Taiwan betrayed again?
On April 17, 1895, Li Hongzhang (李鴻章), on behalf of the Qing Dynasty, signed the Shimonoseki Treaty with Ito Hirobumi, ceding in perpetuity and full sovereignty the Pescadores group and Formosa to Japan.
On Sept. 8, 1951, then-Japanese prime minister Yoshida Shigeru signed the San Francisco Peace Treaty with 48 allied nations to renounce all right, title and claim to Formosa and the Pescadores. Neither signature was made with any prior consultation with Taiwanese, but their identities were instantly changed.
Since the time Portuguese mariners called Taiwan IIha Formosa in 1544, Taiwan was occupied by the Dutch East India Company in 1624, handed it over to Koxinga on Feb. 1, 1662, annexed by the Qing Dynasty in 1684, transferred to Japan in 1895 and militarily occupied by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) as the Republic of China (ROC) in 1945. In each of these transactions, Taiwan was treated like an oblation on the table, trampled by the powers at will.
On Sept. 2, 1945, Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) was authorized by US General Douglas MacArthur’s General Order No. 1 to militarily occupy Taiwan, but the KMT escaped to Taiwan for political refuge in December 1949. The KMT/ROC has never been given sovereignty over Taiwan.
Now, the KMT is the ruling party of Taiwan and its chairman, Eric Chu (朱立倫), is scheduled to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Monday. What are they going to talk about? Decide Taiwan’s future in the darkroom again?
The KMT is a Chinese political party and Chu is the chairman of that party. Once authorized by his party, he can certainly meet with Xi to discuss how and when the KMT can return “home,” but he is not authorized by Taiwanese and has absolutely no right to open the door for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to take over Taiwan.
In addition to being KMT chairman, Chu has another hat as the mayor of New Taipei City. If he visits China under the title of mayor, he needs the approval of government authorities.
Chu is President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) successor as chairman of the KMT. Is he to be a clone of Ma in the KMT’s old tricks of darkroom operation? What is the purpose of his trip to meet Xi? To use the media exposure and earn enough credits in his party to recruit him as the KMT’s presidential candidate for next year’s election? To ask Xi’s approval to endorse him as the candidate for the KMT? Or is it simply a scheme to betray Taiwan?
We all remember how KMT Legislator Chang Ching-chung (張慶忠) used 30 seconds to ram through passage of a service trade agreement with China. Minister of Finance Chang Sheng-ford (張盛和) also rushed in the application to join the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank to China’s Taiwan Affairs Office even before reaching a consensus on the name for Taiwan. Ma’s administration is famous for its darkroom operations. Any kind of dirty tricks to betray Taiwan can happen.
Since KMT Taipei mayoral candidate Sean Lien (連勝文) was defeated in the election last year, China has lost its loyal vassal in Taiwan. Xi would be more than happy to pick a new contact person; Chu’s father-in-law, Kao Yu-jen (高育仁), seems an ideal candidate to replace Lien’s father, former vice president Lien Chan (連戰).
Xi has launched a “One Belt, One Road” policy to carry out his China dream, and Taiwan will be a very important “belt” and “road.”
Of course, Xi will take this opportunity to interview Chu to check his loyalty to the “one China” policy. Will Chu have the guts to inform Xi that “one China” means the Republic of China with its territory including mainland China and Mongolia? Or is Chu just going there to kowtow to Xi and ask support and favors for his or the KMT’s benefit, by sacrificing Taiwan’s interests? The two parties have long dreamed of the “KMT and CCP jointly ruling Taiwan.”
Taiwan’s fate has been manipulated and controlled by foreign governments for more than 400 years. If we want to stop it, we need to be firm in our action. We need to raise our voices to Chu loud and clear: “Do not betray Taiwan.”
John Hsieh
Hayward, California
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