The “Retaking the Mainland” by Taiwanese government: The Concept of Chinese Unification by the ROC
（Nagoya University Press,2021）
Takayuki Igarashi
（Associate Professor in the School of the Defense Sciences at the National Defense Academy）
It is an honor to be the recipient of the prestigious Masayoshi Ohira Memorial Prize. I would like to thank all the staff at the foundation, the selection committee, and all the people who supported me during the writing process of this book.
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, there was widespread anxiety in Taiwan that “Ukraine today, Taiwan tomorrow?”. It is not likely that China would invade Taiwan. However, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine cautioned us against an optimistic view of reality.
For the Chinese Communist Party, which leads the People’s Republic of China, the unification of China is an unfinished goal. And on the issue of Chinese unification, it is mostly portrayed in the composition of the PRC annexing Taiwan. But the Government of the Republic of China once also had “Chinese unification” as a national goal. The ROC government moved to Taiwan in 1949 and began preparing for Retaking the Mainland by military force. Existing studies have commented that the slogan naturally disappeared as Taiwan’s economic development progressed in the narrowing international environment surrounding the country. However, as long as Retaking the Mainland is the mission assigned to the national armed forces, that mission should not be relieved without some political decision, and it will not disappear naturally. This publication pointed out that Retaking the Mainland was retained as the mission of the national armed forces until 1991, when the scope of application of the Constitution was limited to the Taiwan area. This book presents a perspective for deciphering the current situation of “China” that continues to be divided across the Taiwan Strait, which cannot be explained by the Cold War relic and the structure of the U.S.-China confrontation explained in previous international political histories, or by Taiwanization of the ROC analytical framework that dominated the studies of Taiwan political history.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of Masayoshi Ohira’s efforts to normalize diplomatic relations with the PRC as Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Tanaka Cabinet. I sincerely hope that stability in the Asia-Pacific region will be maintained based on the principles of Pacific Basin Cooperation Concept set forth by Ohira, and I also hope that the results of this research will lead to “peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait”.

Profile
Takayuki Igarashi is an Associate Professor in the School of the Defense Sciences at the National Defense Academy (NDA), located in Yokosuka, Kanagawa, Japan. He has a Ph.D. in Security from the National Institution for Academic Degrees and Quality Enhancement of Higher Education in Tokyo, based on doctoral work in the Graduate School of Security Studies at NDA. He specializes in the political and diplomatic history of Asia, politics and military in the PRC and Taiwan, and Cross-Strait relations. He has published: “When did the ROC abandon ‘Retaking the Mainland’? The transformation of military strategy in Taiwan” (Journal of Contemporary East Asia Studies, 2021); “The Human Resource Problems of Chinese Communist Armed Forces: The PLA Faces an Era of Declining Birthrate and Aging Population” (Essays of PLA Studies, 2022, Chinese), among others.