One-China Policy - Evolution of The Policy

Evolution of The Policy

One interpretation, which was adopted during the Cold War, is that either the PRC or the ROC is the sole rightful government of all China and that the other government is illegitimate. While much of the western bloc maintained relations with the ROC until the 1970s under this policy, much of the eastern bloc maintained relations with the PRC. While the government of the ROC considered itself the remaining holdout of the legitimate government of a country overrun by what it thought of as Communist rebels, the PRC claimed to have succeeded the ROC in the Chinese Civil War. Though the ROC no longer portrays itself as the sole legitimate government of China, the position of the PRC remained unchanged until the early 2000s, when the PRC began to soften its position on this issue to promote Chinese reunification.

The revised position of the PRC was made clear in the Anti-Secession Law of 2005, which although stating that there is one China whose sovereignty is indivisible, does not explicitly identify this China with the PRC. (Almost all PRC laws have a suffix (prefix in Chinese grammar) "of the People's Republic of China" in their official names, but the Anti-Secession Law is an exception.) Beijing has made no major statements after 2004 which identify one China with the PRC and has shifted its definition of one China slightly to encompass a concept called the '1992 Consensus': both sides of the Taiwan strait recognise there is only one China — both mainland China and Taiwan belong to the same China, but agree to differ on the definition of that one China.

One interpretation of one China is that there exist only three geographical regions of China, which were split between two Chinese governments by the Chinese Civil War. This is largely the position of current supporters of Chinese reunification in Mainland China who believe that this "one China" should eventually reunite under a single government. Starting in 2005, this position has become close enough to the positions of the PRC to allow for high-level dialogue between the Communist Party of China and the Pan-Blue Coalition of the ROC.