What is MOFA hiding?
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ (MOFA) statement on Taiwan’s status (Letter, Feb. 12, page 8) cannot hide the fact that it tries to ignore the provisions of the San Francisco Peace Treaty and wrongly argues that the press communique issued after the Cairo Conference in 1943 was a binding agreement.
It takes the same positions as the People’s Republic of China (PRC) at the expense of the rights of the people of Taiwan.
First, the San Francisco Peace Treaty with Japan is listed in the US Department of State’s Treaties in Force; the Cairo communique and Potsdam Declaration are not.
Second, John Foster Dulles, chief US negotiator for the peace treaty stated that the press communique was merely a wartime statement of intention. His report and records of the San Francisco Peace Conference clearly show that the treaty deliberately leaves the status of Taiwan unsettled.
Third, after the San Francisco Peace Treaty, the PRC blackmailed many countries in the 1970s into “acknowledging,” “taking note of” or “not challenging” Beijing’s position that Taiwan is part of China, but those political decisions could not and have not changed the effect of the 1951 treaty.
Therefore, arguing on the basis of San Francisco Peace Treaty and democratic evolutions in Taiwan since the 1990s is the only way to prevent Taiwan from being annexed by the PRC.
The ministry quoted James Crawford as saying that “Taiwan’s status is given as being Chinese territory (the Republic of China [ROC], as far as we are concerned).”
In fact, in discussing three different theories of Taiwan’s status, Crawford was not sure how the 1952 Taipei Peace Treaty had the legal effect of transferring sovereignty with respect to Taiwan to the government occupying the territory, the ROC.
Then, he went on to say, “However this may be, it is clear that the present status of Taiwan [assuming still that it is not a separate state] is that it is Chinese territory, rather than territory subject to a condominium or territory the title of which is undetermined.”
The ministry omitted the “assuming” clause and used “as far as we are concerned” to misinterpret what Crawford means by “Chinese territory.” In the context of his presentation, “Chinese territory” clearly means territory of the PRC, and not that of ROC, which he defined as the government-in-exile of China after 1949.
James Wang
Taipei
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