WI: Taiwan Formally Declares Independence

What if sometime during the late 20th century, Taiwan declared its independence formally from the People's Republic of China?
 
That could possibly happen if the nationalist leadership doesn't make to Taiwan other than that, the nationalists aren't gonna just roll, but even then China wouldn't accept it.
 
What if sometime during the late 20th century, Taiwan declared its independence formally from the People's Republic of China?

if before 1972, they probably can do it. But it requires the KMT to give up their goal of return, and I am not sure that would be easy. They were running Taiwan well into the 1990s, and that was their primary purpose until that time.
 
Technically speaking, since Taiwan is recognized as a part of the PRC for the sake of having beneficial relations with China, Taiwan declaring independence would give China the casus belli to establish its supremacy there, since Taiwan would be a de jure province in rebellion.

Honestly, there's no point to declaring independence for Taiwan.
 
If done early enough, its doable and the USA and China can go ahead and have relations perhaps not on the same timeline as OTL. I'd expect that many countries would accept this and have formal relationships with Taiwan that did not OTL, and this will be beneficial for Taiwan in terms of development. The world dealt with Bangladesh breaking away from Pakistan among others, so Taiwan doing same with China not a reach at all (there are other examples).

After a certain point, either the Nixon visit, or with the development of Chinese military capabilities, the threat of Chinese action against Taiwan if independence declared becomes a real issue. IMHO a declaration of independence no later than 1970, and a defense treaty between the USA and Taiwan can make this happen.
 
Technically speaking, since Taiwan is recognized as a part of the PRC for the sake of having beneficial relations with China, Taiwan declaring independence would give China the casus belli to establish its supremacy there, since Taiwan would be a de jure province in rebellion.

Honestly, there's no point to declaring independence for Taiwan.

So long as it's any time up to and including Clinton's presidency, the US can and will intervene to prevent any PRC aggression, as it did during the three Taiwan crises.
 
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