Premier William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week put forward a pragmatic vision for Taiwanese independence, stating that Taiwan is a sovereign nation officially titled the Republic of China (ROC).
The Presidential Office has followed that up by reiterating its position that the ROC is a sovereign and independent nation.
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office issued a frigid response.
“The mainland and Taiwan both belong to ‘one China,’ the two sides of the Taiwan Strait do not have a nation-to-nation relationship and there is no such thing as ‘one Taiwan, one China,’” it said. “Taiwan is an inseparable part of China’s sovereign territory, has never been a country and will never become a country.”
Beijing still uses the ideology of the Chinese Civil War to constrain Taiwan by placing the issue of Taiwanese sovereignty within a “one China” framework and talks of military unification, peaceful unification and numerous slogans based on its “Anti-Secession” Law.
Meanwhile, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chimed in with its own “one China, each side with its own interpretation” formula.
The government has declared its position. We now have to wait and see what will happen as a result of the 19th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the crisis on the Korean Peninsula.
When one talks of independence, who or what are supporters attempting to become independent from? This question must be clarified to escape the trap set by China and the KMT. Even more importantly, only once this question is cleared up do we know whether Taiwan needs to pursue independence.
There are big differences between ensuring that Taiwan is not annexed by China, achieving full transitional justice through democratic means and dismantling the final vestiges of the ROC party-state system, and receiving universal recognition of Taiwan as a normal country by the international community.
Beijing and the KMT argue that Taiwan was returned to China at the end of World War II. It follows that the normalization of Taiwan as a regular nation state can only happen if it becomes independent from China.
The first problem with this view is that it does not stand up to either historical fact or international treaty law. The second problem is that Taiwan must first cast off the colonial structure imposed upon it by the KMT and turn the clock back to the end of World War II. The third problem is that Taiwan must achieve political recognition as a fully fledged nation state based on the consent of its population.
Prior to Japan’s surrender in 1945, Taiwan was a Japanese colony. At the end of World War II, the commander-in-chief of the Allied powers delegated the administration of Taiwan — then referred to as Formosa — to Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) forces and divided Indochina at the 16th parallel, giving responsibility for accepting the Japanese surrender to Chiang north of this line.
Soviet troops were given responsibility for accepting the Japanese surrender in northeastern China.
This shows that acceptance of surrender had nothing to do with sovereignty, otherwise China’s northeast would have become part of the USSR and Northern Vietnam would have become part of China.
Taiwan’s situation remained in limbo until the 1952 San Francisco Peace Treaty came into effect.
However, the treaty simply stated that Japan relinquished control of Taiwan, but did not stipulate which country Taiwan belonged to. Following this treaty, Japan had no rights in relation to Taiwan.
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) and the KMT’s claims to sovereignty over Taiwan are therefore in violation of the treaty between the warring parties.
Since Taiwan neither belongs to the People’s Republic of China nor to the ROC, Taiwan’s independence has nothing to do with China.
The starting point of Taiwan’s independence movement dates back to the colonial era and independence from Japan, and it was this movement that lay the foundations for the creation of Taiwan as an independent nation state at the end of World War II.
Unfortunately, after Chiang’s army received Japan’s surrender of Taiwan, the Chinese Civil War took a turn for the worse and the ROC government in Nanjing was overrun by Mao Zedong (毛澤東) and his forces.
In order to prevent the spread of communism, democratic nations gave tacit approval to the Chiang regime’s “temporary” occupation of Taiwan. Chiang’s long-term sojourn ended the post-colonial nation-building spirit that existed in Taiwan at the end of World War II.
As a result, the Japanese colonial government was replaced with another foreign regime, this time from China. The Office of the Governor-General of Taiwan became the Presidential Office and Japan’s colonial government was swapped for the KMT’s party-state system.
Over time, the life was sucked out of Taiwan’s independence movement as the original purpose of independence became buried under history.
This problem has continued into the democratic era. In addition to the loss of focus due to the passage of time, the opening up on both sides of the Taiwan Strait has introduced further ambiguity.
Last year, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) once again took over the government of the ROC through a democratic vote.
In 1949, the CCP succeeded the ROC following the end of the Chinese Civil War. More than 60 years on, the complexities of democracy and civil war have created a new dispute.
Taiwanese sovereignty originally had nothing to do with China, but following the civil war between the CCP and the KMT, the arrival of Chiang in Taiwan, the abolishment of the Temporary Provisions Effective During the Period of Communist Rebellion (動員戡亂時期臨時條款), cross-strait exchanges, cooperation between the CCP and the KMT to control Taiwan and other issues within the context of the Chinese Civil War, the impetus to include Taiwan as part of China both on the two sides of the Taiwan Strait and in the international community is growing stronger as China grows stronger.
Although the DPP first held power between 2000 and 2008 and then won control of both the government and the legislature last year, many defenders of Taiwanese sovereignty during these transfers of power slowly forgot where the fight for Taiwanese independence began and began to see government power as confirmation of sovereignty.
The Taiwanese pursuit of normal statehood is not new, it is a mission that began in 1945 and remains incomplete.
Faced with the will of big nations, geopolitics, annexation and animosity, it is a rare pragmatic step forward to see the government express its Taiwan dream.
However, insisting on Taiwanese awareness, searching for a new model for cross-strait interaction first requires answering one problematic question: How should we treat the mission that has remained incomplete ever since 1945?
If we do not and instead take a wrong turn, matters could take a turn for the worse and it is likely that we would end up belonging to another country.
Beijing is trying to permanently lock Taiwan within its orbit, but as Taiwan finds its way toward achieving the status of a recognized nation, we must stop thinking of this process as a way to move away from China and instead return to the 1945 starting point.
The DPP and Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) must not follow in the footsteps of the KMT and be caught in the Chinese trap, because that would put Taiwan in the same trap.
Translated by Edward Jones and Perry Svensson
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