Three months after being elected US president, Donald Trump made the wise decision to honor the United States' longstanding one-China policy, affirming it in a phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The recognition that there is only one China has been US policy since 1979, when China and the United States established diplomatic relations. This evolved from their shared cause of fighting fascism during World War II, when both countries committed to returning Taiwan, which was at that time under Japanese occupation, to the mainland.

For China, Taiwan is an inalienable part of the country and a core interest with historical legitimacy.