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Abstract
This paper revisits the status prospects for Taiwan in light of recent events in Kosovo and Tibet. In both cases, and certainly in Taiwan itself, the long standing contest between claims for self determination and the tenacious defence of the principle of the territorial integrity of states has emerged once again to dominate the analysis of these cases. This contest is particularly dramatic in the divided international response to the independence of Kosovo. In the case of Tibet, widespread international support for Tibet is in sharp contrast to the furious and determined resistance of China. Taiwan's anomalous status remains that of a legal sovereign state, the Republic of China, enjoying some measure of recognition and formal diplomacy and a de facto state whose international relations are confined to paradiplomatic channels, extensive though they are. The paper considers the prospects for changes in the current anomalous status of the island state.
Keywords: Taiwan, China, statehood, sovereignty, de facto states, self-determination, secession
© 2008 - Institute of Island Studies, University of Prince Edward Island, Canada.
Introduction
In the early days of 2008, major political events in peripheral areas thousands of miles apart sparked renewed debate over central issues at the root of norms and practices in the international system. The independence of the former autonomous republic of Kosovo in Serbia ignited a major debate over the requisite elements of statehood, even among those states normally at one on such issues: the European Union, the Atlantic alliance and the larger world of Western democracies. Most were immediately responsive in favour of Kosovo's declaration of independence on February 17: France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy and the United States; indeed a clear majority of Atlantic partners (Hamilton, 2008). Even Canada, which has had a long history of opposing any movement that might be seen as a precedent for secession, even in little Nevis, soon joined the larger Western lobby for Kosovo. But, there were still major states within the Western group which sided with China and Russia in the view that the recognition of Kosovo as an independent state would set a precedent for scores of other separatist movements or de facto governments in place with similar claims (Kulish & Chivers, 2008; BBC News, 2008). For Russia, the...