The CCP’s Plan for Taiwan: Promises, Control, and Erasure

While most discussions on Taiwan-China relations focus on the question of whether China will invade Taiwan, an often overlooked question deserves attention as well: What political system would China impose if it succeeds in gaining control?

Recent events in Ukraine provide a warning. After Russia’s invasion, the Kremlin removed locally elected leaders in cities such as Kherson and Melitopol. It launched a campaign of “passportization,” pressuring residents to accept Russian citizenship under threat of losing access to public services. Russian authorities also revised school curricula to promote loyalty to Moscow and eliminate Ukrainian national identity.

These developments raise critical questions for Taiwan. If China gains control through military action or political agreement, what administrative and ideological systems would follow? What has the Chinese Communist Party promise Taiwan, and how do those promises compare to its actions in other contexts? What would be lost if Taiwan’s current democratic system were dismantled?

The CCP’s Taiwan Promise: China’s 2022 White Paper on Taiwan

Beijing continues to claim that Taiwan will retain a “high degree of autonomy” under the “One Country, Two Systems” formula. At first glance, the promise sounds familiar, even generous. According to the 2022 white paper The Taiwan Question and China’s Reunification in the New Era, Taiwan may “continue its current social system and enjoy a high degree of autonomy,” with its “way of life fully respected”. China frames this proposal as peaceful and pragmatic, a win-win model for stability. But the details tell a different story.

Unlike earlier versions from 1993 and 2000, the 2022 white paper removes several key promises that once suggested genuine self-governance. Missing are guarantees that Taiwan could retain its own military, that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) would stay off the island, or that Taiwan’s administrative and judicial systems would remain independent. These are not minor edits. They reflect a shift in how the CCP envisions full control.

As Xi Jinping declared in his January 2, 2019 policy speech, “The ‘Two Systems’ Taiwan Plan is the best approach for achieving peaceful reunification… But we make no promise to renounce the use of force and reserve the option of taking all necessary means”. In 2024, he reinforced this message: “It’s an irreversible trend… No one can stop the march of history”.

Other senior CCP officials have made similar statements. Song Tao, Director of the Taiwan Affairs Office, said in January 2025 that China would “thoroughly implement the Party’s overall policy for resolving the Taiwan question in the new era” and emphasized that “the motherland will inevitably be reunified”.

Perhaps most revealing is the comment by Lu Shaye, China’s ambassador to France, who said in 2022, “After the reunification, we’ll do re-education… It’s necessary to eliminate separatist thought. They will become patriotic again”.

These are not isolated remarks. They are statements of what the CCP plans to do after taking Taiwan: impose a political transformation and reshape public identity. The so-called autonomy is conditional and revocable. What is being offered is not self-rule, but managed loyalty under surveillance.

To understand how this promise plays out in practice, we can look to the test case China already implemented: Hong Kong.

Hong Kong and the Collapse of the “One Country, Two Systems” Illusion

Beijing’s offer to Taiwan is not abstract. It already has a prototype: Hong Kong. Both are framed under the same model “One Country, Two Systems”. Both come with promises of high autonomy, continued freedoms, and minimal interference.

The CCP promised Hong Kong it could keep its system for fifty years after the 1997 handover. That meant independent courts, free media, open elections, and civil society. Deng Xiaoping himself declared that “horse racing will continue, and dancing parties will go on”. The 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration guaranteed that “Hong Kong’s way of life shall remain unchanged”. The Basic Law made it formal, including a promise of universal suffrage and judicial independence.

But after 2019, Beijing abandoned its own framework. The National People’s Congress Standing Committee, under Chairman Li Zhanshu, rewrote Hong Kong’s election rules. Chief Executive Carrie Lam, backed by Chinese Liaison Office Director Luo Huining, oversaw the purge of the Legislative Council. By 2021, only 22 percent of seats were open to public vote. Every candidate required pre-approval for political loyalty. Voter turnout collapsed to just 30 percent.

The press was next. In June 2021, police raided Apple Daily with 500 officers . Founder Jimmy Lai remains behind bars, denied bail. Stand News, Citizen News, and more than a dozen outlets shut down. Journalists were charged with “sedition”—a term so vague it criminalizes dissent. Over 49 media workers have been arrested since the National Security Law passed.

Civil society followed. The Civil Human Rights Front disbanded under threat. The Hong Kong Professional Teachers’ Union, which represented 90 percent of the city’s educators, was labeled a “malignant tumor” and dismantled. Nearly 100 NGOs dissolved in under two years. The law didn’t just punish individuals. It outlawed entire forms of association.

Hong Kong shows what “One Country, Two Systems” means after acceptance. Taiwan must now ask what happens when the target is not a city, but a sovereign democracy. Because what follows next is not just political control, but cultural erasure.

Ethnic and Identity under CCP Rule: Xinjiang, Tibet, and Inner Mongolia 

In Xinjiang, the Chinese government once promised regional autonomy and protection of religious life. The 1984 Regional Ethnic Autonomy Law guaranteed the right to preserve Uyghur culture and practice Islam. But by 2017, over one million Uyghurs were held in “reeducation” centers. Qurans were confiscated. Mosques were destroyed. Schools stopped teaching in Uyghur. Xi Jinping declared that Islam must be “Sinicized,” and a dense surveillance system was built across the region. 

Tibet was given similar guarantees. After signing the 1951 Seventeen Point Agreement, the Chinese government said it would respect Tibetan religious practices and local rule. Today, monasteries must hang Party flags, and children learn in Mandarin, not Tibetan. The Panchen Lama recognized by the Dalai Lama disappeared in 1995 and was replaced by a state-approved figure. Xi has said Tibetan Buddhism must support “national unity.” 

In Inner Mongolia, the government once supported bilingual education. That changed in 2020, when Mandarin replaced Mongolian in core subjects. Parents, teachers, and students protested, but the state responded with arrests and expulsions. Officials were fired. State media called the protests “resistance to modernization.” The region still has formal autonomy on paper, but when identity clashes with national goals, it is treated as a problem to be removed.

Even in Han-majority areas, religion must align with Party control. Christianity is allowed only in government-approved churches. Independent pastors have been jailed. Underground churches shut down. Crosses removed. Bibles rewritten to match Party doctrine. In Zhejiang and Henan, religious signs were taken down by local authorities. Loyalty, not belief, is the true measure of legitimacy.

Across these cases, the pattern is the same. China promises autonomy, but only under conditions that erase dissent. Language, faith, and identity are allowed only when they serve the state. These are not distant stories. They are lived experiences of groups who were once promised coexistence. Taiwan should understand what is truly at risk.

Taiwan’s Past Holds the Warning: Freedom Can Be Lost Again

Taiwan today is one of Asia’s freest democracies. Citizens vote, protest, publish, and pray without fear. But this freedom was not inherited; it was earned. Under martial law and one-party rule from 1947 to 1992, over 140,000 people were arrested and thousands executed during the White Terror, beginning with the massacre of civilians on February 28, 1947. Taiwan’s democracy rose from this trauma built by people who chose courage over silence.

But if the Chinese Communist Party conquers Taiwan, this hard-won freedom will not survive. Elections may continue, but only for candidates pre-approved by the Party. Journalists who report truthfully will face prison under national security laws. Independent unions, NGOs, and churches like the Presbyterian Church will be dismantled or absorbed. Mandarin will remain but not the freedom to speak truth. Economic and tech innovation will be repurposed for the state.

From Hong Kong and Xinjiang, voices have risen to protect basic rights and warn of what can happen when they are taken away. These warnings are not just history. They are a call to stay alert. What has already been lost elsewhere shows how easy it is to lose everything, freedom is not promised. Taiwan’s democracy is not just a gift from the past. It is a responsibility now.

(Featured photo by Gaston Laborde on Pixabay)