Taiwan Retrocession Day
On Sept. 2, 1945, General Douglas MacArthur issued General Order No. 1, ordering senior Japanese commanders and all ground, sea, air and auxiliary forces within China (excluding Manchuria), Formosa and French Indo-China north of the 16th latitude to surrender to Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石). This showed that MacArthur gave an order to Chiang and he accepted it, within a principal-agent relationship.
On Oct. 25, Chiang’s officers accepted the surrender of Japanese troops on behalf of the Allied Powers. Taiwan was still the territory of Japan on that day. According to the Hague Convention, the date Oct. 25, 1945, can only be interpreted as the beginning of a military occupation on Taiwan with no relation to the transfer of Taiwanese sovereignty. On that day, Japanese troops surrendered to the Allied Powers, not to the Republic of China (ROC).
However, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) administration announced that day would be known as “Taiwan Retrocession Day.”
During World War II, the leaders of the US, China and the UK held a meeting in Cairo, which was followed by the Cairo Declaration on Dec. 1, 1943. The intention to restore to the ROC the territories that had been lost to Japan, such as Manchuria and Taiwan, was expressed in the declaration. However, things did not turn out the way the ROC expected.
In August 1946, the British Foreign Office sent a letter to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that said that regarding the transfer of Taiwan to China, the British government had to follow the decisions the Allied Powers made in the Cairo Declaration and that it could not, by itself, transfer Taiwanese sovereignty from Japan to China. Taiwanese had to wait until a peace treaty was signed. Even though Taiwan was already occupied by the ROC, the British government could not say that Taiwanese had regained their ROC nationality.
The US Department of State also sent a memorandum to the ROC in November 1946, reiterating the same points that the British had made earlier.
The ROC, in its reply, agreed to follow suit, saying that according to international law, the ROC would not argue with the supreme commander for the Allied Powers whether Chinese in Japan should be deemed as Chinese, Japanese or liberated people, before a peace treaty is signed.
The US, upon witnessing the mounting concern over the misrule of Taiwan by KMT authorities since 1945, resolved that the Chinese government has forfeited the right to sovereignty over Taiwan at the time of signing a peace treaty with Japan.
On Sept. 8, 1951, the San Francisco Peace Treaty was signed by 48 nations, and it came into force on April 28, 1952.
Article 2b of the treaty stipulates that Japan renounced all right, title and claim to Taiwan, the Pescadores, the Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島) and the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島). Nowhere in the treaty it is mentioned that Japan relinquished Taiwan’s sovereignty to the ROC. It clearly shows that Taiwan Retrocession Day is a lie.
David Chen
Surrey, Canada
Chu is acting strange
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Eric Chu (朱立倫) is going to extremes and no one can understand the reason for his behavior.
Chu, as KMT chairman, designed the presidential primary polls and tricked Deputy Legislative Speaker Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) into becoming the party’s presidential candidate. Together with President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), Chu used Hung to prevent Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) from running for president.
After a few months, Chu replaced Hung as the new candidate. This could be the fastest presidential candidate switch in the free world.
About two-thirds of New Taipei City residents want Chu to resign as New Taipei City mayor. Instead, he asked for a leave of absence with pay for three months. He said he would “generously” donate his salary to the city government and has promised to provide favors for New Taipei City if he is elected president.
No official from the New Taipei City Government had been indicted in the Formosa Fun Coast (八仙海岸) disaster, in which 12 people were killed and about 500 were injured.
Residents of “Suitable Residences” in the city complain about the safety standards of their buildings, but the minister of the interior said that the city government was not responsible for them.
Chu, Hung and their associates were summoned by prosecutors probing alleged deals between them in connection with the switching of the presidential candidate.
After leaving the prosecutors’ office, Chu said, “The Democratic Progressive Party [DPP] is wasting judicial resources.”
Chu has advised voters: “Do not vote for the DPP because of the mistakes of the KMT.”
Chu is known as a CIA insider. Would this help or hurt his candidacy?
Charles Hong
Columbus, Ohio
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