Welcome to the inquiry on the BBC World Service with me Gary O'Donohue, one question, four

expert witnesses, and an answer.

It's lunchtime on a recent Monday in Taiwan's capital Taipei.

It's time for the annual air raid drills.

Designed to prepare the population for a possible invasion by the island's superpower

neighbor China.

At its closest point, it's roughly 100 kilometers across the Taiwan Strait.

Mostly people take the drill in their stride, after all they've been happening for decades.

But now with a recent visit by Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi,

tensions are at their highest in more than a quarter of a century.

America has accused China of dangerous military provocations in the region.

China has warned the US not to play with fire.

At all that, Russia's invasion of Ukraine and concerns that China could be contemplating

something similar in Taiwan, and it's time to ask the question, will the US and China

go to war over Taiwan?

Part One Unfinished Revolution

To understand why Taiwan has become such a flashpoint in great power rivalry, we have

to go back more than 70 years to the civil war in China between the communists under

Mount Zitong and the nationalists under Chancai Shek.

By 1949, the nationalists were losing badly, and Chancai Shek had to decide where to take his army.

What he wanted to do, he wanted to escape to an area where he could then regroup

ideally to kind of lick his wounds to rebuild, and then to build up the military

...