The Treaty of Shimonoseki was signed on April 17, 1895, in the Japanese city that lends the treaty its name. It came into effect on May 8 that same year. According to the treaty, Taiwan belonged to Japan, but people living in Taiwan were given the opportunity to choose their nationality by either leaving or staying within two years of the treaty being signed. This ability to choose one’s own nationality is a basic human right.
In the book On Taiwan’s Status and Relations, edited by National Chengchi University history professor Hsueh Hua-yuan (薛化元), it says that the Republic of China (ROC) government announced in January 1946 that the people living in Taiwan had “regained” their status as ROC nationals, which gave rise to diplomatic protests from the UK and the US.
Wang Shih-Chieh (王世杰), who was then minister of foreign affairs, also mentioned this event in a letter to Huang Kuo-shu (黃國書), a Taiwanese legislator at the time.
In the same book, it is stated that the Taiwan Provincial Administrative Executive Office said on Jan. 20, 1946, that the people of Taiwan Province had their Chinese nationality restored as of Oct. 25, 1945, according to an order by the Executive Yuan on Jan. 12, 1946.
The UK foreign ministry sent a communique to the ROC embassy in London on Aug. 31, 1946, saying that although it conceded that Taiwan was under the control of the ROC government, London regretted that it could not accept that Taiwanese had already had their Chinese nationality restored, according to A New Discourse on Taiwan’s Status by former Academia Historica president Lin Man-houng (林滿紅).
In a thesis about the peace treaty, Lin said that the US State Department in a November 1946 memorandum to the ROC government said that it was in full agreement with the UK’s position on this matter.
Official documents from April 19, 1952, that the Japanese government made public said that Taiwanese were to lose their Japanese nationality as soon as the Sino-Japanese Peace Treaty — commonly known as the Treaty of Taipei, which did not enter into force until Aug. 5, 1952 — took effect. Clearly, then, the Taiwanese were forced to accept ROC nationality before the peace treaty had even come into effect. This was not only absurd and unreasonable, it was also in violation of international law.
Former foreign minister George Yeh (葉公超) made an additional remark to the legislature in July 1952 on the Treaty of Taipei: He said that Article 10 of the treaty — on the legal status of the people in Taiwan and Penghu — was not mentioned in the Treaty of San Francisco, but that is was of great importance to the people of Taiwan.
Imposing ROC nationality on Taiwanese without asking their prior consent and without giving them a choice in the matter is clearly in contravention of international legal principles and was done seven years before the Treaty of Taipei was ratified.
Chen Yi-nan is vice convener of Taiwan Society North’s science and technology subcommittee.
TRANSLATED BY TAIJING WU
On Sept. 3 in Tiananmen Square, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) rolled out a parade of new weapons in PLA service that threaten Taiwan — some of that Taiwan is addressing with added and new military investments and some of which it cannot, having to rely on the initiative of allies like the United States. The CCP’s goal of replacing US leadership on the global stage was advanced by the military parade, but also by China hosting in Tianjin an August 31-Sept. 1 summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which since 2001 has specialized
In an article published by the Harvard Kennedy School, renowned historian of modern China Rana Mitter used a structured question-and-answer format to deepen the understanding of the relationship between Taiwan and China. Mitter highlights the differences between the repressive and authoritarian People’s Republic of China and the vibrant democracy that exists in Taiwan, saying that Taiwan and China “have had an interconnected relationship that has been both close and contentious at times.” However, his description of the history — before and after 1945 — contains significant flaws. First, he writes that “Taiwan was always broadly regarded by the imperial dynasties of
A large part of the discourse about Taiwan as a sovereign, independent nation has centered on conventions of international law and international agreements between outside powers — such as between the US, UK, Russia, the Republic of China (ROC) and Japan at the end of World War II, and between the US and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) since recognition of the PRC as the sole representative of China at the UN. Internationally, the narrative on the PRC and Taiwan has changed considerably since the days of the first term of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) of the Democratic
A report by the US-based Jamestown Foundation on Tuesday last week warned that China is operating illegal oil drilling inside Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) off the Taiwan-controlled Pratas Island (Dongsha, 東沙群島), marking a sharp escalation in Beijing’s “gray zone” tactics. The report said that, starting in July, state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corp installed 12 permanent or semi-permanent oil rig structures and dozens of associated ships deep inside Taiwan’s EEZ about 48km from the restricted waters of Pratas Island in the northeast of the South China Sea, islands that are home to a Taiwanese garrison. The rigs not only typify
RSS