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People's Republic of China (Communist China) is technically a Marxist-inspired revolutionary state that imposed their single party dictatorship in China. The old government is in exile in Taiwan, and became democratic in the meanwhile, so the country is divided similarly to how Germany was divided, with the major difference that it is divided much more unevenly: The democratic Taiwaneese government controls only ~0.37% of the land and 1.68% of the population of whole China, as opposed to the FRG controlling ~69% of land ~79% of population of Germany reunification time.

Today, in addition to not caring about environment, being the most polluted country in the world and one of the firsts emitter of CO2, the communist Chinese government encourage child labour, they are violating human rights daily, and are also persecuting ethnic minorities, mainly in Tibet and Xinjang. It is not impossible to imagine some people will revolt against the Chinese dictatorship someday.

Has the old, government of China, which is in exile in Taiwan, any reasonable chance to get in control of China ever again?

abcd
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Bregalad
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    Isn't it sort of a matter of definition? If mainland China becomes more democratic, it's not inconceivable that they could someday have a government that was sufficiently liberal to reconcile with Taiwan. Then eventually, there might be mutual agreement between the governments to reunify. Would that count as "Taiwan gains control over mainland China"? – Nate Eldredge Jun 20 '15 at 21:26
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    @NateEldredge Not really, unless the new state keeps it's "republic of China" name and the flag and other national symbols (anthem, etc...) – Bregalad Jun 20 '15 at 21:56
  • Ok, so from that point of view, you would say that in the 1990 German reunification, the BRD gained control over the DDR but not vice versa. – Nate Eldredge Jun 20 '15 at 22:19
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    Minor nitpick: though China is the highest producer of CO2 in total, they are quite far down the list when measured per-capita. There are also some countries with much higher pollution issues. As for the question, I suppose there's always a chance. How reasonable would be open to opinion, I think. –  Jun 21 '15 at 03:17
  • A problem with the analogy to Germany used in the question is it doesn't fit with how Taiwanese see the situation. Germany was divided for a mere 40 years. Korea for a mere 60 years. Taiwan has been ruled separately from China for 112 of the past 117 years. While there is a single common mother tongue uniting Germany and a single common mother tongue uniting Korea, The mother tongue of most Taiwanese is different from the mother tongues of most Chinese. While the government that showed up from China to take over Taiwan wanted to retake China, it has never been the dream of the Taiwanese. – Readin Jun 27 '17 at 18:00
  • @Readin Yeah but native Taiwanese make up a 6% of population so the analogy still work for the 94% of han chinese living on the island (although I fully admit it's quite different from Germany). – Bregalad Jun 27 '17 at 18:36
  • @Bregalad I wasn't referring to the aborigines. The 94% Han do not all have the same mother tongue. The mother tongue of most Taiwanese is Hokkien. A significant fraction have Hakka as their mother tongue. While a few Chinese also have one of these as their mother tongue the overwhelming majority do not. It's true that when the Chinese took over Taiwan after WWII they started making everyone learn Mandarin and that it is now a common language for both China and Taiwan, people still learn their mother tongue first. It's not like Germany which had a long history of everyone speaking German. – Readin Jul 01 '17 at 04:59
  • @Bregalad To clarify because this is often misunderstood, the languages of China are indeed languages in that they are not mutually intelligible even those many of them are from the same language family. To suggest that the Han are all the same and all speak "Chinese" is like saying Europeans are all the same and all speak "European". – Readin Jul 01 '17 at 05:03
  • The question is in desperate need of some pruning of irrelevant comments. – liftarn Nov 05 '18 at 15:20
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    @Readin : this means that the more likely outcome in the case the PRC became more democratic, is that they recognize Taiwan as a different country, and won't even try re-uniting. Just as Germany doesn't try re-uniting with Austria, despite having a common language and similar culture. – vsz Dec 19 '21 at 18:30

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No, in fact Taiwan itself has abandoned any serious plan to recapture the mainland. There was a project, called Project National Glory, that has this as its explicit objective and it ended in 1972 after a series of failures, both military and diplomatic ones. In particular in 1971 the UN switch recognition of the legitimate government of China from the Republic to the People's Republic and thus any residual hope of international support vanished.

Nowadays technically Taiwan still maintain a claim on the whole of China, but it is mainly a defensive move, because changing it would amount to a declaration of independence, something that the People's Republic of China would not approve.

The Republic of China (Taiwan) wasn't democratic when it had control of the mainland, it was essentially a nationalist dictatorship. Chiang Kai-shek remained in power until his death. His son, Chiang Ching-kuo, started the process of democratization after he died. Thus I would argue that the best hope for democracy in China is that the leaders of the Communist Party start a similar process of democratization.

gabriele
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Also no, but for a different reason: the general view in China of the republic of Taiwan is that they were founded by a corrupt bunch of warlords, who made off with most of the states valuables after allying with the Japanese invaders.

Even if every PRC citizen rose up against the ruling party they would still not accept the Taiwanese as their new rulers, and especially not the Taiwanese leadership. They're just a very small step up from the Japanese government taking control, in the minds of many Chinese I've spoken with.

Ronald Kunenborg
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    That what has been embedded in their minds contains only elements of truth, but far from the whole truth is, of course, immaterial. Interesting l y -both revere San yat sen. – Russell McMahon Oct 19 '19 at 12:34
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There is another option for the ROC to be accepted in case of the PRC’s collaps. The republic, upon reunification, could start an approximately 2-year transitional period for the framing of a revized or completely new constitution and preparing the mainland for democracy. For 1 year, their so-called “Free Area”, which they currently define as the territories they actually control (Taiwan and other islands), could be extended to the 2 SARs, who have had the full experience of a democracy with Taiwan and can help out in a smooth change. After a year is over, country-wide elections could be held for a constitutional revizing or constituent (if need be) assembly, and finally national votes on a permanent government could be scheduled, and with that, most importantly with the Mainland majority back in power in the core and over the whole of Chinese territory and civilization, everything would be in order and peace in conjunction with harmony, truely rule “of” and not rule “by” law as PR China is considered to de facto be But before all that happens, they should not blindly strike down all things (good along with bad) that PR China has done (otherwise it would be (Chiang) Chung-Cheng-style again) along with setting up a truth commission to address abuses by both PRC and ROC (during Chiang’s and possibly the Warlod Era) on the mainland, and promise Taiwanese Independence agitators a vote within 5 years (following the model of Serbia and Montenegro’s 2-3) for Penghu and Taiwan to determine their status.

Arijeet Patil
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    It's not an answer cause you are trying to create an "imaginary" model for power transition from PRC to ROC which looks like a sci-fi to me cause your answer ignores the fact that PRC has nuclear weapons and PRC's army is one of the strongest armies in the world! – Mithridates the Great Nov 05 '18 at 12:33