Former political exile Cheng Tzu-tsai (鄭自才) yesterday launched the Sovereign State for Formosa and Pescadores Party in Taipei.
The party’s two main goals are to attain self-determination for Taiwanese and achieve statehood as an independent nation, because the issue of Taiwan’s sovereignty was not clearly resolved after World War II, based on the Treaty of San Francisco, which came into effect in 1952, Cheng told a news conference.
Japan merely renounced its rights to Taiwan and Penghu (the Pescadores), and the Allied powers only granted temporary authority to Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) Republic of China (ROC) as a “provisional custodian” at that time, he said.
Photo: Hsieh Chun-lin, Taipei Times
“The Treaty of San Francisco left Taiwan and the Penghu islands with an undetermined political status, with their residents being ‘stateless’ all this time,” he said.
“However, the ROC regime has concealed this truth by using its education system and the government tools” at its disposal, he added.
“The ROC is an exile regime, that fled from China after the civil war to occupy Taiwan. The Chinese government as People’s Republic of China also has no reason or legal basis to claim Taiwan,” Cheng said.
Under the treaty’s provisions, Taiwan and Penghu are the former colonies of Japan, and their people have the right to self-determination and to achieve statehood as an independent nation through a referendum, he added.
“The textbook description of Taiwan’s retrocession, or returning to the ROC, rule is a total lie. We want people to know that what they learned about post-World War II Taiwanese history and Taiwan’s status were fabrications and misrepresentations by the ROC government,” he said.
The ROC regime has no legal authority over Taiwan and Penghu, Cheng said.
Party executive Liu Che-chia (劉哲嘉) said they would officially establish the party’s leadership at a members’ congress on June 30, adding that Cheng would serve as interim chairman.
“We will seek people with good standing to run in some districts for next year’s legislative elections,” Liu said, adding that they talked with the Democratic Progressive Party last week.
Cheng, 82, is a senior figure in the Taiwanese independence movement.
He and Peter Huang (黃文雄) plotted and carried out an unsuccessful assassination attempt against then-vice premier Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) in New York on April 24, 1970.
Both were students in US universities at the time and were involved with the US chapter of World United Formosans for Independence.
Wanted by the US government, Cheng skipped his bail and fled to Sweden and later moved to Canada, before returning home in 1991.
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