Taiwan’s sovereign status was determined by the Treaty of San Francisco on Sept. 8, 1951, not the Cairo Declaration in 1943, nor the Potsdam Declaration of 1945, Taiwan Solidarity Union Legislator Hsu Chung-hsin (許忠信) said on Friday, ahead of the 62nd anniversary of the treaty’s signing.
“Only the Treaty of San Francisco — not the two declarations made during World War II — is recognized as a legitimate international law. The Chinese Nationalist Party [KMT] has been cheating Taiwanese by claiming that Taiwan was returned to the Republic of China [ROC] government,” Hsu, a former Academia Historica president, told a news conference.
Article 2 of the San Francisco Treaty, signed between Japan and most of the Allied powers, states that “Japan renounces all right, title and claim to Formosa and the Pescadores (澎湖),” while the Treaty of Taipei — the peace treaty signed between the ROC and Japan on April 28, 1952 — declares Japan’s “renouncement to all right, title and claim to Taiwan (Formosa) and Penghu (the Pescadores) as well as the Spratly Islands [Nansha Islands, 南沙群島] and the Paracel Islands [Xisha Islands, 西沙群島],” Hsu said.
Japan has never said which country Taiwan belonged to and “the only sure thing was that Taiwan’s sovereignty has been separated from that of China,” he said.
President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) claim that sovereignty over Taiwan was returned to the ROC with Tokyo’s surrender is a distortion of history because the surrender is not a transfer of sovereignty, the lawmaker said.
Even more dangerous is that Ma’s position echoes that of Beijing’s, which means that China could use this as a base from which to claim Taiwan as its territory, Hsu said.
In addition, KMT officials would not have been able to arrive in Taiwan after World War II without the help of US naval vessels and Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) accepted the surrender of Japanese troops in Taiwan after Allied Forces General Douglas MacArthur assigned him to do so, said Chang Yen-hsien (張炎憲), another former Academia Historica president.
“Chiang’s military occupation of Taiwan does not mean that the KMT regime obtained sovereignty over it,” Chang said.
‘HIDDEN GEM’: The city earned plaudits for its low crime rate, world-class healthcare system, cheap cost of living and easy public transportation Taipei has been named the 10th best city in the world for quality of living in an annual survey by the editors of Monocle, a UK-based global affairs and lifestyle magazine. The survey, which is to be published in the magazine’s July/August issue, selected the world’s top 25 cities based on factors including cost of living, retail, hospitality, culture and access to green spaces, as well as feedback from Monocle correspondents. Taipei’s 10th place finish was one place down from a year earlier. The survey ranked Copenhagen as the world’s best city, with Zurich, Lisbon, Helsinki and Stockholm rounding out the top five.
GLOBAL STRATEGY: Indo-Pacific alliances need reinforcement to prevent Chinese occupation of Taiwan, which would threaten Japan, Hawaii and Australia, Pompeo said The US should officially recognize Taiwan as a free, independent nation and establish official diplomatic ties, former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo told an event at the Hudson Institute in Washington on Friday. Every US president since Harry Truman has considered Taiwan’s existence to be of utmost importance to US national security, Pompeo said. Taiwan is a principal US partner in technology and economic matters, and if China were to capture Taiwan’s semiconductor supply chain, it would severely hamper the US economy, Pompeo said. Should China occupy Taiwan, it would severely weaken US influence in the Indo-Pacific region and its surrounding areas,
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