Editorial: lMissed opportunities for Taiwan

WHAT a great opportunity today for President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) to tell the truth about Taiwan. Not that he will take it, which is just another example of how contemptibly craven this government has become. But today is the 50th anniversary of the treaty of San Francisco, the peace treaty that settled the claims arising from World War II in the Far East. As a result of that treaty Taiwan became an independent sovereign state.

None of the parties to the treaty intended this, which is why it is seldom spoken of. The original intention of the Allies was that after Japan's surrender, Taiwan should be returned to China, a sop thrown to Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) to persuade that poltroon, more interested in selling US aid to the Japanese than in fighting them, to take a more robust approach to the war.

This intention was expressed in the Cairo and Potsdam declarations. But declarations by belligerents do not make international law. They are simply a statement of one side's opening bid in the treaty-making process. The Allies certainly intended to return Taiwan to China. But in fact they never did. Japan, which had been given Taiwan and Penghu "in perpetuity" by the Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895, renounced its sovereignty over these territories. And that sovereignty was not passed to any other nation.

What should have happened is that Taiwanese should have been given their rights under UN de-colonization provisions to determine whether they wished to in fact stay with Japan, become a part of China, or be independent.

Of course this didn't happen. The reason why was simple. On the basis of the Cairo and Potsdam declarations, Taiwan had been given to Chiang's government to administer pending the determination of its final status. This is a legal point on which the KMT -- which has never been too refined about observing legal niceties -- has almost succeeded in brainwashing an entire nation. It has always claimed that sovereignty over Taiwan was restored to China in 1945. This is simply a lie. And it's one that Chen should expose. Given that defeated Japan was in no position to administer anything -- including itself -- in 1945, China was given the right to administer Taiwan pending a settlement of the claims of the war. The San Francisco treaty was that settlement. And neither China received anything.

Taiwan had what was essentially a regime of occupation until the early 1990s, when the Taiwanese were at last allowed to decide who should govern them. In fact not until the first democratic presidential election in 1996 can one say that the people of Taiwan had become the masters of their political destiny. In this they created a new nation, still only five years old. That so few seem to understand this is a tribute to the malign influence of KMT wishful thinking.

If the Beijing government is really a successor state to the ROC, which in turn was a successor to the Qing government, the PRC has no claim on Taiwan. It is bound by the obligations of its forerunner, they gave Taiwan away. The Allies might have gained it by force of arms, but they never returned it to China.

Nor, of course, did they give it to Chiang Kai-shek.

How we crave a speech by Chen that dispels the decadent fantasies, claims and counterclaims of both the communists and the KMT and simply states what Taiwan's position is under international law and tells China to live up to its treaty obligations. Today would have been an excellent opportunity for such lesson. Too bad it will be missed.