Re-debating Cairo
Regarding the legal effect of the Oct. 25, 1945, Japanese surrender ceremonies, Wen Lam Chang points out that the Cairo Declaration clearly states: “Formosa and the Pescadores shall be restored to the Republic of China [ROC]” thus mandating a resumption of sovereignty (Letters, Jan. 23, page 8).
Moreover, as part and parcel of the instruments of Japan’s unconditional surrender, the 1943 Cairo Declaration and the 1945 Potsdam Declaration have been imparted the status of treaties. Functioning together with the surrender ceremonies, they have the force of awarding the ROC sovereignty over Taiwan beginning on Oct. 25, 1945.
Chang has offered this interesting argument, but I have found no record that the leading Allies interpreted the Japanese surrender ceremonies, and these accompanying declarations, in such a manner.
In its aide-memoire of Dec. 27, 1950, the US interpreted the Cairo Declaration in these words:
The Cairo Declaration of 1943 stated the purpose to restore “Manchuria, Formosa and the Pescadores to the Republic of China.”
That declaration, like other wartime declarations, such as those of Yalta and Potsdam, was in the opinion of the US government subject to any final peace settlement where all relevant factors should be considered.
The Formosan Association for Public Affairs (FAPA) has frequently pointed out that the US National Archives and Records Administration does not consider the Cairo Declaration a treaty.
FAPA obtained a letter from the assistant archivist for records services who wrote: “The National Archives and Records Administration has not filed this [Cairo] Declaration under treaties. […] The declaration was a communique and it does not have [a] treaty series (TS) or executive agreement series (EAS) number.”
FAPA’s president has clarified that: “The Cairo Declaration was merely intended as a ‘declaration of intent’ about the world’s affairs among the three leaders — a mere statement of war aims, the territorial reassignments of which had to be solemnized in a formal peace treaty after Japan’s surrender. It has negligible status in international law as a treaty or convention.”
Let us not forget that General Douglas MacArthur at a US congressional hearing in May 1951 said: “Legalistically Formosa is still a part of the Empire of Japan.”
If indeed there had been a transfer of Taiwan’s territorial sovereignty to China in late October 1945, such a statement would have been impossible.
Specifications regarding transfers of territorial sovereignty after World War II in the Pacific are found in the San Francisco Peace Treaty of 1952. Unfortunately, in those interim years, the ROC failed to maintain its “original legal position” as the de facto and de jure government of China. By mid-December 1949, the ROC government had already fled into exile on occupied Taiwan, outside of China’s national territory. Hence, it did not become a party to the treaty.
Detailed references and additional authoritative sources can be found here: https://www.civil-taiwan.org/cairo.htm.
That the ROC government “recovered” Taiwan’s sovereignty based on the Cairo Declaration is commonly heard in Taiwan. As we enter the 40th year of the Taiwan Relations Act, I certainly hope that officials at the US Department of State and American Institute in Taiwan can take time out from patting themselves on the back, and formulate the necessary strategies to vigorously combat the continuing Chinese disinformation on this subject.
Tom Chang
California
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