Original subtitles

If China and Taiwan got dragged into this conflict

then we're going to invite conflict with Japan, with the US,

with, for example, China's partners, Russia, for example.

All of these things means that it's going to be a major conflict

if it were ever to break out. Hello, it's Hannah here.

And this is What in the World, your podcast for the stories

that get people talking from the BBC World Service.

Taiwan is an island about 180km off the coast of China.

Nearly 24 million people live there,

and it's also right at the centre of a huge global row.

And whatever happens there could affect your whole online life,

because Taiwan makes most of the world's computer chips,

which power your phone, your laptop, your AI apps, electric cars.

So what is going on? Well, Taiwan is self-governed,

but China claims that it's part of its territory, and Taiwan is worried

that China could be preparing to take the island by force.

So today on the podcast, you're going to hear how this island has become

the focus of so much attention and why it matters to all of us.

And here with me in the studio to break it down is Shawn Yuan from

the BBC's Global China unit. Hello. Welcome back.

Hello. Nice to be back. So there's a lot of talk online

about World War three kicking off between China and Taiwan.

And people are worried about it. What is actually going on?

I think the paranoia about World War three is obviously there, as you said,

and the issue of Taiwan has always been there for a really, really long time.

This island is self-governed, and a lot of Taiwanese people do see them

as part of an independent nation.

But at the same time, China does see as part of its territory.

And XI Jinping, which is China's president, might be able to use it

as part of his legacy to retake Taiwan.

And according to analysts, this is what he sees as the end

of the century of humiliation for China.

This is quite a complex issue, and I want to break it down.

So first of all, why is China so fixated on Taiwan?

So Taiwan was part of China

before this whole saga between those two parties emerged.

And then during the World War Two,

both the Nationalist Party and the Communist Party fought side by side

against the Japanese imperial power.

After China won the war, they engaged in civil war,

and after the Civil War, the Communist Party actually won that war

and the Nationalist Party actually went to Taipei, went to Taiwan,

and sort of set up a camp there. And then starting that point on,

we had this division between the mainland China and Taiwan,

and Taiwan internationally has been called, officially,

Republic of China (Taiwan), whereas we have the Beijing government,

which is People's Republic of China, which might sound very confusing,

but, you know, just for the sake of clarity, I think

it's important to sort of point out those two things.

And at the same time, we're talking about global trade.

For example, control of the Taiwan Strait

is very important for global trade.

And as you mentioned earlier, Taiwan produces a lot of semiconductor chips.

So being able to sort of capture Taiwan,

being being able to fixate it on Taiwan is also an economic concern as well.

How did Taiwanese people see themselves? What do they want for their island?

That's a really important question to to answer, to be honest,

because right now, whenever we talk about the issue of Taiwan,

we always seem to be talking about in this high level geopolitics.

But if you talk to Taiwanese, I think

the overwhelming idea is that, you know, they want to retain their sort of

self-governance, this democratically governed island.

But at the same time, if you talk to, say,

the the young people in Taiwan right now who are very into politics,

obviously, what they care about the most is the economy,

what they care about the most is sort of the stable life

that they will probably be able to enjoy right now.

So a lot of them might want to retain the status quo,

which is we're not officially declaring independence from China.

But at the same time, we do not want to reunite with China either.

And, Shawn, we've also been hearing from a Taiwanese person about how they feel about their identity.

Hi, I'm Yi-Ting. I'm a history PhD student at Stanford University.

In today's geopolitical climate, calling yourself

Taiwanese is inherently a political statement,

but for me, it's also simply part of my everyday life.

I am unapologetically Taiwanese when people ask me, “Where are you from?”

or, more explicitly, “Are you Chinese?”

For now I can still separate my feelings

toward the Chinese government and the Chinese people.

For the Chinese government, my feelings are

without questions, rooted in anger, anger at its continued disregard

for Taiwanese voices and at the way it has threatened and bullied Taiwan.

We've heard what Beijing wants, really.

It wants to take Taiwan and have it for its own,

with all of its industry and all of the other reasons.

But is that just the official line,

or is that something that, you know, younger people want as well?

Is there a generational divide in how people in China think

about Taiwan and its relationship with China?

Sort of is.

The issue of Taiwan has been deeply ingrained in people's minds in China,

like in our textbook, for example, almost all the opening lines will be

whenever we talk about Taiwan, the opening line will always be Taiwan

is part of China and has always been part of China.

And the reunification between Taiwan and China is important

for the glory of Chinese history.

Even the word reunification. Exactly.

So that has been repetitively sort of drilled into people's mind.

But that's not to say there's no generational divide.

For example, my generation, people grew up listening to Taiwanese music,

for example, and they watched the Taiwanese TV series.

I'm surprised you said that you grew up listening to Taiwanese music because,

Shawn, you and I have talked about internet censorship in China before.

The Great Firewall of China, as it's called.

Are you allowed to listen to Taiwanese music and access like that kind of cultural stuff?

Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think one thing that Taiwanese pop culture

has been doing quite well is that it kind of steers away from politics.

You know, like if I were talking about Taiwanese series

or music, mostly about love,

that sort of was the defining chapter of our childhood, you know,

like we'll go back home and watch those Taiwanese series.

So, yeah, I think we're still able to to watch them as long as they stay away

from the the subject of politics.

And, Sean, we have actually been hearing from a Chinese student in the US.

This is Rongzhi.

I grew up in the early 2000, in China,

and I think what I really remember was things were very friendly

between China and Taiwan at the time.

There was definitely a lot of Taiwanese TV shows that we would watch,

and definitely lots of Taiwanese musicians were very popular, right?

I think one of the funny things is that I think,

like a Taiwanese accent was perceived as a very sort of cool accent, right?

If you spoke Mandarin in that accent. In my personal experience,

still lots of Taiwanese friends who who hang out in China,

who have businesses in China. That's pretty big.

A lot of them open up Taiwanese restaurants.

I don't really see that affected as much.

I think there's still, in general, an interest in

and a love for Taiwanese culture, Taiwanese food.

So I think things aren't as tense. And I think people in general,

have kind of an understanding that,

you know, maybe politics is kind of off the table

when you speak to a Taiwanese person that you don't know very well.

For the young people who I know, people are generally kind of,

you know, more interested in more personal

and cultural interactions

as opposed to kind of these big political sort of

tensions. There are only a few countries actually

that officially recognise Taiwan, and that doesn't include the US.

What is the dynamic between Taiwan and the US?

Yeah, that's quite interesting because, sort of

the principal foreign policy when it comes to China is

if you want to have diplomatic relationship with China,

you have to subscribe to what's so-called one-China policy,

one-China principle, one-China policy, however you might call it.

And what that means is that the foreign country, the foreign government has

to recognise the Beijing government instead of a government in Taipei.

Taipei is where the Taiwanese government sits, and

they will recognise Taipei, Taiwan as part of China,

and US subscribes to that as well.

Back in 1970s, the US severed ties with Taiwan,

saying that we're going to recognise Beijing as the sole government of China.

But at the same time, the US does provide a lot

of logistic support when it comes to self-defence, to Taiwan,

and Taiwan buys a lot of military equipment from the US as well.

And I think it's quite important to, going back

to what you said at the beginning of the question,

there are very - only 12 countries that recognise Taiwan right now.

All countries are very, very small.

And I personally actually just went to one of the countries just last month,

being Palau, which is a small Pacific island nation that have

20 about 20000 people, very small one.

And that country, if you go there, you can see exactly what

it means to be an ally of Taiwan,

because China, the People's Republic of China, the Beijing government,

does not have any diplomatic presence there.

And China has been using different tools

to sort of pressure Palau into severing ties with Taiwan.

Back in - towards the end of 2017,

because Palau refused to sever ties with Taiwan

to recognise the Beijing government.

China ordered all the tour operators to stop selling packages to Palau,

and the number of visitors soon plummeted

and that really hurt Palau's economy.

I want to get back to Taiwan, which has this unclear status, shall we say.

What does that mean - that lack of clarity - mean for Taiwan itself?

It's a tricky situation for them as well.

For example, they are able to compete in the Olympics,

but not as a sovereign state of Taiwan.

They have to use the name Chinese Taipei, for example.

And in international organisations,

for example, W.H.O., where China does wage huge influence,

they're not able to come in being as an independent member state.

All of that is to say, Taiwan operates in a very peculiar sort

of situation where it is recognised, but not really.

And this has been going on for a long time.

And and China hasn't ruled out taking Taiwan by force.

Taiwan is now ramping up its defenses.

But it's not just on a military level, is it?

Because China also uses these disinformation campaigns,

all kinds of soft power to try and and sway Taiwan.

What does that look like for people living in Taiwan?

How does it show up on their phones, their feeds and social media?

Back in 2024, for example, during the election cycle in Taiwan,

you saw a lot of AI deepfake videos,

saying - coming from different candidates, supporting other candidates

who are more pro-Beijing, more against Taiwanese independence.

And those videos oftentimes were fake, for example,

and certain candidates have come out and said, "Oh, I never said that.

It's all deepfake." And at the same time, you have, for example, you have

those very professional looking news anchors talking about, oh,

'this is what happened today on social media', and if you dig into it,

those talking points are very, very pro-Beijing as well.

And oftentimes those are not really journalists.

They're probably influencers coming in from China,

being hired from Chinese government, for example.

Those things are very, very rampant across Taiwanese society.

So as you said, not just the military part.

The misinformation part is definitely playing out across the island.

And if we go back to the military part, how likely is it

that China will actually invade Taiwan?

I think as someone who covers China, I get asked that question

quite literally every single day. Especially given the fact,

you know, the tension of Taiwan has really risen up recently.

That's the question a lot of analysts have been asking themselves as well.

XI Jinping has been looking very closely at the war in Ukraine, for example.

The invasion of Ukraine by Russia was something

that XI Jinping could use as sort of blueprint or prototype

of what could happen if China were to invade Taiwan.

And of course, we're seeing what's happening in Ukraine right now,

both parties, all parties are kind of in this protracted conflict.

And that's not what China wants either. According to most analysts,

China is probably going to be able to use blockade instead

of full on invasion in order to achieve the goal of unification,

because it does understand the risks associated with it,

not just on the fact that it will become an international pariah

like Russia did, for example.

So to completely just invade Taiwan using its military might

within the next couple of years might not necessarily be likely.

But over the past few months, we're seeing the rhetoric is getting stronger.

And what about blockade? What would that look like for citizens.

If China were to blockade, for example, the Taiwan Strait,

using military vessels or whatever it might be?

Food, water, all those essentials might be difficult to get

into Taiwan and that might be the first step.

But on the information front, a lot of cables,

for example, are going under the water of Taiwan Strait.

And if China is able to block the information coming in and out of Taiwan,

that's going to be disastrous for Taiwan as well.

And if China and Taiwan got dragged into this conflict,

we're going to invite conflict with Japan, with the US,

with, for example, China's partners, Russia, for example.

All of the things means that it's going to be a major conflict

if it were ever to break out. But in terms of the tangible effects,

as I said earlier, Taiwan Strait is a very important global trade route.

If a war broke out there, the global trade is going to be completely disrupted.

And the semiconductors, for example, we're talking about that earlier.

If the war broke out between China and Taiwan,

the semiconductor, the company that's based in Taiwan,

is producing most of the world's semiconductors,

might not be producing producing those chips anymore.

We might not be able to get new phones, or it might take ages to get new phones.

And the internet is going to be affected, of course, as well.

Yeah.

So it's not just, you know, generals and politicians watching the space,

tech CEOs will also be watching closely too.

Shawn, thank you so much. Thank you for having me.

That's it from us. But if you like this episode, we have

plenty more right here on the BBC World Service YouTube channel.

And while you're here, please give us a like, subscribe

and drop us a comment below. We'd love to hear from you!

I'm Hannah, this is What in the World from the BBC World Service.

We'll see you next time.