Taiwan’s status a done deal
If you do not hold the post, do not meddle in its affairs.
However, once you hold the post, you must deliver in a professional way.
While [Representative to the US] King Pu-tsung (金溥聰) answered: “It’s the first time I have heard of this” to Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Mark Chen’s (陳唐山) statement that the US does not recognize Taiwan as part of China at all, it means King is not aware of the US’ policy on Taiwan.
It also tells us that King does not have professional knowledge about his post as Taiwan’s representative in Washington.
That makes all Taiwanese-Americans worry about how he could effectively improve the relationship between Taiwan and the US and promote Taiwan as a member of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and sign the free-trade agreement.
King, as the head of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Washington, should understand the relationship between Taiwan and the US and the current legal political status of Taiwan.
Since the end of WWII, the US policy on Taiwan has been consistent: Taiwan is not a part of China and it is not an independent nation.
On Oct. 25, 2004, then-US secretary of state Colin Powell said: “There is only one China. Taiwan is not independent. It does not enjoy sovereignty as a nation, and that remains our policy, our firm policy.”
On Aug. 30, 2007, US senior director for East Asian affairs at the National Security Council Dennis Wilder said: “Taiwan, or the Republic of China, is not at this point a state in the international community. The position of the United States government is that ROC — Republic of China — is an issue undecided, and it has been left undecided, as you know, for many, many years.”
On March 28, 2007, when UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon returned an official letter to the Nauru representative, he referred to UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 (XXVI) of Oct. 25, 1971, and said: “In accordance with that resolution, the United Nations considers Taiwan for all purposes to be an integral part of the People’s Republic of China.”
However, in August 2007, the US reportedly presented a demarche to Ban, its key position stating as follows:
“The United States urged the UN Secretariat to review its policy on the status of Taiwan and to avoid taking sides in a sensitive matter on which UN members have agreed to disagree for over 35 years. If the UN Secretariat insists on describing Taiwan as a part of the PRC, or on using nomenclature for Taiwan that implies such status, the United States will be obliged to disassociate itself on a national basis from such a position. It is crystal clear of US policy on Taiwan.”
Both King and Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) always mislead Taiwan’s public to believe that Taiwan is part of China. They have said that now the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) rules over Taiwan District and PRC rules over Mainland District forming the integral part of China, the so-called “District to District and KMT/PRC co-own China.”
Ma and King are too far away from the legal and the true historic point. Taiwan was ceded from the Great Qing to Japan by the Shimonoseki Treaty in 1895, and Japan renounced all rights, title and claim to Formosa and the Pescadores (澎湖) on Sept. 8, 1951, recorded in the San Francisco Peace Treaty.
Taiwan is not part of China, it is a done deal.
John Hsieh
Hayward, California
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