Taiwan's contested statehood

Abstract

This article seeks to understand, from an analytical point of view, the various facets of statehood that underpin the case of Taiwan on the international stage. It shows how Taiwan's unrecognized statehood is rooted in the specificity of China's territorial partition and examines logics of exclusion and inclusion in a historical perspective. The exclusion of Taiwan, both at the multilateral and bilateral levels, in the 1970s has been followed by its inclusion, albeit only at the bilateral level, with the reforming of state-to-state relations, yet without state recognition. These logics are consistent with two different approaches to the concept of the state. On the one hand, a legal approach fetishizing the state explains Taiwan's exclusion at the multilateral level. On the other hand, at the bilateral level, concrete practices through which states enter into relations suggest turning to a sociological approach to the state, to the paradigm of the legal-rational legitimacy, and to refine the division between the official and the unofficial. Finally, the article shows that far from being mutually exclusive, logics of exclusion and inclusion stand along a continuum that maintains Taiwan as a long-lasting exception on the international stage.