As President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) prepares to reclaim the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairmanship, he has begun asserting that the Republic of China (ROC) has been an independent, sovereign state since 1912 and that no country in the world needs to declare independence twice. This may sound appealing, but it is nothing more than a deceitful trick that does not stand up to the facts.
It is indeed surprising that Ma is confused about the nature of the revolution launched by Sun Yat-sen (孫逸仙).
Sun’s revolution was not to gain independence and build a new country, in the way that the 13 American colonies became the original United States of America; it was simply to overthrow the imperial rule of the foreign Manchu Qing Dynasty and replace it with a republican system.
In other words, Sun merely established a new regime that replaced the Qing government of the national territory of the country known as “China.” The new regime, the ROC, inherited all the territories — excluding Taiwan and the Pescadores — citizens, foreign treaties and debts of the Qing Dynasty.
Sun did not declare independence or establish a new country. The US declared its legal recognition of the ROC government on May 2, 1912; that is, the US recognized the ROC as the successor government to the Qing imperial government. The ROC did not become an “independent, sovereign state,” because it inherited the unequal treaties that were signed by the Qing Dynasty with other countries and because the Western powers still enjoyed extraterritoriality in China, which meant that they were exempt from the jurisdiction of local law.
When the Chinese Communist Party took over China and established the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the ROC became a government in exile. For the past 60 years, the KMT has offered different definitions of the ROC.
Dictator Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) once said that the rule of the ROC over China had come to an end. Former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) was more pragmatic, talking about a “second republic” and placing the ROC in Taiwan, saying that the ROC was the national title of Taiwan — but that argument was severely criticized by hardline KMT members.
Ma has opposed both Chiang’s view that the ROC’s rule over China has come to an end and Lee’s “second republic” discourse, ignoring the fact that China has been taken over by the People’s Republic of China (PRC). He naively claims that the ROC has long been an independent, sovereign state, while at the same time accommodating the interests of the PRC.
How can he refute his assertions in this way and then claim that the ROC is an independent, sovereign state?
James Wang is a media commentator.
TRANSLATED BY TED YANG
The government and local industries breathed a sigh of relief after Shin Kong Life Insurance Co last week said it would relinquish surface rights for two plots in Taipei’s Beitou District (北投) to Nvidia Corp. The US chip-design giant’s plan to expand its local presence will be crucial for Taiwan to safeguard its core role in the global artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystem and to advance the nation’s AI development. The land in dispute is owned by the Taipei City Government, which in 2021 sold the rights to develop and use the two plots of land, codenamed T17 and T18, to the
US President Donald Trump has announced his eagerness to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un while in South Korea for the APEC summit. That implies a possible revival of US-North Korea talks, frozen since 2019. While some would dismiss such a move as appeasement, renewed US engagement with North Korea could benefit Taiwan’s security interests. The long-standing stalemate between Washington and Pyongyang has allowed Beijing to entrench its dominance in the region, creating a myth that only China can “manage” Kim’s rogue nation. That dynamic has allowed Beijing to present itself as an indispensable power broker: extracting concessions from Washington, Seoul
Donald Trump’s return to the White House has offered Taiwan a paradoxical mix of reassurance and risk. Trump’s visceral hostility toward China could reinforce deterrence in the Taiwan Strait. Yet his disdain for alliances and penchant for transactional bargaining threaten to erode what Taiwan needs most: a reliable US commitment. Taiwan’s security depends less on US power than on US reliability, but Trump is undermining the latter. Deterrence without credibility is a hollow shield. Trump’s China policy in his second term has oscillated wildly between confrontation and conciliation. One day, he threatens Beijing with “massive” tariffs and calls China America’s “greatest geopolitical
Taiwan’s labor force participation rate among people aged 65 or older was only 9.9 percent for 2023 — far lower than in other advanced countries, Ministry of Labor data showed. The rate is 38.3 percent in South Korea, 25.7 percent in Japan and 31.5 percent in Singapore. On the surface, it might look good that more older adults in Taiwan can retire, but in reality, it reflects policies that make it difficult for elderly people to participate in the labor market. Most workplaces lack age-friendly environments, and few offer retraining programs or flexible job arrangements for employees older than 55. As
RSS