Timeline of China-Taiwan relations
BEIJING (AP) — China and Taiwan have been separately ruled since the Chinese civil war of the 1940s, but China claims sovereignty over the island and insists the two sides eventually unify. The status of Taiwan became an issue this weekend after President-elect Donald Trump broke with long-standing tradition and directly spoke with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, drawing an irritated response from China.
A timeline of China-Taiwan relations:
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January 1979: Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping offers the concepts of “one country, two systems” and “peaceful unification” as possible alternatives to a military attack on Taiwan.
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April 1979: Taiwan’s Nationalist Party leader Chiang Ching-kuo comes out with a “Three No’s” policy on ties China: no compromise, contact or negotiation.
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November 1992: Semi-official negotiating bodies from China and Taiwan reach the 1992 Consensus. It obligates both sides to hold any talks as parts of a single China, but allows each to interpret “China” in its own way according to political pressures at home.
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March 1996: China conducts missile exercises offshore aimed at intimidating Taiwanese against voting for Lee Teng-hui, who angered China with moves to assert Taiwan’s separate status. He is elected.
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July 1999: Lee Teng-hui suggests that China and Taiwan form “special state-to-state relations,” angering Beijing.
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January 2001: Despite enmity, the two sides introduce postal, transportation and trade links between southeastern China and Taiwan’s outlying islands.
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April 2005: Nationalist Party Chairman Lien Chan visits China and meets Communist Party General Secretary Hu Jintao in Beijing. The visit marked the first meeting between the heads of the rival parties in 60 years.
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May 2008: Nationalist Party-backed President Ma Ying-jeou takes office and sets aside political disputes with China to discuss deals on tourism and commercial flights.
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June 2010: China and Taiwan sign an economic cooperation framework agreement, stimulating two-way trade.
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March 2014: University students occupy parliament in Taipei to block ratification of a service trade liberalization deal because of wariness over the level of control China will exert on Taiwan.
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November 2015: Presidents of China and Taiwan make history when they meet for the first time in Singapore.
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January 2016: Tsai Ing-wen of pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party is elected the first female president of Taiwan.
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June 2016: Beijing says it has cut off diplomatic contact with Taiwan because of President Tsai Ing-wen’s refusal to endorse the concept of a single Chinese nation.
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November 2016: Chinese President Xi Jinping meets with Taiwan’s opposition leader, Nationalist Party Chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu.
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December 2016: Trump and Taiwan’s president talk on the phone. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi calls the contact “just a small trick by Taiwan” and says he doesn’t believe it would change U.S. policy toward China.