Eyck Freymann

actively administered by the center.

The Qing pretty quickly lost control over the fringes of their empire.

And then the Japanese took it in the Sino-Japanese War in 1895.

And the Japanese developed it.

The Japanese industrialized.

They left a mark on it.

And unlike other places that the Japanese colonized, like Korea, where their colonization was brutal, in Taiwan, they left relatively good feelings.

So all through the first half of the 20th century,

when the communists and the nationalists were fighting on the mainland, Taiwan was under Japanese control.

And then the question is, after Japan surrendered in 1945, who did they surrender it to?

And was the status of Taiwan decided after Japan's surrender?

And the US position is legally it remains unresolved.

It remains unresolved who

Japan surrendered it too.

So the US position is we don't actually take a view on what the true status of Taiwan is.

This is something for Taipei and Beijing to work out between themselves.

And we're open to any outcome, but it has to be done peacefully.

So no force and no coercion.

And since Taiwan's become a democracy, it has to be democratically acceptable to the people of Taiwan.

And that's a principled position, which is really about the stability of the broader region.