Taiwanese who believe that Taiwan is already an independent and sovereign state and those who advocate turning it into a normal country are facing the same problem: the problem of Taiwan’s “state-like” status.
According to the definition of statehood in the Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States signed in 1933, which says that “[a] state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: a permanent population, a defined territory, a government and capacity to enter into relations with other states.”
From this perspective, Taiwan is a bona fide state; however, its national title is the Republic of China (ROC), a country whose representatives were expelled from the UN in 1971.
Regardless of whether the ROC of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is a state, a government or a regime, the reality that has appeared to the international community is that the People’s Republic of China (PRC), ever since its establishment in 1949, has never recognized the ROC, even calling it a “rebel group.”
Let us look at all the past major diplomatic allies for the ROC for example. France severed diplomatic ties with the ROC in 1964, and Canada and Italy followed suit in 1970. After Japan, South Korea and South Africa severed ties with the ROC in 1972, 1992 and 1998, respectively, it has fluctuated back and forth with a little more than 20 allies. According to the view of the ROC government, these countries all recognize the ROC, and not Taiwan.
The UN has a total of 193 member states, but although Taiwan sees itself as a state, it is not a member state of the UN.
The DPP agrees that Taiwan’s national title is the Republic of China, although it is called “Chinese Taipei” at international events.
Even in the East Asian region where Taiwan is located, it has been excluded from many international organizations as a result of its problematic national status. Examples of such organizations are the ASEAN Regional Forum, the East Asia Summit and the Asia-Europe Meeting.
Although Taiwan is an APEC member economy, it does not receive fair and equal treatment, and Taiwan’s presidents have never been allowed to attend the APEC Leaders’ Summit and its foreign ministers have never been allowed to attend the APEC meeting for foreign ministers, which both imply national status. Nor has Taiwan ever hosted the annual APEC meeting in the 25 years since the organization was established, although the Philippines and other member countries with less developed economies than Taiwan have done so.
Taiwan’s or the ROC’s state-like status is a difficult dilemma.
Today, many Taiwanese still place their hope for the establishment of a new country in the DPP.
This is something the DPP should think long and hard over, as the public is questioning whether the party is losing its spirit and whether it should freeze its pro-independence party platform, and as it is striving to regain power in the 2016 presidential election.
Chen Wen-hsien is a professor at National Chengchi University’s Graduate Institute of History.
Translated by Eddy Chang
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