Why did Mao Zedong not insist on retaking Taiwan?

From "Mao Zedong Comments on the Twenty-Four Histories", there is a story:

In March 1966, in a conversation at a small meeting in Hangzhou, Mao Zedong said: Cao Cao is still a very good person. He beat Yuan Shao, especially Wuhuan, and entered more than 500 li to the northeast Qian'an area. Go to Liaoyang to fight Gongsun Kang. So Yuan Shao's son Yuan Shang and others wanted to murder Gongsun Kang. Gongsun Kang killed the Yuan Shang brothers and gave them to Cao Cao.

I think from Mao Zedong's appreciation of Cao Cao's strategic move, we can speculate why he didn't insist on retaking Taiwan.

In 1949, Chiang Kai-shek was defeated and retreated to Taiwan. The situation was just like Yuan Shao in the Guandu and Cangting wars, but fortunately Jiang Gong was stronger than Yuan Shao after all. Sit tight, and immediately set up the "Working Committee behind the Enemy" and the "Mainland Guerrilla Command" to be responsible for harassing and infiltrating the mainland.

It should be noted that at this time, the strategic positions of him and Mao Zedong underwent an important reversal.

From the establishment of the CCP in 1921 to the victory of the Chinese mainland in 1949, for more than 20 years, Chiang and his Nationalist government have always been the nominal rulers of China, while Mao and the CCP have always been an opposition. .

Being a ruler is different from being an opponent. The biggest difference is reflected in the strategic goals. The ruler is naturally burdened with heavier shackles than the opposition.

As long as the opposition's political organization survives and has not abandoned its common goals because of internal struggles, it cannot be concluded that it has failed.

But for the ruler, if he wants to ensure that his legitimacy is always recognized by the majority, its strategic goal must not be as simple as just survival, it must establish and continuously maintain a stable social order—both internal and external of.

Once a ruler proves incapable of providing a stable internal and external order, it can easily be relegated to one of many forces that are no different from the opposition—if the people and local forces have such a judgment, then The rulers can never stop the multi-betting behavior, which often creates a vicious circle that keeps the opposition alive and unable to be eradicated.

This is Lao Jiang's predicament when facing the CCP.

In the confrontation after 1949, the opposition faced by the CCP is still the former ruler. Its roots in the mainland are not too broad, and its weapons are not too sophisticated. In the context of the Cold War, its external support is absolutely impossible. It should not be underestimated, if Mao can't manage a stable internal and external order well, it is not a fantasy for history to reverse the world again.

Therefore, for a long time after 1949, although Mao Zedong did not reluctantly seek to recover Taiwan, during important strategic actions (such as the Korean War), he paid great attention to the movements of Taiwan.

At that time, Taiwan, in the eyes of the top rulers of mainland China, was still an important competitor for the dominance of the whole of China.

In this way, it is understandable that Mao Zedong put aside Taiwan's consideration. An opposition that threatens the ruler has two strategic goals: one is to survive, and the other is to "must replace the current ruler." common goal.

In other words, if an opposition party is to be truly eliminated, it will either be physically destroyed or separated from its heart, and it will no longer be able to unite the common goal of "replacing the current ruler".

Therefore, Mao Zedong's consideration is easy to understand: with the support of the United States, no matter how the mainland's armed forces grow, it is absolutely impossible for the CCP and the mainland government to physically destroy Chiang Kai-shek and all his forces. Even if they can defeat the Golden Horse, Lao Jiang and his core team can still retreat and continue to disgust the mainland in another place, while Lao Mao and the mainland regime have worked hard to bring down Taiwan, but they cannot achieve a more stable internal and external order ( Maybe even worse), the deal is definitely a loss.

So we can only focus on the second essential element of the opposition, which is to find a way to make them no longer insist on being an opposition. This cannot be created by brute force, and even the more force, the more the situation will be reversed. To advance in the direction, the correct way to do it is to create a certain environment, so that the common goal of the opposition can become water without a source and a tree without roots. Jiang's propaganda for counter-attacking the mainland became more and more like a dream bubble as time went by, and it became less popular and was forced to abandon this goal.

Legally, Chiang Kai-shek is the president of the Republic of China, not the president of Taiwan, which is an independent country. Therefore, he must declare that he wants to restore the mainland, and he must also reject or even suppress any ideology that stirs up the independence and establishment of Taiwan. This is related to his personal Morality and patriotism are irrelevant, because otherwise he will have difficulty maintaining his power.

Therefore, when Mao Zedong could not eliminate him, Chiang Kai-shek actually needed Mao Zedong's frequent attention. With the threat from Mao and the mainland, Chiang Kai-shek had sufficient reasons to unify the ideology of the Kuomintang, suppress the opposition in the party and the island, and implement the All kinds of centralized and coercive policies to keep their last power.

Chiang Kai-shek may have never in his life, like after 1949, looked forward to Mao's provocation and confrontation. He once unified the Central Plains and became the communist leader of China. At that time, Mao Zedong and the Communist Party were the things that Chiang Kai-shek hated the most, and he did not hesitate to launch it. Five sieges to solve this problem, and even in the sixth siege, which was not launched, he planned to use the highly controversial weapon of poison gas.

History seems to be joking with Lao Jiang. After his disastrous defeat, the person and political party he hated the most became the person he most wanted to see in his lower-level reports in his later years.

The enemy is really a good thing. The most recent example is the election at the beginning of this year that constantly promoted a "sense of national subjugation".

But at this time, Mao Zedong cleverly left him in an awkward position.

So Taiwan's history has become what we see today: At first, Lao Jiang was able to control the situation with years of resignation and high-pressure policies, but when it came to Xiao Jiang, it was difficult to convince all factions in the party, and the Jiang family was not allowed to do so. Ended with no second generation, democratization was initiated under pressure from all parties, in exchange for the two entities "Republic of China" and "Kuomintang" that have survived to this day.

We can imagine that if there is no real threat to the mainland, the Jiang family still insists on sticking to the white terror, insisting on family inheritance, and calling for a "counter-attack on the mainland" that makes the younger generation puzzled (the mainland? Where is the mainland? Why? Do you want to counterattack?), then all kinds of contradictions, such as the conflict between the people from other provinces and the people in this province, and the struggle for power and profit within the Kuomintang party, are completely enough to destroy the order in Taiwan, and then the mainland will just reap the benefits.

Even now, the two entities, the "Republic of China" and the "Kuomintang", which rely on democratization to continue, are only lingering on: the identity of the Republic of China is fading day by day in the face of an increasingly strong local identity, while the once mighty Kuomintang , and can only follow the more localized issues of Taiwanese political parties.

Looking at the whole island, there is no political force that can use the "counter-attack on the mainland" as the core issue to call on effective forces like Lao Jiang.

At this point, Taiwan's threat to the Chinese mainland's regime has been forever reduced to a separatist who wants to break away, rather than the once powerful contender for the supremacy of the whole of China.

A good soft knife to kill.

Mao Zedong, who was sitting in Beijing to observe Taiwan, and Cao Cao, who was withdrawing from Liucheng and preparing to watch the fire from the other side, were separated by thousands of years, but they reached an amazing consensus on strategic choices.

---

Read more of my articles:

Personal Blog | Telegram Channel | Matters Creation Station