In 2010, while speaking to a Taiwanese group in California, I was asked during a question-and-answer session: “What do you think of Confucius Institutes?”
Confucius Institutes had been gaining popularity at the time, but despite that, my answer was quick and to the point. “Beware of them, they are Trojan horses.”
Few grasped the implications, yet now, more than a decade later, the US Government Accountability Office has finally woken up to the danger they pose. There are barely five institutes left where once there were more than 100.
A few years later, in a different discussion with Pavel Suian, a former Romanian foreign policy adviser and former colleague of mine at Taipei Medical University, asked: “Why do you keep trying to make a case for Taiwan in the UN? It was expelled long ago.”
Once more I spoke directly: “Read the actual wording of UN Resolution 2758, it never mentions Taiwan, it states that the followers of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) are expelled. There is nothing there about Taiwan or Taiwanese.”
Thus today, more than a decade later, it is not surprising to finally see governments talking at last about the nuances of Resolution 2758 and how that resolution does not exclude Taiwan from the UN.
Why bring these issues up?
The reason is simple. The People’s Republic of China (PRC), in addition to its efforts to dominate the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait, has upped its game. It has created laws to justify “executing” those that it feels defend the de facto independence of Taiwan.
As the PRC ratchets up its rhetoric on how to punish “splittists,” a new or shall we say, “unrecognized” rabbit hole in Taiwan-China relations is being exposed, one that all sides hesitate to plumb.
That hole and challenge is the strange status of Kinmen and Matsu, two islands which are completely different from Taiwan and Penghu and yet are entwined with the 1952 San Francisco Peace Treaty and Resolution 2758.
To be sure, way back in 1949, Mao Zedong (毛澤東) had sent his troops to invade Kinmen, known as the Battle of Gunmingtou, but they were defeated.
There was also the First Taiwan Strait Crisis from 1954 to 1955, where Mao’s Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) prepared to invade Kinmen, and the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis from 1954 to 1955, where the PLA bombarded Kinmen. Recently, there have been regular Chinese vessel incursions into Kinmen’s waters. Yet for two islands in such proximity to China, the PRC’s behavior toward them has been relatively subdued for many decades.
Why? What makes Kinmen and Matsu different? What keeps the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from pushing the envelope there? In their way, these islands challenge all sides with their labyrinthian rabbit hole depths.
Kinmen and Matsu were not part of the 1895 Treaty of Shimonoseki signed between the Manchu-led Qing Dynasty and the Empire of Japan, which ceded Taiwan and Penghu to the latter. This treaty made Taiwan and Penghu Japanese colonies long before the Wuchang Uprising in 1911, which led to the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty.
Therefore, these islands were not part of the 1952 San Francisco Peace Treaty by which Japan “renounced all right, title, and claim to” Taiwan and Penghu.
However, the treaty did not specify which entity Taiwan’s sovereignty would be transferred to.
In other words, Kinmen and Matsu were always part of the “China” that emerged from 20th-century wars in Asia, and to which the San Francisco Treaty did not apply.
Thus, while the CCP drove Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣中正) Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government into exile on Taiwan and Penghu, that government was not in exile on Kinmen and Matsu. That is an important distinction.
However, ironically, or perhaps not, Kinmen and Matsu were never included in the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty that was in effect from 1955 to 1980, by which the US pledged to defend Taiwan and Penghu.
Why so? That answer again can be found in the US’ nebulous position on the question of Taiwan’s sovereignty, which to this day is that it is “undecided.” Also, the US has never clearly stated its official position on Kinmen and Matsu.
Why does the PRC not claim Kinmen and Matsu on these separate grounds? If it did, it would have to separate that claim from its desire and claim to possess Taiwan.
As a former Japanese colony, Taiwan and Penghu could be granted the right to self-determination in accordance with the UN Charter, while Kinmen and Matsu could not. Which nation wants to separate and untie that knot?
If the CCP argues that Kinmen and Matsu belong to it because they were part of the former Manchu-led Qing Dynasty, which later became China, then it must treat Taiwan differently, because, unlike Kinmen and Matsu, the Qing Dynasty ceded the sovereignty of Taiwan and Penghu to Japan.
Regarding Kinmen and Matsu, the US also has its issues. As the chief victor over Japan in World War II and determinant of colonial Taiwan’s status, it has played a different role toward Kinmen and Matsu. The US could not claim to be “undecided” on the sovereign status of these islands as it is on Taiwan.
As the US recognized the government of the PRC as the “sole legal government of China” in 1979, does that not implicitly recognize that the PRC has jurisdiction over Kinmen and Matsu?
Would the US be willing to trade Kinmen and Matsu for the PRC’s recognition of Taiwan’s already de facto independence?
What about the people on Kinmen and Matsu? Would they not face similar problems? Would they wish to be citizens of the PRC or move to Taiwan?
Such a migration would not be as great as that experienced when India and Pakistan’s borders were established in 1947, but it would still be disruptive.
Also, if these islands remained as part of China, the citizens of Kinmen and Matsu would face a similar fate to what happened to Hong Kongers after the Hong Kong handover to China in 1997.
A final and somewhat facetious note: What about KMT members? Does Kinmen and Matsu’s status as being part of China mean that the KMT did not completely lose the Chinese Civil War and could claim to continue it from Kinmen and Matsu? Or would this be something with which they could formulate a new and revised so-called “1992 consensus?”
The status of Kinmen and Matsu remains an important question, one which by no means has been fully addressed. If faced now, it would certainly force all sides to clarify, explain and justify their positions.
Taiwan, Kinmen and Matsu? Who is up to the challenge?
Jerome Keating is a political commentator.
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