When the US government stopped recognizing the Republic of China’s (ROC) government--in-exile in 1979, members of the US Congress ardently drafted the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA). The TRA specifies that Taiwan shall be treated as a country and authorizes the sale of defensive arms and commercial and cultural exchanges with Taiwan to continue.
When former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) was in power, he insisted on democratization and localization, and amended the Constitution to manifest the division between Taiwan and China. In rearranging the ROC, its territory was subsequently limited to the island of Taiwan, and the Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu archipelagos, and relinquished the old territorial claims of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). This was Taiwan’s stance. Whether the international community recognizes such claims is another matter entirely.
At the time when President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) was in the US protesting then-US president Jimmy Carter’s recognition of the “communist bandits,” ie, the People’s Republic of China (PRC), waving an ROC flag and shouting slogans, he clearly understood that Taiwan was not part of China. However, he now accepts Taiwan as being part of China under the so-called “one China” policy, and consoles himself by saying that the ROC is that “one China,” refusing to see the PRC as a nation. However, Ma does not claim Taiwan is a nation, either.
After democratization and desinicization, the ROC was reborn and there are still reasons to advocate that the new nation has no connection to China. Ma is still stuck in the empty ROC described in the antiquated 1947 Constitution, a government-in-exile fit only to occupy Taiwan, and whose territory includes only the Kinmen and Matsu archipelagos.
Ma has used paid academics to concoct the doctrine of a “unified Taiwan,” in which the only remaining territories of the ROC, Kinmen and Matsu, were used to annex Taiwan and the Penghu Islands; however, the newly exposed visa regulations in US immigration policy maintain that Kinmen and Matsu are part of China’s Fujian Province, a merciless slap in the face for Ma.
As far as the US is concerned, Taiwan and Penghu’s sovereignty is still undecided, but that of Kinmen and Matsu incontrovertibly belongs to the PRC. From the Taiwan Strait crisis and the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty of the mid-1950s up to the TRA of 1979, the US always viewed Taiwan and Penghu on the one hand, and Kinmen and Matsu on the other, as two separate entities.
The TRA and any amendments made to US immigration laws regarding Taiwan have always treated Taiwan as a country, giving Taiwan an annual quota of 20,000 immigrants. Moreover, “Taiwan” is defined in the TRA as “the islands of Taiwan and the Pescadores [Penghu],” excluding Kinmen and Matsu.
Thus, those born in Kinmen or Matsu are considered Chinese, and they are not allowed to use Taiwan’s immigration quota.
By accepting the “one China” policy, Ma once again reduces the ROC to a government--in-exile that occupies Taiwan, which belongs to the Taiwanese, and Kinmen and Matsu, which belong to the PRC. Ma is simply digging the ROC’s grave: He does not advocate that there is an independent country on each side of the Taiwan Strait, and instead consoles himself with a “one China” policy, but who still sees the “Republic of China” as the “one China”?
James Wang is a media commentator.
TRANSLATED BY KYLE JEFFCOAT
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