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Thoughts on small states and loss of our rights

A CONFERENCE ORGANIZED by the 228 Memorial Foundation marking the 61st anniversary of the 228 Incident will be held at the National Central Library next weekend. The theme of the conference will be the hegemony of large states versus the human rights of small states. As a trustee of the foundation, I want to elaborate on this theme.

At the end of World War II, Taiwan was at a turning point. Was it victorious or defeated? Conceiving of Taiwan as victorious could be seen as taking advantage of historical circumstance and runs counter to 50 years of history.

Yet the Japanese occupation did come to an end, and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) did arrive to "return Taiwan to the embrace of the ancestral country" -- after all, wasn't Taiwan part of China?

This was an issue that perplexed many people on the eve of the 228 Incident. And the root causes of the incident are intimately related to the awkward position I have outlined above.

Whether it was the letter from executive administrator Chen Yi (陳儀) to Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) on Mar. 13, or the ideology promulgated during the ensuing period of "pacification" and purging of opponents -- all in effect denounced the Taiwanese for their "mistake" of not identifying with China and emphasized the importance of enforcing Sinicization through education.

The postwar carving up of colonies is an extremely complex problem.

Why is it that, according to the Treaty of San Francisco, the Ryukyu Islands went to US trusteeship, South Korea became independent and Taiwan and Penghu were merely renounced by Japan as its territories?

Various signs indicate that the politics of large states is the determining factor of the fate of small states.

Other than expressing anger, what precise means of self-determination do citizens of small states have?

Those who desire a deeper understanding of the anger that formed the background to the 228 Incident need to understand the corruption of Chen Yi's administration, the aforementioned international factors and comparable experiences of other nations.

Taiwan's fate was obviously determined by larger states: It was handed over to the Chinese government.

The Chinese considered Taiwan to be their property. So how should Taiwanese interpret "China"?

How can they respond to this new identity, this new relationship? Can the experiences of Mongols, Uyghurs and Tibetans in negotiating with the Beijing or Nanking governments offer us any enlightenment?

Human rights are universal values. Whether or not you are a Chinese citizen, you have basic human rights against which the government's actions can be evaluated.

If postwar Taiwan was only an occupied territory and not part of China, then the laws of war and international law should have applied to forbid massacres and pillaging.

Finally, can large states always enforce their hegemony? Must the human rights of small states be trampled?

There is no definite answer, but there is one thing that is certain: If a small state were sovereign and could become part of international organizations, especially the UN, then to some extent that state might just have a chance of defeating this historical curse.

So isn't the direction that Taiwanese should follow abundantly clear?

Chen Yi-shen is an associate research fellow at the Institute of Modern History at Academia Sinica.

TRANSLATED BY ANGELA HONG
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