I read Dennis Hickey's letter (Letters, June 29, page 8) with much interest. Hickey has provided a very lucid analysis of some of the key international legal perspectives which have a great bearing on the Taiwan sovereignty issue.
From the content and tone of Hickey's letter, it is clear that he hopes that the Taiwanese people can have a bright future under a democratic government, and that peace, stability and prosperity in the Western Pacific can be maintained. I am sure that the readers of this newspaper, myself included, also share in these hopes.
Nevertheless, I must point out the arguments advanced in his letter are not persuasive. I have no doubt that Hickey is sincere. The problem does not rest with the thoroughness of his analysis, rather it rests with the underlying legal assumptions.
Specifically, Hickey and many other contributors to the Taipei Times editorial page before him have consistently made reference to the Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States. Perhaps it will come as a surprise to them that anyone could state that the formulation in this Montevideo Convention is "incomplete."
However, it clearly is. I believe that everyone who is interested in a democratic future for Taiwan should consider this aspect in some detail. An example is easily given as follows. Let us suppose that there was a war in Southeast Asia, and the military forces of Holland were fighting Indonesia. Further let us suppose that in the battle for Sumatra, Holland had been allied with Malaysia. Military forces from Holland and Malaysia were fighting together in the archipelago, and after several months of heavy aerial and naval bombardments by Holland, the Indonesian commanders on Sumatra agreed to surrender.
At this point we can imagine that Holland's military forces still had additional operations to take care of in nearby geographic areas. Hence, the Dutch general would direct that senior Indonesian commanders and all ground, sea, air and auxiliary forces within Sumatra surrender to Malaysia's military forces, and that Malaysia should take charge of the administration of the island.
Moreover, let us imagine that five years later (before the post-war peace treaty is written) there is a coup d'etat in Malaysia, and a number of high-ranking government officials and military personnel all flee to Sumatra. At this point it might be expected that the old Malaysian government which has established itself in Sumatra still has full diplomatic relations with thirty or more countries. An important question is: Can we consider "Malaysia in Sumatra" to be an independent and sovereign nation?
Consider the entire situation from the point of view of the local Sumatrans. What would they say about the legitimacy of the Malaysian government which has established itself in Sumatra? But with reference to Article 1 of the Montevideo Convention (which entered into force on December 26, 1934), "Malaysia in Sumatra" does indeed meet the four criteria of having (a) a permanent population, (b) a defined territory, (c) a government and (d) the capacity to enter into relations with other states.
A closer examination of the facts, however, shows that "Malaysia in Sumatra" is only a subordinate occupying power and a government in exile. It has effective territorial control over Sumatra, but does not have sovereignty. Indeed, the local Sumatrans would probably be glad for the Malaysians to move to Paris, Rome, London, or some other city and establish their government in exile there. However, it is unlikely the Malaysians would leave.
Hence, I would maintain that the four criteria of the Montevideo Convention are clearly incomplete. For complex situations which involve (1) military occupation, (2) governments in exile, or (3) territorial cessions with no clear transfer of legal title, the Montevideo Convention gives a "false reading."
This is exactly the problem with Taiwan. Under the customary laws of warfare of the post-Napoleonic period, it is clear that Oct. 25, 1945, can only be regarded as the beginning of the military occupation of Taiwan. In late 1949, the remnants of the ROC government fled from China and came to Taiwan, thus becoming a government in exile. In the postwar San Francisco Peace Treaty, Japan renounced the sovereignty of "Formosa and the Pescadores," but no receiving country was specified. Some researchers still maintain that that the ROC has been an independent sovereign state since its establishment in 1912, but conveniently fail to consider that the ROC did not include Taiwan in that era. China had already ceded Taiwan to Japan in the 1895 Treaty of Shimonoseki.
I believe that the above brief overview clearly illustrates the reasoning behind then US secretary of state Colin Powell's statement on Oct. 25, last year, that "Taiwan does not enjoy sovereignty as a nation." Powell's statement was correct. Those scholars or government officials who would claim otherwise are only considering "half" of the entire body of international law, ie, the portions concerned with peacetime matters and which primarily deal with civilian issues. They are failing to consider the customary laws of warfare, which include the Hague Conventions, Geneva Conventions, related international court decisions, the law of nations in regard to military issues, and so on.
Richard Hartzell
Taipei
In the event of a war with China, Taiwan has some surprisingly tough defenses that could make it as difficult to tackle as a porcupine: A shoreline dotted with swamps, rocks and concrete barriers; conscription for all adult men; highways and airports that are built to double as hardened combat facilities. This porcupine has a soft underbelly, though, and the war in Iran is exposing it: energy. About 39,000 ships dock at Taiwan’s ports each year, more than the 30,000 that transit the Strait of Hormuz. About one-fifth of their inbound tonnage is coal, oil, refined fuels and liquefied natural gas (LNG),
To counter the CCP’s escalating threats, Taiwan must build a national consensus and demonstrate the capability and the will to fight. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) often leans on a seductive mantra to soften its threats, such as “Chinese do not kill Chinese.” The slogan is designed to frame territorial conquest (annexation) as a domestic family matter. A look at the historical ledger reveals a different truth. For the CCP, being labeled “family” has never been a guarantee of safety; it has been the primary prerequisite for state-sanctioned slaughter. From the forced starvation of 150,000 civilians at the Siege of Changchun
The two major opposition parties, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), jointly announced on Tuesday last week that former TPP lawmaker Chang Chi-kai (張啟楷) would be their joint candidate for Chiayi mayor, following polling conducted earlier this month. It is the first case of blue-white (KMT-TPP) cooperation in selecting a joint candidate under an agreement signed by their chairpersons last month. KMT and TPP supporters have blamed their 2024 presidential election loss on failing to decide on a joint candidate, which ended in a dramatic breakdown with participants pointing fingers, calling polls unfair, sobbing and walking
In the opening remarks of her meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Friday, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) framed her visit as a historic occasion. In his own remarks, Xi had also emphasized the history of the relationship between the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Where they differed was that Cheng’s account, while flawed by its omissions, at least partially corresponded to reality. The meeting was certainly historic, albeit not in the way that Cheng and Xi were signaling, and not from the perspective
RSS