Excerpt
June 2023, Opinion: "The Present Taiwan crisis results from the disintegration of the Taiwan peace deal of the 1970s. Each side blames the other, of course, but both have broken vital agreements. After the Chinese communists defeated the Guomindang in 1949, and the vanquished government moved to Taiwan, Washington decided to allow the Chinese civil war to proceed to its seemingly inexorable conclusion, namely Communist conquest of Taiwan and the final defeat of Chiang Kai-shek. Taiwan was seen as a Japanese colonial conquest from China that had to be given back. However, when North Korea invaded South Korea the following year, with support from the Soviet Union and China, Washington feared the beginning of a global communist offensive and cordoned off Taiwan. In 1954, the US and the Republic of China on Taiwan signed a formal alliance. "