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What’s really being celebrated on Black Friday and is it the biggest shopping day in the world?

Featuring Tom Merritt.

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Episode transcript:

At the end of the civil war the US government was deeply in debt, both from the cost of fighting and reconstruction. When General Ulysses S. Grant was elected president 1868 it had grown to $2.8 billion. That would be around 103.8billion in 2023.
To help pay for the war the government had begun issuing “greenback” dollars. These were not backed by gold or silver but promised an unspecified future payment. They had the effect fo driving up the price of gold.
So Grant’s administration pursued a policy of selling gold to buy up wartime bonds and by May 1869 the debt had been reduced to $12 million and the price of gold was suppressed.
All that cheap gold gaveJay Gould an idea. He was friends with Abel Corbin, who just happened to be married to Jennie Grant, the president’s sister. If they could prevail not he president to stop selling gold, the price would start going up. Knowing this in advance they could start buying up gold drilling up the price faster. Done right, they could corner the gold market and get unreasonably rich.
Gould enlisted one of his fellow directors at the Erie railroad, James Fisk into the plant.
On September 1, 1869 they started buying up large amounts of gold under other people’s names and driving up the price. Corbin planted the idea with Grant that selling gold would hurt western farmers and the plan should be suspended. But they got greedy. And when Grant’s personal secretary turned down an offer to open a gold account, they did it anyway. When he told the president about it Grant figured out what was happening. And on Friday September 24, 1869, the government resumed selling gold. Gold prices plummeted. And hundreds of people who were riding the gold wave along with Gould and Fisk, lost everything.
Stock prices plummeted 20 percent between that Friday and October 1st. Brokerage firms went bankrupt. Farmers really did get hurt this time with wheat and corn prices dropping by half. The economic turmoil lasted for months. Anti was all traced back to that one Friday. That Black Friday, in September 1869.
And it was that day that would, somewhat ironically, lend its name to what would become the biggest shopping day in the US.
Let’s help you Know a Little More about Black Friday.

Thanksgiving day was established by the US first constitutional president, George Washington in 1789. On the recommendation of Congress, President Washington proclaimed Thursday, November 26, 1789 as a Day of Public Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving days were proclaimed by subsequent presidents on a regular basis but the dates varied. It wasn’t until 1863 in the midst of the Civil War, that President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed that Thanksgiving should be commemorated on the Last Thursday of November each year.
The regularity made it a nice signpost not he calendar. Retailers began promoting holiday shopping starting the day after Thanksgiving.
That lasted until another economic depression, the great one. In 1939, the economy was showing signs of recovery. But Thanksgiving that year would fall on the very last day of the month. That meant the shortest possible holiday shopping season, meaning the smallest boost to the economy So President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued a proclamation that Thanksgiving would take place on the second to last Thursday of November, adding a week to the shopping calendar.
16 states refused to move the date and for two years, a third of the country celebrated Thanksgiving a week after the rest of the country.
So in October 1941, Congress passed a resolution declaring the fourth Thursday in November to be Thanksgiving. This kept it as the last Thursday most years, unless November happened to have 5 Thursdays. That kept the holiday shopping from getting too small without pushing it so far up the calendar.
Once that pattern was set, the Friday after Thanksgiving started to take on a character of its own. Workers began to call in sick on Friday in order to have a four day weekend. In 1951, the journal Factory Management and Maintenance began to refer to this phenomenon as Black Friday, referencing the panic of 1869. Friday also became a huge shopping day of course, and police in Philadelphia and Rochester began referring it to Black Friday as well because of the crowd management.
But the reference did not become common. The New York Times first called the Friday after Thanksgiving “Black Friday” in tis November 29, 1975 issue referring to the traffic in Philadelphia. But even as late as 1985, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that merchants Cincinnati and Los Angeles were unaware of the term.
Meanwhile merchants were trying to avoid the usages connotations of a panic and disasters. As early as November 28, 1981, the Philadelphia Inquirer picked up an explanation put out by merchants that it was being called Black Friday because it was when retailers got “in the black” – aka profitable.
But by the late 1980s the term had gained wide acceptance. Retailers across the US began advertising Black Friday sales. More companies began to just give in and give workers Friday off since they were going to call in sick anyway.
By the mid 2000s the day had inspired “Cyber Monday” when workers came into their offices with computers and high bandwidth and shopped for deals online. Giving Tuesday was a counter-celebration to encourage people to spend money on charities instead of products.
The lockdowns because of COVID caused a lot of people to shift to online shopping on all days and by 2021, the Black Friday sales were no longer limited to Friday.
The prevalence of US-based retailers have caused the promotion of Black Friday sales outside of the US, even though those countries do not have the November Thanksgiving holiday. Some countries even promote Black Week or Black Month sales.
The success of Black Friday sales may have inspired Alibaba to co-opt a dating holiday in China called Singles day – on November 11th – to be a big sales day which now has passed Black Friday as the largest shopping day in the world.
Steely Dan wrote a song called Black Friday, released in 1975 just as the New York Times was picking up on the phrase in its post-Thanksgiving context. Steely Dan was writing about the 1869 panic but its words could apply to both

When Black Friday comes
I’ll collect everything I’m owed
And before my friends find out
I’ll be on the road

I hope you appreciate the probably unintentional double meaning. And hope you know a little more about Black Friday.

CREDITS
Know A Little More is researched, written and hosted by me, Tom Merritt. Editing and production provided by Anthony Lemos and Dog and Pony Show Audio. The public key cryptography players were Sarah Lane as Alice, Shannon Morse as Eve and Andrew Heaton as Bob. It’s issued under a Creative Commons Share Attribution 4.0 International License.

The UK will release its COVID-19 contact tracing app in England and Wales on September 24th, Facebook challenges a ruling by Ireland’s data regulators regarding transfers to the US, and Facebook will remove election related autocompletes.

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Show Notes
To read the show notes in a separate page click here!

Apple iPhone 15 event rumored for September 12/13th, AI-generated guides on Amazon cause confusion, PayPal announces new stablecoin.

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Show Notes
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By 1998 the US had passed its Digital Millennium Copyright Act. And partly because the US generates so much copyrightable material, and partly just because it’s the US and is a little pushy on the world stage, the DMCA became the de facto way of handling copyright protections on the internet around the world.

But what is it? Why did we need the DMCA or the WIPO copyright treaty at all?

Let’s help you Know a Little more about the DMCA.

Featuring Tom Merritt.

MP3

Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.

A special thanks to all our supporters–without you, none of this would be possible.

Thanks to Kevin MacLeod of Incompetech.com for the theme music.

Thanks to Garrett Weinzierl for the logo!

Thanks to our mods, Kylde, Jack_Shid, KAPT_Kipper, and scottierowland on the subreddit

Send us email to [email protected]

Episode transcript:

It’s April 26, 1970. Joe Cocker is playing live at the Fillmore. The Jackson 5’s ABC is dominating the charts In Novo Mesto, Slovenia, little Melanija Knavs is born. And after three years of planning, the World Intellectual Property Organization has begun operations. The purpose of the specialized agency is to provide a place for countries to work together on their various intellectual property laws and rules. Copyright is of course the most well known type of intellectual property these days but it also includes trademarks and patents and such. WIPO is meant to be a clearing house. A place to try to harmonize. I’ll respect your patents if you respect mine etc. In fact its first big achievement is the Patent Cooperation Treaty which to oversimplify, made filing a patent in one country equivalent to filing in all. Now different countries still had latitude to approve or deny patents according to their own laws, but it made things a lot simpler.
WIPO made lots of other treaties and systems to make it easier to handle trademarks and service marks. It created mediation and arbitration to help resolve disputes between countries over these kinds of matters.
And in September 1995 it took up the digital agenda. Copyright came to the fore. And somehow. Some way, WIPO agreed on new rules faster than it almost ever agreed on anything. By December 1996 there was a diplomatic conference to approve the WIPO Copyright Treaty and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty.
Those two treaties brought countries together to agree on how to handle digital copyright protection. Each country then had to pass its own law to implement the treaty.
By 1998 the US had passed its Digital Millennium Copyright Act. And partly because the US generates so much copyrightable material, and partly just because it’s the US and is a little pushy on the world stage, the DMCA became the de facto way of handling copyright protections on the internet around the world.
But what is it? Why did we need the DMCA or the WIPO copyright treaty at all?
Let’s help you Know a Little more about the DMCA.

Since the Internet became more than just something university IT experts used, worries about copyright violations on the internet have existed.
Digital content is infinitely copyable and the internet makes it infinitely transferable. That’s a nightmare for businesses built on physical limitations to copying, like music, movies and others.
To extend these older business models onto the internet, companies use digital rights management or DRM. This is a name for varying ways of trying to lock up content so that only a user who is authorized to view it can. It’s an attempt to make it not be infinitely copyable. DRM is tricky though because you have to balance access for the person who does have the right– like a paying customer– with denying access to anyone who doesn’t. Those are cross-purposes. If you leave a door open for authorized viewers, eventually unauthorized viewers will figure a way into it.
So the industry quickly turned to the law, and we get the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Or DMCA. While this is only a law in the US, it affects anyone who publishes content in the US, such as on YouTube and has provided a model for laws like it around the world.
The problem it solves is that no matter what digital locks you put on a file, someone can figure out a way to break them. So the law fixes this by making it illegal to break them.
That’s one of the main misunderstandings about the DMCA. It doesn’t just make unauthorized access illegal. That was already illegal under copyright law. It makes circumventing access protections illegal, punishable by fines and imprisonment.
Copyright holders can seek up to $2,500 per violation, or statutory damages up to $25,000. Repeat offenders can face more. If you are accused of willfully violating the DMCA for personal or commercial financial gain, you can be tried as a criminal offender. A first-time criminal DMCA violator can face a fine of up to $500,000, up to five years in jail, or both. Repeat offenders can be fined up to a million dollars and up to ten years in prison.
Screen capturing is a circumvention of the DMCA in some cases. Keep that in mind.
The DMCA was passed as an amendment to the US Copyright Act in 1998. It implemented those two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization.
It makes it illegal to produce or disseminate (even if you give them away free) any device or service INTENDED to circumvent measures that control access to copyrighted works. Courts decide whether a device or service is intended to do this. Because you know, computers can do this, but it’s not their sole intention. And that’s why screen-capturing software is not just illegal.
The other aspect of the DMCA is it makes it illegal to circumvent access control EVEN IF copyright is not infringed. Yep. If you have a fair use for something, like making a backup of a DVD, it is illegal under the DMCA to circumvent copyright protection in order to make fair use of that backup. The DMCA includes some limited exemptions such as for security research and government research but they are few.
Now if you’re saying hold on I thought they changed that and made DVD copying legal. We’ll get to that later but yes and no.
There are a couple more aspects of this to keep in mind. One, is that the United States Copyright Office ( part of the Library of Congress) was given the power to create (and get rid of) further exemptions to the DMCA. So it can restore fair uses on a case by case basis. More on that later.
And then there’s a safe harbor for platforms. Online Service Providers, which includes platforms like YouTube and Facebook– are exempt from liability for their users copyright infringement as long as they follow certain procedures. Platforms keep their safe harbor by promptly blocking access to infringing material once they are notified of an infringement claim. This called the “notice and takedown” process. It also provides for a counter notification from a user who claims the material is not infringing.
There’s also an exemption for a repair person who makes limited copies solely for the purpose of repairing a machine. In other words, imaging a drive to restore it on a replacement drive doesn’t violate the DMCA. There are also some provisions for distance education, ephemeral copies made in the process of broadcasting and more.
DMCA’s Title V is my favorite. Title V provides protection for Boat Hull designs because Boat Hull designs are not covered by copyright as they cannot be separated from their useful function and therefore are better protected by patents than copyright. This section of the DMCA was added in 1998 after the Supreme Court ruled — in Bonito Boats, Inc. v. Thunder Craft Boats, Inc. –that Boat Hulls did not have copyright protection. So, immediately boat manufacturers lobbied congress to add the exemption to the DMCA. As of 2019 there have been 538 applications for registrations for Boat Hull designs under the DMCA, compared to more than 70,000 patents granted.
OK back to the notice and takedown system.
The notice and takedown system is governed by Section 512 of the DMCA.
In order to get the safe harbor protection, a service provider has to have an agent on file who takes notifications. The provider can’t have reasonably known about the infringing activity or directly benefit financially from infringing activity. In other words your main business can’t be infringement.
Ok. Now you’re a safe harbor protected platform. How does it work if somebody thinks their copyright has been infringed on your platform?
Well it works differently for every system but here are the parts required by Section 512.
The notifier must send a formal takedown request notification under penalty of perjury. They can’t knowingly lie about it.
Once a notice is received, the provider must “expeditiously take down or block access to the material.” right away. No grace period. It must also promptly notify the user that the content has been removed or disabled.
The user can then file a counter-notification, also under penalty of perjury, that its content was identified as infringing through a mistake or misidentification.
That sends it back to the notifier. If they do not file a court order against the user, the provider must restore the content within 10-14 days.
So yes. Send a takedown notice the content goes down immediately. Send a counter notice it takes 10-14 days to get it back up.
So you could abuse the system by just sending notices for anything you wanted to disappear from the internet for a couple of weeks right?
Well, those perjury conditions are meant to keep the system from being abused but in practice they’re hard to prove. Just being mistaken is not the same as perjury so you have to prove that a company KNEW the content was not infringing when it sent the notice, not just that it was mistaken. And end users are much more likely not to want to risk a perjury lawsuit than the large companies who send bulk notices, so most takedown notices are successful. But willful and malicious abuses are rare. Mistakes however, are rampant. Lots of companies have been accused of sending inaccurate bulk takedown notices, sometimes ending up affecting their own employees. But that’s not the same as perjury.
Also there is a chilling effect of the DMCA. A content-hosting platform can avoid falling afoul of the DMCA by just not hosting some material altogether. It’s not required to host it. So some companies, like YouTube have employed “informal” takedown notices that are not meant to be the legally required notices. These are usually constructed as terms of service violations. This lets them take down content without risking the perjury charge. Companies have the right to operate outside the DMCA in this way because the law can’t force them to host content they don’t want to. A copyright holder is only subject to perjury restrictions if they are following a “formal” takedown procedure. YouTube does have a method of proceeding from informal takedowns to formal ones.
For years YouTube used a bot system called ContentID to look for possibly infringing content. If the bot thought it saw a match to a database of content provided by big copyright holders, it would pull the content off the site and notify the user it had been pulled. This was not part of the DMCA.
If the user disputed the Content ID claim, YouTube would then contact the alleged rights holder. The rightsholder could release the claim and the content would go back up or could uphold the claim and the user would be notified that the rights holder still claimed the content was infringing and it would stay down. This was partly DMCA as this could also serve as the rightsholder’s formal Takedown notice. But since the bot had identified the content as infringing the risk of perjury for the rights holder was almost nothing.
If the user did not have an account in good standing or had already appealed three other claims that was it. The DMCA never entered into it for the user. YouTube just declined to host the content because they didn’t want to.
However if the user was in good standing and had not reached the appeal limit a DMCA counterclaim would then be issued to the rightsholder — with the risk of perjury for the user still there– and the normal DMCA takedown procedure would take place. The rightsholder would then have to decide whether to pursue it in court or not.
As I mentioned earlier the US Copyright Office can make exemptions to the DMCA. It regularly reviews exemptions and can add, extend or remove them.
The Copyright Office has issued exemptions to the DMCA over the years. Here’s a look at a few of them.
The first two in 2000 were for website filtering — you know like safe sites for kids kind of stuff– and preservation of damaged or obsolete software and databases.
In 2003 an exemption was given to screen readers for e-books and one for video games distributed in obsolete formats.
A brief exemption was given in 2006 for sound recordings protected by software with security flaws, specifically the Sony Rootkit. And one for unlocking wireless phones.
In 2010 an exemption for breaking DVD’s Content Scrambling System was issued for educational, documentary, noncommercial or preservation uses. Security testing of video games.
In 2012 an exemption for excerpting short portions of movies for criticism or comment was given.
In 2018 one for 3D printers if the sole purpose is to use alternate feedstock. As well as ones to expand exemptions for preservation and security research.
In October 2021, an exemption was given for repairing any consumer device that relies on software as well as medical devices and land sea and air vehicles even if they aren’t consumer-focused.
What if you’re outside the US? Why should you care? On the one hand, you’re right, US law doesn’t apply outside the US. However copyright owners from outside the US can still issue takedown notices on US sites. But the bigger thing to remember is that the DMCA is the US implementation of the WIPO Copyright Treaty and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty. The WIPO Copyright treaty was signed by 110 countries and most members of the World Intellectual Property Organization or WIPO have agreed to accept DMCA takedown notices. Think of it like this. A country adopted the WIPO treaties, the US created a system to enforce it and the country just borrows that system. It’s not that US law is enforceable in their country it’s that the US enforcement system of the WIPO treaty is a nice prepackaged way to do things. Copyright-enforcement as a service!
Some countries however are known as DMCA ignored countries. These are countries who either have not agreed to WIPO’s provisions, systematically ignore those provisions or prioritize their own copyright laws over those of the US and so websites do not honor DMCA requests.
These include Russia, Bulgaria. Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Switzerland, and Moldova. They are often promoted as places to host websites if you’re concerned about copyright infringement, though each carries its own set of concerns either with local laws or political speech. China doesn’t necessarily honor the DMCA, but has enough other restrictions that it’s not generally not included on these lists.
Nobody loves the DMCA but it has proved to be surprisingly stable. It’s next big test will be machine generated works like ChatGPT and the multiple text-to-image generators.
So far the discussions have been about where copyright applies but that is going to drift into the DMCA and put its uneasy equilibrium to the test.
For example, in April 2023 an unknown composer created a song and used some machine generation to make it sound like Drake and the Weeknd. The song lyrics and beats were original but the artist had used a producer tag that was not. Universal Music Group used that producer tag as the basis for copyright takedowns. But versions without the tag would force the issue.
That’s the first not the last of what will be a long discussion about where machine-generated works fall in copyright. How that discussion plays out will likely determine whether the DMCA stays standing, gets modified or rewritten altogether.
So that is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, aka the DMCA.
It makes it illegal to circumvent copyright protection unless there is an exemption written in the act itself, or added by the US Copyright Office.
It also provides a way to try to get infringing material removed and a way for a user to combat having that material removed.
I hope this helps you understand why some content is allowed up and some is not and why you don’t see some content at all.
In other words, I hope you know a little more about the DMCA.

CREDITS
Know A Little More is researched, written and hosted by me, Tom Merritt. Editing and production provided by Anthony Lemos in conjunction with Will Sattelberg and Dog and Pony Show Audio. It’s issued under a Creative Commons Share Attribution 4.0 International License.

Taiwan is at once one of the most vexing political situations on the globe and one of the most important to the world of technology.

But few people understand how it got to be either. And understanding that is essential to understanding what might happen next and how that matters a LOT for the technology industry.

Let’s help you Know a Little More about Taiwan.

Featuring Tom Merritt.

MP3

Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.

A special thanks to all our supporters–without you, none of this would be possible.

Thanks to Kevin MacLeod of Incompetech.com for the theme music.

Thanks to Garrett Weinzierl for the logo!

Thanks to our mods, Kylde, Jack_Shid, KAPT_Kipper, and scottierowland on the subreddit

Send us email to [email protected]

Episode transcript:

Taiwan is at once one of the most vexing political situations on the globe and one of the most important to the world of technology.
But few people understand how it got to be either. And understanding that is essential to understanding what might happen next and how that matters a LOT for the technology industry.
Let’s help you Know a Little More about Taiwan.
This is not going to be a Dan Carlin-style dive into the history of Taiwan. If you know that history consider this a refresher. But for those of you who know little about the island, consider this an excellent starting point to understanding it. And for all of you, I don’t think understanding it is likely to get less important in the coming years. Because it’s one of the places on Earth where it’s conceivable to see a war involving China and the US. AND it’s one of the most important places in the world for building technology. Chips are in everything these days and the chips are made mostly by companies from Taiwan.
Let’s start with the where.
Taiwan is 168 islands including the Penghu islands but it is mostly one main island with the three main cities, Taipei, Tainan and Taichung. It’s about the size of Vermont. Or Albania.
It is located partway between the Philippines and South Korea, but very close to mainland China. It is 160 kilometers off the coast of southeastern China. About the distance from Dublin to Belfast. You could not fit Ireland between Taiwan and the mainland.
OK so why it’s important is both the tech industry, which we’ll get to later AND the dispute over it.
Let’s start with the dispute over what Taiwan thinks it is and what China thinks it is. Because Taiwan thinks it is China. This is one of the most common confusions I hear from people.
Taiwan’s government officially calls the country, the Republic of China. Well that’s odd, you might say. Isn’t there already a Republic of China? Yes. The People’s Republic of China. That’s the one most people think of as China. The one with its capital in Beijing. Both the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of China, which is on Taiwan, consider themselves the legitimate successor to the Republic founded in China on January 1, 1912 after the overthrow of the Qing dynasty. Where they differ is that Taiwan considers itself the true continuation of that republic and the People’s Republic of China says that republic ended in 1949 and was replaced by the People’s Republic.
So what Taiwan is, depends on who you ask? The People’s Republic of China – to oversimplify– says Taiwan is a breakaway province that is part of the People’s Republic. Eventually it needs to stop denying that fact, cooperate with the central government and unify with the mainland. Hence China’s strong objections to calling Taiwan a country, or having full diplomatic relations with it. The US wouldn’t want anyone having diplomatic relations with Texas, or Hawaii. The Uk doesn’t let Scotland go have separate diplomatic relations with other countries.
Meanwhile, the government of Taiwan still considers itself the rightful ruler of all of China. Hence its insistence on officially calling itself Republic of China.
And so you get weird situations like letting Taiwanese athletes compete separately at the Olympics, but only if they call themselves Chinese Taipei and use the Olympic flag.
There are other similar arrangements. For example England, Scotland, and Wales, all part of the UK, compete in World Cup competition as separate teams. The difference being that they are not all calling themselves the true UK.
I bring it up to illustrate the point the People’s Republic of China is making. If Taiwan is just a province of China, then it’s not odd to let it compete separately in things. So call it under a provincial name, and throw Chinese at the front just so people are clear. Taiwan goes along with this so its athletes can compete separately and they consider themselves China as well, so why not call them Chinese Taipei. It’s WAY more complicated than that but you get the gist and it kind of helps illustrate how seriously these countries take the “on paper” meanings of this dispute.
One thing the two countries agree on is that the Republic of China started in 1912.
Sun Yat-sen was the the founder and first provisional president. He is honored by both the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of China on Taiwan for ending the rule of China’s imperial dynasties. But it didn’t result in stability right away. China’s political history in the 1920s and 1930s is full of disputes between the Nationalist Party – aka the Kuomintang and the Communist Party. Sometimes those disputes became battles. The two parties teamed up in World War II to fight their common enemies, but never fully unified. The People’s Republic of China consider the Republican era to have ended on October 1, 1949 with the proclamation of the People’s Republic of China. The Republic of China in Taiwan, disagrees.
So that’s where the Republic of China and the People’s Republic of China come from.
Let’s talk a little about Taiwan and how it became part of China in the first place.
The smaller Penghu islands off the coast of the main China were often under mainland sway, the larger island though was somewhat independent. In 1622 the Europeans arrived, first the Dutch, then the Spanish. The Dutch called it Ilha Formosa or “the beautiful island” which was shortened to Formosa, which became the European name for the island. The Chinese didn’t like the idea of the Europeans getting too involved there. So it was finally annexed by China’s Qing Dynasty in 1683. There were attempted invasions over the next couple of centuries by Japan and the French, but Taiwan remained in Chinese control for a good two centuries. Then at the end of the war between China and Japan in 1895, Taiwan was ceded to the Japanese Empire, where it remained until the end of World War II.
So it was loosely affiliated with China until the late 1600s, then solidly part of China for a couple centuries, then occupied by the Japanese for 50 years. So it made sense in 1945 that it would go back to China.
In July 1945, The US, UK and China agreed to the Potsdam Declaration. Among its many provisions was that the islands of Taiwan would be restored to China.
On August 15, 1945 Japan’s Emperor accepted the terms of the Potsdam declaration and on October 25, 1945, Japan surrendered. After the surrender of Japan, Japan’s governor-general of Taiwan signed papers handing over administration of the island to General Chen Yi – a Nationalist– of the Republic of China.
One technicality, nowhere did Japan confirm in writing they were giving up their claim to Taiwan. There was no cause for concern on that in reality but it was a detail that needed to be taken care of. An i to be dotted. A t to be crossed. There were a lot of those. For example Japan technically remained at war, even after the surrender. Not something the matter in practice but you kind of wanted everyone to be clear on the point right? There were some official treaties in the works to nail down all those technical details.
Problem was while the paperwork was getting drawn up, China was having a civil war.
The Communists led by Mao Zedong an and the nationalists led by Chiang Kai-shek no longer united by an external foe, started battling for control of the country. And while the allies had been doing all the paper work with the Nationalist, the communists started winning the civil war. Mao felt confident enough to proclaim the People’s Republic of China as a replacement for the Republic on October 1, 1949 and by December 7, Chiang and the nationalists evacuated their army to Taiwan and set up a capital in Taipei. About 2 million Chinese people and soldiers made the move to Taiwan.
Meanwhile there were all those little things that hadn’t been taken care of regarding the end of the war with Japan, like compensation and rebuilding and oh actually declaring the war over.
So the Treaty of San Francisco was created to wrap up all those details and was signed by Japan on September 8, 1951. Among its many provisions, Japan formally renounced its claim to Taiwan.
Great. Except, China didn’t sign it. Because by that time there were two governments claiming to represent China, Mao’s on the mainland and Chiang’s in Taiwan. Chiang had held strong in Taiwan and with US support continued to claim to be the rightful government of China. There was some recent experience with supporting exile governments. An exile government of France had held out in England and recently been restored. So there was some feeling the same might happen in China.
Meanwhile the USSR wanted to support its communist comrades, and argued that Mao had won and so should be recognised as the legitimate government.
And meanwhile Japan just wanted China, any China, to sign something declaring the war over.
To solve that, on April 28, 1952, Japan and the Nationalist Republic of China government on Taiwan, signed the Treaty of Taipei, formally ending the war between Japan and the Republic of China in Taiwan. Not the mainland. But it was enough to satisfy Japan.
And there’s another little wrinkle to this. Back during the war in 1942– when everybody was on better terms, Soon Tse-vung, who’s sister was married to Sun Yat-sen- the man who founded the first Republic of China in 1912, signed a document along with Soviet diplomat Maxim Litvinov and US President Roosevelt and UK Prime Minister Churchill, which later became the basis of the United Nations Declaration. That document gave those four countries a special position in the formation of the UN. And so, the US, UK, Soviet Union and US were guaranteed to be on the UN’s permanent security council.
When the UN was founded in 1945, China got its seat. The civil war was just heating up and Mao hadn’t proclaimed the People’s Republic, so Chiang got the seat.
There was some talk about dual representation maybe but that ended in 1949 when the People’s Republic of China was founded and Chiang moved to Taiwan. So Chiang held on to it. And until 1971, Taiwan’s government held China’s seat at the UN.
It was a perilous situation though. Both countries strenuously called for there to be just One China. With the US and USSR facing off with nuclear weapons at the height of the cold war, it seemed unwise for a huge communist country like China to have no seat at the biggest diplomatic table in the world. It was counterproductive to world stability.
All countries wanted a better solution to this. I’m way oversimplifying her of course but that’s the general situation that led to US president Nixon secretly sending National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger to China’s Premier (under Mao) Zhou Enlai. He was often seen as the successor to Mao, and his ally Deng Xiaoping went on to govern China in the 1980s. In a talk between Zhou and Kissinger on July 9, 1971, Kissinger made clear that “we are not advocating a `two Chinas’ solution or a `one China, one Taiwan’ solution.” Zhou said “the prospect for a solution and the establishment of diplomatic relations between our two countries is hopeful”
That was good progress. Way to go Hank.
And on July 15, 1971 President Nixon announced he would visit the People’s Republic of China the following year. Remember that Nixon’s US has been fighting a proxy war against China in Vietnam. This is a huge shocking announcement.
Then, on October 25, 1971 a coalition of Soviet bloc and non-aligned countries, along with the UK and France, voted to give the People’s Republic of China the UN seat in place of Taiwan. The vote was initiated by Albania – you know Albania, the one about as big as Taiwan–
The US acted upset. But Nixon already said he would go to China. And he did. February 21st, 1972, US President Nixon began a 7 day visit to three cities in China, including a meeting with Chairman Mao Zedong. Mao told Nixon, “I believe our old friend Chiang Kai-shek would not approve of this”.
US TV audiences get a new look at China and we got the phrase “Only Nixon could go to China.”
The visit changed things for Taiwan too and got us closer to the odd situation we’re in now. The meetings resulted in the Shanghai Communique. The US acknowledged that “all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China” but for now to set aside the “crucial question obstructing the normalization of relations.” Clever little diplomatic sidestep that let them be friends or at least friendlier, with both Chinas.
In fact, the US maintained formal relations with the Republic of China in Taiwan until 1979.
Because in 1978 China’s Communist Party really sweetened the deal. It declared that China was in a united front with the US, Japan and Western Europe against the Soviet Union. It supported US operations in communist Afghanistan against the USSR-supported regime there, and China conducted a military expedition against the US’s old nemesis Vietnam. China did all that.
So what are you going to do? On January 1st, 1979, US President Jimmy Carter and Zhou’s old friend Chairman Deng Xiaopeng issued the Joint Communiqué on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations. This ended US recognition of the Republic of China in Taiwan and established formal relations with the People’s Republic of China. It also ended the Mutual Defense Treaty with the government on Taiwan.
So the US just up and abandoned Taiwan? No.
Not everybody was pleased with the President just ending the defense pact with Taiwan.
You see, the Mutual Defense Treaty with Taiwan had been passed by the Senate in 1954, and the Senate, particularly Senator Barry Goldwater, figured they were the only ones who could undo that. So Senator Goldwater brought a case to the Supreme Court as Goldwater v. Carter. But the court basically said our name’s Paul this is between y’all.
It issued a dismissal based on the fact that the case was a political matter not a judicial one and would not rule on it. The legislative and executive branches need to work this out amongst themselves. In fact, Justice Powell wrote in a concurrence that if the Senate had issued a resolution objecting to the dissolution then it would become a matter for the courts. The Senate had drafted a resolution but did not vote on it.
So that’s what the US Congress did. It went to work on making some laws. And on April 10, 1979, the US enacted the Taiwan Relations Act.
It defined how the US sees Taiwan separately from the People’s Republic of China and has shakily guided international relations around the two countries for decades.
The act refers to the “governing authorities of Taiwan” avoiding the whole issue of who gets called Republic of China. It did not restore diplomatic relations with Taiwan nor did it recognise its government. Doing either of those would have undone the last decade of warming relations instantly.
So no, we will not recognise Taiwan’s government. Instead the Act said Taiwan would be treated under U.S. laws the same as “foreign countries, nations, states, governments, or similar entities”. And the American Institute in Taiwan will not at all be an embassy but it can do anything embassies do. And all agreements made with Taiwan’s Republic of China before 1979 stay in effect with the governing authorities of Taiwan. Except the mutual defense pact.
Which you’re probably thinking was Senator Goldwater’s whole sticking point right? Yes. So here’s what the Act did do. It said “the United States will make available to Taiwan such defense articles and defense services in such quantity as may be necessary to enable Taiwan to maintain a sufficient self-defense capability”, and “shall maintain the capacity of the United States to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security, or social or economic system, of the people on Taiwan”
In other words, don’t call it a country, but treat it like a country, don’t call it an embassy but use it like an embassy and don’t call it a defense pact, but make sure Taiwan is defended.
And crucially through all of this, never once has the US recognized the People’s Republic of China’s sovereignty over Taiwan.
This approach has been called Strategic Ambiguity.
And it worked. Sort of. It still pissed off China. China’s official position is that the Taiwan Relations Act is “an unwarranted intrusion by the United States into the internal affairs of China.” Deng Xiaopeng viewed the US as insincere. A feeling carried on and amplified by subsequent leaders. And over the years, the PRC drifted away from being united with the US against the USSR to aligning with developing nations.
But the US has not backed off of the strategic ambiguity of the TRA.
It reaffirmed the TRA with a nonbonding-resolution in the 1990s, a Congressional Research Service Report in 2007, and a concurrent resolution in May 2016.
And for its part Taiwan has pursued its own strategic ambiguity. You’d think it would have declared itself an independent country but it hasn’t. never declared its independence. In its early days this made sense. You don’t declare independence from something that doesn’t exist. In Chiang Kai-shek’s view, his was the legitimate government of China. There was nothing to declare independence from,
However since the US recognition of the People’s Republic of China, Taiwan’s insistence on this point–the one china policy– has lessened. If it ever abandoned that policy, theoretically Taiwan could just declare itself Taiwan, not China, and seek recognition from world governments.
China would not be OK with that.
Worried about the rising possibility of Taiwan admitting reality, China passed a law on March 14, 2005, restating that there is only one China, Taiwan is part of it, it’s illegal for Taiwan to secede from China, all means to peaceful reunification should be pursued, that under unification, Taiwan would get a lot of autonomy, BUT if Taiwan declares itself independent, or is taken over by another country, OR if all possibility of peaceful unification is lost, China will take non-peaceful actions. The law also states if it does go “non-peaceful” it must do so while protecting Taiwanese civilians and foreigners as much as possible, as well as Taiwanese interests in the PRC. Pay attention to that last. Because that includes Foxconn and TSMC plants.
Yeah about that. Why are so many Taiwanese companies operating in China.
Relations between Taiwan and China cooled off quite a bit in the 1990s and the two decided to ignore their diplomatic differences and focus on economic ties. By 2002, China was Taiwan’s largest market for export.
China hosts around 4,200 Taiwanese enterprises and more than 240,000 Taiwanese work in China. This dependence on China’s economy has been described as a blessing and a curse. On the one hand it has made Taiwan dependent on China, which gives the People’s Republic leverage over it. On the other hand, close economic ties make military intervention more costly.
Taiwan’s economic success is largely down to tech. The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. or TSMC founded in 1987 has a market cap equal to 90% of Taiwan’s GDP. It is in the top 10 largest companies in the world by Market Cap and a bigger semiconductor manufacturer than Intel or Samsung.
TSMC’s customers include Apple, Qualcomm, Nvidia, Broadcomm, AMD, Ampere, Microsoft, MediaTek and Sony. It makes about 60% of the world’s semiconductors.
Other major tech companies headquartered in Taiwan include Acer and Asus which make devices like Phones, laptops, PCs and more. And Foxconn- which also lists on the stock market as Hon Hai, and is famous for assembling Apple products in its mainland China-based factories, but also makes products for Microsoft, Amazon, Google and Huawei with factories located in Brazil, India, Vietnam and all over Southeast Asia.
Taiwan makes the most important part of arguably the most important devices for the world’s economy.
OK that’s not even a very deep look at Taiwan but it’s still a lot, so let’s summarize.
Taiwan’s current government originated on mainland China as one side of a civil war. Taiwan operates under the fading narrative that it is the true government of China. Only 12 countries, mostly in Micronesia and the Caribbean, have full diplomatic relations with Taiwan.
However it’s de facto treated like a country by the US and others but not fully recognised, as a way to placate mainland China which asserts that Taiwan is just a breakaway province that needs to be reunified.
Since the 1990s, economic interests have superseded diplomatic disagreements to the benefit of pretty much everybody. China got Taiwanese investments. The US got a cheap place to buy parts and assemble electronics. And Taiwan became dominant in the chip industry.
Not to oversimplify the country’s economy but Taiwan is the engine that drives chipmaking. If Taiwan’s companies suddenly disappeared, it would be a LOT harder to make electronics ANYWHERE in the world.
And the US has been able to pull off a magic trick keeping mainland China happy while sheltering Taiwan.
BUT the “strategic ambiguity” is beginning to wear thin. A stricter regime in China is pressing the issue more and is less placated by economic benefits.
From here, you need experts in international relations to explain things to you. But hopefully you have a good grip on the basics with which to understand what’s going on.
In other words, I hope you Know a Little More about Taiwan.
CREDITS
Know A Little More is researched, written and hosted by me, Tom Merritt. Editing and production provided by Anthony Lemos in conjunction with Will Sattelberg and Dog and Pony Show Audio. It’s issued under a Creative Commons Share Attribution 4.0 International License.