In the discussions about Taiwan and its international status, there is always a recurring theme which plays an important role in the ongoing debate on how to proceed in resolving the future of the country.
The question is: "Is Taiwan a nation-state?"
One fundamental historical fact is that prior to the Japanese colonial period (1895-1945), Taiwan was not an integral part of China, but an outlying area, which was only briefly ruled as a full province of China (1887-1895). A second historical fact is that in 1895, under the Shimonoseki Peace Treaty, the Chinese Imperial government ceded Taiwan to Japan in perpetuity: note that this is quite different from the arrangement with Britain regarding the New Territories adjacent to Hong Kong, which were leased for 99 years.
Then there is the question of Taiwan's status after World War II. This is a matter of hot debate, and the positions taken depend very much on the origin of individual observers. Native Taiwanese, who lived on the island during the Japanese period, initially considered it a liberation, but after the 228 Incident of 1947, they considered the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) rule an occupation by a foreign, repressive regime.
To the Chinese Nationalists, who came over from China with Chiang Kai-shek (
They perpetuated the Chinese Civil War at the expense of democracy on the island, and the human rights of the Taiwanese. Martial law lasted until 1987, while the system of representation brought over from China (a parliament representing all the provinces of China) was not ditched until 1991 and 1992, when former president Lee Teng-hui (
It is thus totally incorrect to state that "Taiwan split off from China in 1949" -- an erroneous description which is repeated ad nauseam in international media and newspaper reports.
A better way to phrase it would be along the following lines: "Taiwan was a Japanese colony until 1945, after which it was occupied by the KMT under Chiang Kai-shek, the losing side of the Chinese Civil War."
All through the 1950s and 1960s, the KMT authorities clung to their forlorn claim to represent all of China. By the end of the 1960s this position had become totally untenable. The US normalized relations with the People's Republic of China (PRC), leading to US de-recognition of the KMT authorities as the government of China.
It is important to emphasize the latter, because it is an essential argument in the discussion of the question "Is Taiwan a nation-state?"
Another significant point to be made is that the UN decision of Oct. 21, 1971, dealt with the representation of China in the UN of China.
The relevant text of the now-famous UN Resolution 2758 states:
"[The UN] decides to restore all its rights to the People's Republic of China and to recognize the representatives of its Government as the only legitimate representatives of China to the United Nations, and to expel forthwith the representatives of Chiang Kai-shek from the place which they unlawfully occupy at the United Nations and in all the organizations related to it."
Taiwan was not even mentioned, and the Taiwanese people were certainly not democratically represented at that time.
De-recognition of "Taiwan" in the 1950s through the 1970s was thus de-recognition of the KMT's claim to rule China.
In other words the US, Europe and most other nations have informal ties with "Taiwan" because of the KMT's claim of sovereignty over China.
This claim continued until Lee's reforms in 1991 and 1992, but even at present, the conservative remnants of the KMT are clinging to the old and empty Republic of China (ROC) shell, and are preventing the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government from ditching the anachronistic symbols of the old claim to be government of all China: the flag, national anthem and Constitution, which defines the territory of the ROC as encompassing China, Mongolia and Tibet.
Taiwan is now democratically governed, and fulfills all the requirements of a nation-state according to the generally accepted definition of the 1933 Montevideo Convention on rights and duties of states.
It has: (1) a permanent population, (2) a defined territory, (3) a government and (4) capacity to enter into relations with the other states. The US was a signatory to this Convention, so it is rather peculiar that some in the US government and think tanks now argue that Taiwan is not a nation-state.
The situation is very similar to that of the US in the late 1700s and early 1800s: only a handful of countries such as France and the Dutch Republic recognized the US at that time.
Others were wary of incurring the wrath of the most powerful nation on earth, the UK. In fact, it was well into the 1800s before a majority of nations recognized the nascent republic in the Americas. Indeed, Taiwan does have diplomatic relations with 24 other countries, albeit small ones in the Pacific, the Caribbean and Africa.
A key point is that after Taiwan's transition to democracy in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the situation is fundamentally different from that of the 1970s. However, US and European policy towards the country is still essentially the same as in the 1970s, clinging to an outdated "one China" mantra, which perpetuates Taiwan's political isolation.
The "one China" policy now is as inappropriate as it was in the period 1949-1979, when the West sought to contain the PRC. Now, the West is unfairly and unjustly isolating a free and democratic Taiwan, basically because an undemocratic China is still fighting the tail end of a Civil War in which the Taiwanese had no part.
Thus, Taiwan is an independent nation-state. The only question is how it should be recognized by the international system.
Gerrit van der Wees is the editor of Taiwan Communique.
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