Name: Could China actually invade Taiwan? - What in the World podcast, BBC World Service
Uploaded: 2026-02-12T05:32:27.000Z
Duration: 14 min 52 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

The second conditional

If China and Taiwan got dragged into this conflict, we were going to invite conflict with Japan, with the US with, for example, China's partners, Russia, for example.

All of things means that it's going to be a major conflict if it were ever to break up.

And this is what in the World, your podcast for the stories that get people talking from the BBC World Service.

Taiwan is an island about 180km off the coast of China.

Nearly 24 million people live there, and it's also right at the center of a huge global row.

And whatever happens there could affect your whole online life because Taiwan makes most of the world's computer chips, which power your phone, your laptop, your AI apps, electric cars.

Well, Taiwan is self governed, but China claims that it's part of its territory, and

Taiwan is worried that China could be preparing to take the island by force.

So today on the podcast, you're going to hear how this island has become the focus of so much attention and why it matters to all of us.

And here with me in the studio to break it down is Sean wan from the BBC's Global China unit.

So there's a lot of talk online about World War three kicking off between China and Taiwan, and

I think the paranoia about World War three is obviously there, as you said, and

the issue of Taiwan has always been there for a really, really long time.

a lot of Taiwanese people do see them as part of an independent nation, but

at the same time, China does see as part of his territory.

And Xi Jinping, which is China's president, might be able to use as part of his legacy to retake Taiwan.

And according to analysts, this is what he sees as the end of the century of humiliation for China.

This is quite a complex issue, and I want to break it down.

So first of all, why is China so fixated on Taiwan?

So Taiwan was part of China before this whole saga between those two parties emerged.

And then during the World War II, both the Nationalist Party and the Communist Party fought side by side against the Japanese imperial power.

After China won the war, they engaged in civil war.

And after the civil war, the Communist Party actually won that war, and

the Nationalist Party actually went to Taipei, went to Taiwan and sort of set up a camp there.

And then starting that point on, we had this division between the mainland China and Taiwan, and

Taiwan internationally has been called officially Republic of China, parentheses Taiwan Whereas we have the Beijing government, which is People's Republic of China, which might sound very confusing, but

you know, just for the sake of clarity, I think this, it's important to sort of point out those two things.

And at the same time we're talking about global trade.

For example, control of Taiwan Strait is very important for global trade.

And as you mentioned earlier, Taiwan produces a lot of semiconductor chips.

So being able to sort of capture Taiwan, being being able to fixate it on Taiwan is also an economic concern as well.

That's a sort of, that's really important question to, to answer, to be honest, because right now whenever we talk about the issue of Taiwan, we always seem to be talking about in this high level geopolitics.

But if you talk to Taiwanese, I think the overwhelming idea is that, you know, they want to retain their sort of self governance that this democratically governed island.

But at the same time, if you talk to say the young people in Taiwan right now who are very into politics, obviously what they care about the most is the economy.

What they care about the most is sort of the stable life that they will probably be able to enjoy right now.

So a lot of them might want to retain status quo, which is we're not officially declaring independence from China, but

at the same time we do not want to reunite with China.

And Sean, we've also been hearing from a Taiwanese person about how they feel about their identity.

I'm a history PhD student at Stanford University.

In today's geopolitical climate, calling yourself Taiwanese is inherently a political statement.

But for me, it's also simply part of my everyday life.

I am unapologetically Taiwanese when people ask me, where are you from?

For now, I can still separate my feelings toward the Chinese, Chinese government and the Chinese people.

For the Chinese government, my feelings are without questions, rooted in anger.

Anger at its continued disregard for Taiwanese voices and at the way it has threatened and bullied Taiwan.

It wants to take Taiwan and have it for its own, with all of its industry and all of the other reasons.

But is that just the official line or is that something that, you know, younger people want as well?

Is there a generational divide in how people in China think about Taiwan and its relationship with China?

The issue of Taiwan has been deeply ingrained in people's mind in China.

Like in our textbook, for example, almost all the opening Lines will be.

Whenever we talk about Taiwan, the opening line will always be, Taiwan is part of China and has always been part of China.

And the reunification between Taiwan and China is important for the glory of Chinese history.

So that has been repetitively sort of drilled into people's mind.

But that's not to say there's no generational divide.

For example, my generation, people grew up listening to Taiwanese music, for example, and they.

I'm surprised you said that you grew up listening to Taiwanese music, because, Sean, you and I have talked about Internet censorship in China before.

The Great Firewall of China, as it's called.

Are you allowed to listen to Taiwanese music and access, like, that kind of cultural stuff?

I mean, I think one thing that Taiwanese pop culture has been doing quite well is that it kind of steers away from politics.

If I were talking about Taiwanese series or music, it's mostly about love.

That sort of was the defining chapter of our childhood.

We'll go back home and watch this Taiwanese series.

So, yeah, I think we're still able to watch them as long as they stay away from the subject of politics.

And, Sean, we have actually been hearing from a Chinese student in the US this is Rong Zhi.

I grew up in the early 2000s in China, and

I think what I really remember was things were very friendly between China and Taiwan at the time.

There was definitely a lot of Taiwanese TV shows that we would watch, and

definitely lots of Taiwanese musicians were very popular.

I think one of the funny things is that I think, like, a Taiwanese accent was.

Was perceived as a very sort of cool accent.

In my personal experience, still, lots of Taiwanese friends who hang out in China, who have businesses in China, that's pretty big.

A lot of them open up Taiwanese restaurants.

I don't really see that affected as much.

I think there's still in general, an interest in and a love for Taiwanese culture, Taiwanese food.

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Could China actually invade Taiwan? - What in the World podcast, BBC World Service

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