Yesterday was another melancholy anniversary, the 50th of the signing of the Treaty of Taipei. This was the peace treaty that ended World War II between Japan and the ROC. Much has been made of this treaty and most of it complete rubbish. It is simply one more brick in the false edifice of KMT claims to have "recovered" Taiwan.
Actually the Treaty of Taipei established no ROC claim on Taiwan for the very simple reason that the Japanese had already given up all its claims to Taiwan through the San Francisco Peace Treaty the year before. It could not transfer sovereignty of Taiwan to the ROC since it did not possess that sovereignty. In fact the Treaty of Taipei reiterates that Japan had already given up that sovereignty in the San Francisco treaty.
What the treaty represents, in fact, is Japan making peace with the government of China, which was not a party to the San Francisco deliberations because of the problem of deciding which of the rival claimants was the real one. Japan eventually decided, no doubt helped to a decision by its US overlords, that the ROC was still the legitimate government.
The only part that Taiwan and Penghu played in the treaty was in the reiteration of Japan's claim to them and the statement by Japan that henceforth it would treat these territories as part of China. Note that it didn't say it was giving them to China, because they weren't Japan's to give.
Nevertheless, when Japan switched recognition from Taipei to Beijing in the 1970s and signed a treaty with the PRC, its so called "recognition" of China's "sovereignty" over Taiwan was used by the PRC to its advantage in establishing its "one China" doctrine. As such, the Treaty of Taipei, along with the 1945 surrender of Taiwan to ROC occupying forces and the Potsdam and Cairo declarations, is part of that amazing feat of diplomatic legerdemain, China's (no matter which one's) claim to Taiwan. The simple fact is that Taiwan's status was left open in San Francisco, this was not changed in the Treaty of Taipei and the island is still, under international law, awaiting a decision on its final status by the San Francisco signatories.
That the KMT tried to cover up the lies by which its military occupation of Taiwan was disguised as "retrocession" should come as no surprise. What is depressing is the complacency with which President Chen Shui-bian (
The legal question of Taiwan's status needs to be better understood if only because the KMT clouded the issue for so long with its lies and its own "one China" policy, a piece of shortsightedness which played into Beijing's hands and yet may prove fatal to this democratic polity. Too much of the world thinks that China must have a claim on Taiwan but sympathizes that Taiwanese don't want to live under Chinese rule, much as it was well understood that China had a claim on Hong Kong but the residents of that colony were dubious about rejoining "the motherland."
Taiwan needs to destroy this false impression. Talking about the Republic of China, a state that in most peoples' eyes ceased to exist in 1949, won't do. Nor will talk of Taiwan's democratic achievements, which do not in and of themselves establish a right to remain free of China's yoke. What is needed is an active campaign to tell the world the truth about Taiwan's legal position under international treaty law. That the Chen government has not done this but instead kept on with the failed diplomatic postures of its awful KMT predecessor forces us to ask why. Is the president complacent, a moral coward or simply lazy?
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