All language subtitles for [English] Why China and the US are so obsessed with Taiwan _ Mapped Out [DownSub.com].English

Chinese soldiers preparing
for battle.

This is what Beijing wants to show
the world.

With each military drill,
China is drawing ever-closer circles

around Taiwan.

China has a clear goal: to gain
control over the island.

China will surely be reunified.

Are you willing to get involved
militarily to defend Taiwan

if it comes to that?

Yes.

That’s the commitment we made.

The United States is building up its
military presence in the region.

And is practicing how to sink
Chinese ships.

We're not going to come
to an agreement over Taiwan.

Wait for the unification to
be achieved.

Peacefully, I hope.

Not peacefully, I dread.

But why are these two superpowers
so fixated on Taiwan?

What's in it for China and the U.S.?

And how do people
in Taiwan feel about it?

It's Taiwan's location that makes
it a geopolitical flashpoint.

Taiwan has 23 million
inhabitants –

and its main island lies only
130 km away from China's mainland.

These tiny islands right
off the coast are also

under Taiwanese control.

And Chinese military drills
around the whole of Taiwan

are getting bigger and more frequent.

In recent videos released by China's
People's Liberation Army,

Beijing has threatened to
encircle the island.

It sees Taiwan as part of its
territory and says it's ready

to use force, if necessary,
to get it back.

We'll talk more about the history
and Taiwan's status later.

For now, you need to know
that in the late 1940s,

there was a civil war in China
between Communists and Nationalists.

The Communists won and took control
of mainland China.

And the Nationalists fled to Taiwan.

That laid the groundwork
for today's tensions.

The U.S. has an ambiguous policy
towards Taiwan.

Since the late 1970s,
it has recognized Communist Beijing

as the only legitimate
government of China.

But it has informal ties
with Taiwan and is seen

as the island's protector.

Okay.

Let's go back to the map
to understand why the U.S.

and China can't quit Taiwan.

In some ways, Taiwan's strategic
importance is about three chokepoints

around the island.

To the west,
there's the Taiwan Strait.

It's a key trade route
for both Beijing and Taiwan –

and also for everybody else.

Almost all the world's biggest
container ships pass through here.

To the north, the Miyako Strait.

It runs between Taiwan
and these Japanese islands.

And in the south, the Bashi Strait.

It runs between Taiwan
and the Philippines.

For China, these two straits
on either side of Taiwan

are key strategic gateways
to the Pacific Ocean.

Taiwan is in the middle
of the Chinese coastline,

which is very important.

This is Victor Gao.

He is a former Chinese diplomat
and vice-president of

the Center for China and Globalization,
a Beijing think-tank some say

is close to the Chinese Communist Party.

Taiwan Island faces the Pacific
directly, and if Taiwan is occupied

by a foreign country, for example,
it interrupts the continuity

of the Chinese coastline and
also prevents the Chinese access

directly to the Pacific Ocean.

The U.S. says it has no troops
permanently stationed in Taiwan

but the island plays
an important role in U.S. strategy.

To understand why, let's look
at the military bases in the region.

Here are some of China's main
naval bases close to its coast.

And the U.S. has some of its key bases
in South Korea,

Japan, and the Philippines.

If you connect the dots,
you'll see the U.S. bases form a chain.

Taiwan sits at the heart
of what we call in the United States

the 'first island chain'.

David Sacks is an expert
at the Council on Foreign Relations,

a think-tank in New York City.

In the past, he worked
at the American Institute in Taiwan,

which serves as the de facto
U.S. embassy on the island.

If you look at
the first island chain,

these are all formal treaty allies
of the United States, or

close partners, in the case of Taiwan.

And with that the way it is, the
United States can project power close

to China's shores, protect its allies
and its interests.

Conversely, it's very difficult for
the Chinese military to project power

outside of the first island chain
and threaten the United States

physically or our interests
in the Indo-Pacific.

To strengthen this 'island chain',
the U.S. is expanding

military cooperation with Japan
and the Philippines,

which are also wary of what they see
as China's expansionist goals.

For example, just last year the
U.S. gained access to military bases

in the north of the Philippines.

Right next to the Bashi Strait,
one of those Chinese gateways

to the Pacific Ocean we mentioned.

Here you can see American
and Philippine troops conducting

exercises in the waters nearby
earlier this year.

They even sank an old Chinese-built
ship that the Philippine navy

used in the past:

a clear message to Beijing.

And obviously, China is not happy
about the U.S. 'island chain' strategy.

Come on!

We are not living
in the 19th century.

We are not living
in the imperialist century.

Using this outmoded way
of thinking as if you can

set up a chain to block, for example,
China from accessing

the Pacific Ocean, is ludicrous.

Beijing is rapidly modernizing its navy,
in part to be able to

break through the chain of U.S. allies.

For example,
with the 'Fujian' aircraft carrier.

Here it is on sea trials
earlier this year.

It's China's third aircraft carrier
and the biggest ship

in the Chinese navy.

The number one objective here
is to keep the United States

out of the region during a conflict.

So, what we call 'anti-access/area
denial': Prevent the United States

from being able to defend
our treaty allies and partners.

So to sum up:
Taiwan's location makes it essential

to both sides as they try to gain
the upper hand in the region.

But the rivalry is also about money.

Big money.

Economically, the small island
also has an outsize importance

for both China and the U.S. – even though
neither officially recognizes

Taiwan as a country.

Both China and the U.S. have
significant trade links with Taiwan.

And much of that business comes
from just one company:

TSMC –

Taiwan Semiconductor
Manufacturing Company.

It produces microchips.

Taiwan makes 90 % of the
most advanced ones in the world.

Both the U.S. and China
are dependent on them.

And so is everybody else.

There's a good chance TSMC's
semiconductors are in the device

that you're using to watch
this video right now.

They are in new cars,

fridges,

and fighter jets.

Everywhere.

They're needed to develop
new AI models.

And U.S. leaders worry that losing
Taiwan to China could

permanently shift economic tides
against them.

We don't assume that a region
under Chinese hegemony would be open

to U.S. trade and investment.

I think that China
would reorder the region.

They want the United States to
basically supply them

with raw materials that are turned
into manufactured goods in China

and then sold all over the world.

And there isn't really a role
for the United States or

other industrialized countries in that.

The Chinese economy is already larger
than that of the United States

if we use purchasing power parity.

China produced more
than 30 million cars in 2023.

The Americans probably produced
less than half of that.

So why should anyone believe,
they can have some benefit

of picking a fight with China?

No, there is no benefit.

China does not look
at Taiwan from an economic

or commercial perspective.

So why is Taiwan so important
to Beijing then?

To understand, let's dive
back into history.

China lost control over Taiwan
during what it calls

the 'Century of Humiliation' –

these caricatures of China
being carved up

by various foreign powers
might explain why.

From the mid-19th
until the mid-20th century,

China was plagued by invasions
and internal disputes.

This is important,
because that notion

of humiliation still plays a big role
in Chinese state ideology even today.

In 1895, Japan took Taiwan from China
and made it a colony.

After World War II, the Allies forced
Japan to give it back.

But at the time,
China was in the middle

of a civil war:

The government of the Republic of China,

or ROC, was led by Nationalists
under Chiang Kai-Shek.

Mao Zedong led Communist forces
against them.

In 1949, the victorious Communists
marched into Beijing and

established the People's Republic
of China on the mainland.

The defeated government of
the Republic of China fled to Taiwan.

That's why there are two governments
that call themselves 'China':

one on the mainland, the People's
Republic of China, or PRC.

And on Taiwan,
the Republic of China, or ROC.

The PRC government in Beijing sees
Taiwan as a breakaway province

and says there is only one China.

Even though they have never actually
been in charge in Taiwan.

Most of the world accepts this
One China policy, including the U.S.

They don't recognize Taiwan
as an independent country.

Wait.

So why is the U.S.
supporting Taiwan then?

There is also a history to that.

After the Civil War,
the U.S. initially saw

the Nationalist government in Taiwan
as the only real China, rejecting

the Communist government on the mainland.

U.S. soldiers were even stationed in
Taiwan under a common defense pact.

The change came in the 1970s.

The U.S. sought closer relations
with Beijing.

That meant closing the U.S. embassy
in Taiwan and pulling out U.S. troops.

Still, informal ties persisted,
like that de facto embassy.

And the U.S. still guarantees to sell
Taiwan weapons.

But they have
a deliberately ambiguous policy

on whether they would defend Taiwan.

It's meant to prevent China
from invading and

Taiwan from declaring independence.

But that strange limbo has been
the status quo in Taiwan for decades.

And it's created realities
on the ground.

Taiwan developed from
a Nationalist authoritarian regime

into one of the strongest democracies
in the region.

There are elections,

a free press,

and civil liberties.

Taiwan was first in Asia to legalize
same-sex-marriage.

This year a progressive party
was reelected for

a third term, vowing to
maintain that tense status quo.

DW's Taiwan correspondent
Yuchen Li can give us a sense

of things on the ground.

Here in Taiwan,
the atmosphere is very different

from what you might read
in the headlines.

The tension has become part
of daily life.

One key reason is that people
in Taiwan have been living under

the threat of the Chinese
Communist Party for many decades.

The majority of the Taiwanese
prefer to maintain

the status quo with China, but how to
do so is a rather polarized debate.

If China wants to bully us, at least
we still have the U.S. and Japan.

They are our friends.

I've always been
skeptical of America.

But we have no choice, if we can't
get stronger or have enough forces.

It's tricky.

We should have a friendly
relationship with both of them.

It's always been like this.

Ever since the founding of the country,
we've been caught up

in this drama.

But one thing is clear
for many Taiwanese –

Taiwan's voice is usually drowned out.

Amid the U.S.-China rivalry, many feel
that Taiwan is only 'a pawn'

in the game, and
no matter what comes next,

the island should have the right
and autonomy to decide its own fate.

But there is one more factor
that stands in the way of that.

Taiwan represents something
for both superpowers.

Taiwan has embraced the U.S.
worldview, which promotes

democracy and capitalism.

China is a one-party system
and a socialist market economy.

And a major Chinese Communist Party
narrative centers on Taiwan.

Remember the Century of Humiliation
we mentioned, when China lost Taiwan?

Well Chinese President Xi Jinping
sees bringing Taiwan back into

the fold as an important step
in overcoming that humiliation.

This is part of the
so-called 'national rejuvenation',

a revival of the Chinese nation
as a great power.

With Xi Jinping, I think,
you did see some impatience.

Xi Jinping has clearly put himself
forward as a leader of, you know,

world historic importance.

He views himself in a very
similar way, I think,

to Vladimir Putin, that he's
just not a run-of-the-mill leader.

He's transformative.

No one, no country, no single
human being will be able to block

the peaceful reunification of China
or the non-peaceful

reunification of China.

So, we should all call on the United
States: "Don't play with fire!"

But for the U.S., supporting
Taiwan also means keeping up

key alliances in the region
and promoting democracy.

If China were to invade and
annex Taiwan, we would see

that democracy extinguished,
and it could send chilling effects

to democracies around the world.

You would have deep questions
being asked in South Korea,

Japan, and the Philippines
on whether they can rely on

the United States for their security.

Because of where Taiwan is and
what it represents, neither China

nor the U.S. isable back down.

And the rest of us are stuck watching
the superpower rivalry play out.