Two China Policy

So, what's better than one China?

Why, two China's of course!

As best understood, the "One China Policy" refers to the something something policy or view that there is only one state called "China", despite the existence of two governments that claim to be "China". As a policy, this means that countries seeking diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China (PRC, Mainland China) must break official relations with the Republic of China (ROC, Taiwan) and vice versa.

The amoral corrupt cult of Realpolitik developed this ancient policy way back in the Cold War as a way to reassure, nurture and contain the Earth's largest Collective nation state.

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. 

While the U.S. officially adheres to the one-China policy, it practices a de facto two-China policy. Under the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, the U.S. sells Taiwan military weapons, and the language of the act warns the People's Republic that any coercive unification efforts would be "of grave concern to the United States."

Beginning in the late 1980s, the two Chinas flouted their one-China policies by establishing economic and cultural but not political ties. Last summer Taiwan's President Lee Teng-hui upset this delicate balance by referring to the "state to state relations" between Taipei and Beijing.

Chen Shui-bian, elected Taiwan's president in March on a pro-independence platform, has continued to pay lip service to independence--two Chinas--but, out of fear of provoking China, has refrained from explicitly repudiating the one-China policy.

Since Red China is acting out - seizing International turf, failing to handle North Korea and generally P.O.ing all her neighbors (except maybe Pakistan), it may be time to coax desired behavior from her with a new schoolmix called the Two China Policy