to develop
such a poor island?

Well, the Taiwanese government thought the
best way to achieve success was to ensure

that the businesses on the island could sell
their products all over the world.

This was considered to be the best way to
open the island to the world and even encourage

Yep, it might seem counter intuitive, but
this action does actually encourage saving…

In order to invest you first need to get the
resources necessary to do so.

The government of the island soon started
to eliminate almost all import restrictions.

This meant that businesses could get all the
products required to set up their businesses

and assembly lines without being stung by
import fees.

This is sort of similar to what Singapore
did.

Besides, this culture of saving added to the
legal certainty of the country, and encouraged

Soon, Taiwanese companies started to appear
like mushrooms after the rain, and they exported

all kinds of products to the rest of the world.

In 1980, industrial products were already
90% of the country's exports and they were

Taiwan, dear viewer, sold all kinds of things
to the world: toys, radios, bikes, socks…

And of course, as you can imagine, with that
sort of situation, the per capita income didn´t

And with that a new Asian Tiger was born.

Now, do not think this was an easy process.

Taiwan didn´t become a democracy until the
1990s.

But, once they got freedom, the Taiwanese
people, they held onto it very tightly...

Taiwan is today the eleventh freest economy
in the world.

In Asia, only Hong Kong and Singapore rank
better.

It is a rich country, with quite a high standard
of living, and it is one of the countries

that has a significant number of civil liberties.

And, in fact, Taiwan is about to make history:
“Taiwan court rules in favour of same sex

marriage in historic first for an Asian country”

So, as you can see, compared with continental
China… well there really is no comparison...

In terms of per capita income, the Taiwanese
are today three times richer than the Chinese,

But, alright, in spite of all this good stuff
there are still some clouds on the horizon...

The truth is that, in the last few years,
the country has been going through a few things...

Salaries have been frozen for years, and in
2015, the country went through a small recession.

Since then… economic growth has been very
slow.

And now the rather obvious question has to
be: What exactly is happening?

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Why Is TAIWAN Threatened By CHINA? - VisualPolitik EN

recognize

situation

average

consider