John West
Among the most complex foreign policy challenges facing President Donald Trump following his inauguration on 20 January will be relations with China and the U.S.’s position relative to Taiwan.
Perhaps no better book informs political debate and public opinion than Kerry Brown’s The Taiwan Story: How a small island will dictate the global future (Viking, 2024). Brown is a prolific author of books on Chinese politics, currently based at King’s College, London, following a stint at the University of Sydney.
The Taiwan Story begins with the Chinese Civil War (1945–49), in which Mao Zedong’s communists ousted Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalists from the mainland and establish the People’s Republic of China. Chiang’s forces retreated to the island of Taiwan as the Republic of China. The U.S. government sided with the Republic of China, with which it maintained diplomatic relations, not recognising Beijing.
The story evolves when the U.S. switches recognition from Taipei to Beijing, following the 1972 visit to China by U.S. President Richard Nixon and his national security advisor, Henry Kissinger. Thus began the U.S. ‘acknowledgement’ of the one-China policy. According to the Shanghai Communique of 1972, ‘the United States acknowledges that Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China.’
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