In a recent letter to the Taipei Times (Letters, March 8, page 8) it was stated that the Cairo Declaration cannot be used as legal backing for the Republic of China (ROC) government’s sovereignty claim over Taiwan. The Cairo Declaration aside, there are many other statements and documents which are regularly used by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government to justify its sovereignty claims.
It can be very instructive to view these statements and documents in a systematic fashion from the viewpoint of the customary law of the post-Napoleonic period.
Some people may assert that a particular document or statement has the legal power to transfer the territorial sovereignty of Taiwan to the ROC.
However, to prove such an assertion, the following data must first be collected: Several historical examples where similar documents or statements have produced such a transfer of sovereignty in other parts of the world, and whether the international community recognized the validity of that transfer.
In this manner, the Cairo Declaration (Dec. 1, 1943), the Potsdam Proclamation (July 26, 1945), the Japanese Instrument of Surrender (Sept. 2, 1945), General Order No. 1 (Sept. 2, 1945), the formal surrender of Japan in Taipei (Oct. 25, 1945) and the relocation of the ROC government to Taipei (Dec. 10, 1949) can all be shown to have had no legal effect on the transfer of Taiwanese sovereignty to a third party — for example, the ROC — whatsoever.
Most significantly perhaps, the surrender of enemy troops only served to mark the beginning of a new military occupation, and international law states that military occupation does not transfer sovereignty.
As for post-war treaty stipulations, it is important to remember that Taiwan remained Japanese territory until the San Francisco Peace Treaty came into effect on April 28, 1952.
This is the only valid interpretation of historical record, based on the study and interpretation of numerous other post-war situations and treaty arrangements.
The San Francisco Peace Treaty did not award sovereignty of Taiwan to “China,” and “China” was not a signatory of the treaty. Nevertheless, the ROC-Japan bilateral Treaty of Taipei (Aug. 5, 1952) is often cited by pro-KMT academics who say that since one party (Japan) “renounced,” it must be understood that the other party (the ROC) “received.”
However, after renouncing all “right, title and claim” to Taiwan under the San Francisco Peace Treaty, Japan would have no legal power to make any further disposition of Taiwan in later treaties.
A 1959 US court case summarized all relevant details as follows: “Formosa may be said to be a territory or an area occupied and administered by the Government of the Republic of China, but is not officially recognized as being a part of the Republic of China” (Sheng v. Rogers, D.C. Circuit, Oct. 6, 1959, http://www.taiwanbasic.com/state/usg/shengvsro.htm).
Today, the ROC on Taiwan holds the dual statuses of (1) subordinate occupying power, beginning Oct. 25, 1945, and (2) government in exile.
Neither of these statuses include a valid sovereignty claim over Taiwan.
Te Lin is director of Taiwan Civil Government in Washington.
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
Taiwan’s first case of African swine fever (ASF) was confirmed on Tuesday evening at a hog farm in Taichung’s Wuci District (梧棲), trigging nationwide emergency measures and stripping Taiwan of its status as the only Asian country free of classical swine fever, ASF and foot-and-mouth disease, a certification it received on May 29. The government on Wednesday set up a Central Emergency Operations Center in Taichung and instituted an immediate five-day ban on transporting and slaughtering hogs, and on feeding pigs kitchen waste. The ban was later extended to 15 days, to account for the incubation period of the virus
The ceasefire in the Middle East is a rare cause for celebration in that war-torn region. Hamas has released all of the living hostages it captured on Oct. 7, 2023, regular combat operations have ceased, and Israel has drawn closer to its Arab neighbors. Israel, with crucial support from the United States, has achieved all of this despite concerted efforts from the forces of darkness to prevent it. Hamas, of course, is a longtime client of Iran, which in turn is a client of China. Two years ago, when Hamas invaded Israel — killing 1,200, kidnapping 251, and brutalizing countless others
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
RSS