A so-called Republic of China (ROC) flag was raised on Jan. 1 at the Twin Oaks Estate, the official residence of Taiwan’s representative in Washington, in violation of established protocol between the US and Taiwan. As a result, the US Department of State formally rebuked the action the Taiwanese representative took without the consent of US authorities.
If the State Department considers the flag-raising ceremony a violation of protocol, then one has to ask why its East-Asia-Pacific/Taiwan Web page (www.state.gov/p/eap/ci/taiwan) shows the same flag. This clearly contradicts the fact that the US has since 1979 not officially recognized the exiled ROC government.
We believe that the US government’s actions must be consistent and, therefore, we demand that the illegal “ROC” flag be removed from the Web page mentioned above.
It has been 70 years since 1945, the year Taiwan was stolen by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). Given all subsequent historical events and standing on all internationally recognized legal documents, Taiwanese consider the looting partly the unwise making of the then-US military government in the East Asia-Pacific theater.
In those long years, the US government never established a serious communication channel with Taiwanese. In the Nov. 29 elections last year, Taiwanese expressed an unambiguous resolve not to be ruled by thievery anymore. It is time the US takes a positive step on behalf of Taiwanese.
We are not asking the US cavalry to come to the rescue. We simply ask the US not to repeat mistakes that bring unintended consequences. The US Department of State must remove the “ROC” flag from its Web page.
Kengchi Goah is a senior research fellow at the Taiwan Public Policy Council in the US.
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