Time to wake up
US President Obama on Friday held a joint news conference with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at the White House. He highlighted six topics: the US-China economic relationship, climate commitments, security in the Asia-Pacific region, international security, human rights and the connections between the people of the US and China.
Under the third topic Obama specified: “I reiterated my strong commitment, as well, to our ‘one China’ policy based on the Three Joint Communiques and the Taiwan Relations Act” and Xi accepted it without objection.
What does this mean to Taiwanese? Why are the Three Joint Communiques and the Taiwan Relations Act always combined together under the “one China” policy?
The US agrees and recognizes that there is only one China and it is the People’s Republic of China (PRC), which means the Republic of China (ROC) is no more, but Taiwan still does not belong to China.
The US officially derogated the ROC in the Taiwan Relations Act, which took effect on Jan. 1, 1979. The ruling government on Taiwan today is officially known by the US as the “Governing Authority on Taiwan” and the ROC does not even qualify as the “Chinese government in exile.”
Unfortunately, Taiwanese have firmly believed in the ROC for years. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) says the ROC is an independent nation with sovereignty over Taiwan, China and Mongolia. However, KMT members always refer themselves as government officials from Taiwan while traveling around the world and dare not mention the ROC in front of the PRC — they just consider it an authority to fool Taiwanese.
The worst part is that it has been taken for granted and endorsed by a majority of politicians in Taiwan — even the Democratic Progressive Party says Taiwan is the ROC and the ROC is Taiwan.
If Taiwan is the ROC, that means Taiwan belongs to China because the ROC is also known as China, but the only officially recognized China today is the PRC.
Xi on Saturday addressed the UN on behalf of China, even though the ROC’s name is still listed as the original member state on the UN Charter. However, in UN Resolution 2758 it was succeeded by the PRC, just like the names of some of the other founding members have changed — the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is the Russian Federation, and the Philippine Commonwealth is the Philippines.
The ROC is simply a part of history. As long as we insist on naming Taiwan as the ROC, we voluntarily offer it to the PRC.
Most of KMT heavyweights such as former vice president Lien Chan (連戰) kowtow to the PRC and know the ROC is dead and it is only a puppet they use to fool Taiwanese to extend their rule over Taiwan and to suck the resources out of the nation.
The legal documents they use to back their nonsense are the Cairo Declaration and the Treaty of Taipei. The Cairo Declaration is nothing but a radio news communique and the Treaty of Taipei is simply a sub-treaty of the San Francisco Peace Treaty, which specified the US Military Government as the principal occupying power of Taiwan. China was not named as the recipient of Taiwan’s sovereignty.
That is why the US Congress had authority to pass the Taiwan Relation Act to regulate the US executive branch to maintain peace, security and stability in the Western Pacific between the US and Taiwan.
There is no international treaty authorizing China as the sovereign of Taiwan.
Obama went on to say that even as the US recognizes Tibet as part of the PRC, it continues to encourage the Chinese authorities to preserve the religious and cultural identity of Tibetans, and to engage the Dalai Lama and his representatives.
The US recognizes that China holds sovereignty over Tibet, but it has never accepted the PRC’s claims of ownership over Taiwan.
Taiwanese are really at the crossroads of national recognition. Should Taiwanese continue to pledge allegiance to the ROC? Or should they set their feet down to seek recognition of Taiwan’s sovereignty? Does Taiwan really belong to the ROC? Is the ROC really an independent nation with sovereignty? Does Taiwan have its own sovereignty? Who owns it today?
The US government has repeatedly said that Taiwan is not the ROC under the Taiwan Relation Act and the ROC is not Taiwan under the “one China” policy. How many more times does the US need to repeat this?
It is time for Taiwanese to wake up and get rid of the ROC. Taiwan is not part of China; it is not the ROC and neither is it the PRC.
John Hsieh
Hayward, California
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