One-China Policy

The One-China policy (simplified Chinese: 一个中国政策; traditional Chinese: 一個中國政策 ; pinyin: yī gè Zhōngguó zhèngcè) refers to the 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) must break official relations with the Republic of China (ROC), and vice versa. Hence, all the countries recognizing the ROC recognize it as the sole legitimate representative of all of China, and not just the island of Taiwan and other islands which it controls. Similarly, all states that recognise the PRC either recognise the PRC as the legitimate representative of Taiwan or acknowledge the PRC's views on the matter—the latter is the position adopted by the United States, which prefers to leave that question ambiguous.

The One China policy is also different from the "One China" principle (一個中國原則/一个中国原则), which is the principle that insists both Taiwan and mainland China are inalienable parts of a single "China". A modified form of the "One China" principle known as the 1992 Consensus is the current policy of both the PRC and ROC governments. Under this consensus, both governments agree that there is only one sovereign state encompassing both mainland China and Taiwan, but disagree about which of the two governments is the legitimate government of this state.

The One-China principle faces opposition from the movement for Taiwan independence, which pushes to establish Republic of Taiwan and cultivate a separate identity apart from China called Taiwanization. Taiwanization's influence on the government of the ROC has caused instability: after the Communist Party of China expelled the ROC in the Chinese Civil War from most of Chinese territory in 1949 and founded the PRC, the ROC's Chinese Nationalist government, which still held Taiwan, continued to claim legitimacy as the government of all of China. Under former President Lee Teng-hui, Additional Articles were appended to the ROC constitution in 1991 so that it applied effectively only to the Taiwan Area prior to national unification. However, current ROC President Ma Ying-jeou has re-asserted claims on mainland China as recently as October 8, 2008.