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Academics discuss nation’s sovereignty at forum in Taipei

Academics discussed the nation’s sovereignty yesterday at a forum in Taipei called “Taiwan’s Sovereign Status” organized by the Taiwan Think Tank.

The position of the Japanese government, said Masahiko Asada, a Japanese international law professor, was not that the 1952 Treaty of Peace between Japan and the Republic of China (ROC) was null and void ab initio.

Instead, the Japanese government’s position on the treaty was that it “was concluded in a lawful manner with some of its legal effects lasting even after the Ohira statement,” Asada said.

The Ohira statement refers to former Japanese prime minister Masayoshi Ohira’s statement immediately after the signing of the Japan-China Joint Communique in 1972.

The statement reads: “The Government of Japan is of the view that as a result of the normalization of relations between Japan and China, the Treaty of Peace between Japan and the Republic of China has lost its necessity to continue to exist and is deemed to have been terminated.”

The 1952 treaty acknowledged the terms of the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty and is the main international document that activists use to deny China’s sovereignty claims over Taiwan.

Japan, which ruled Taiwan from 1895 to 1945, officially renounced its claim to Taiwan and the Pescadores in the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty, but it did not specify to which government that sovereignty was to be transferred.

China argues that the treaty is illegal and invalid.

Asada reviewed the question in light of the negotiating history of the Japan-ROC Peace Treaty as well as the deliberation record on the treaty in Japan’s parliament.

He concluded that the ROC government had the power to enter into a treaty and make peace with Japan, which he said was another way of saying that the ROC government was the de jure government of China at that time not only vis-a-via Japan but perhaps vis-a-vis the international community.

Nisuke Ando, former chairperson of the UN Human Rights Committee, gave a keynote speech at the forum, arguing for the right of the people of Taiwan to determine the nation’s future.

Ando said that Taiwan is a de jure independent country, but he didn’t specify which international laws or declarations could be used as legal basis for Taiwan’s international status.

Discussing Taiwan’s international status from historical, legal and political viewpoints, Ando said that the Taiwan issue is “unique.”

Ando emphasized in his speech that the Japanese government doesn’t recognize China’s claim that “Taiwan is an inalienable part of China.”
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