Taiwan's international legal position is that of an independent customs territory under US control, with administration delegated to Chiang. As of late 1949, the ROC was a government in exile exercising territorial control over a geographic area where it did not possess sovereignty. According to the San Francisco Peace Treaty, which came into effect on April 28, 1952, Taiwan is in "limbo cession," as spelled out on Article 2b. The US is the principal occupying, as stated in Article 23. The USMG has the authority to make final disposition of Taiwan, as per Article 4b. Hence, as of late April 1952, Taiwan is the unincorporated territory of the US, and the US flag should be flying.
Under the law of occupation, Taiwan has not reached its final status. The USMG in Taiwan has not ended, and the territorial sovereignty is still held in trust by the principal occupying power.
The statement in Frank Chiang's article that "the island has become a territorial entity not subject to any sovereignty," is incorrect. Since Feb. 28, 1972, the PRC has been recognized as the lawful government of the area and a "one China" policy came into effect. Taiwan has been put on a flight path for eventual unification with the China. The fact that the Chinese government does not practice the virtues of freedom and democracy (which are core values of the US system of government) is essentially irrelevant under this legal formulation.
As a verification of the above analysis, former US Secretary of State Powell said that Taiwan is not a sovereign nation. Obviously, the ROC is a government in exile and has no international legitimacy. However, Taiwan's current international identity crisis is easily solved as follows: the Taiwanese people must demand that the US choose to relinquish the territorial sovereignty of Taiwan to its people. Then Taiwan will be an independent nation. Or, the US president and secretary of state must admit that Taiwan is an overseas territory of the US, and that Taiwan's defense and diplomatic affairs should be handled by the US government, while Taiwanese people are entitled to hold a form of "US national non-citizen passport."
I believe that I summarized many of these points in my letter published on Nov. 13, 2004 entitled "US holds nation's sovereignty," although that analysis may have been too brief for many readers to fully understand. My 9,000-word research paper entitled "Understanding the SFPT's Disposition of Formosa and the Pescadores," published in the Harvard Asia Quarterly, Fall 2004 edition, goes into much more detail.
Richard Hartzell
Taipei
RSS