China is misrepresenting the Cairo Declaration and other World War II-era documents to support its coercive actions toward Taiwan, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) said on Friday.
On Sept. 3, Beijing staged a military parade to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, promoting a narrative that it had “won the war” and citing the Cairo Declaration and other wartime documents to claim that Japan had returned Taiwan’s sovereignty to China.
In response to media inquiries, an AIT spokesperson said Beijing was deliberately twisting the meaning of the 1943 Cairo Declaration, the 1945 Potsdam Declaration and the 1951 Treaty of San Francisco in an effort to support its coercive actions toward Taiwan.
Photo: Reuters
“Beijing’s narrative is totally wrong,” the AIT spokesperson said, adding that none of those documents determined Taiwan’s ultimate political status.
Employing such false legal narratives is part of a broader campaign to isolate Taiwan internationally and restrict other countries’ sovereign choices in how they engage with Taipei, the spokesperson added.
The remarks echoed Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung’s (林佳龍) comments in a July 7 speech at a forum in Taipei, where he said that the Cairo and Potsdam declarations were political statements expressing the Allies’ wartime intentions, not binding treaties.
Lin also said that the 1951 Treaty of San Francisco — a formal agreement signed between Japan and the Allied Powers after the war — supersedes wartime declarations in legal authority, as it formally addressed the disposition of territories occupied by Japan.
The AIT’s remarks are not the first time Washington has raised such concerns. The US government has previously said that, just as Beijing has distorted UN Resolution 2758, it is again attempting to twist the meaning of WWII-era documents to justify coercion against Taiwan.
On Wednesday, US Representative Chris Smith, cochair of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, introduced a resolution condemning the Chinese Communist Party’s historical revisionism and its attempt to claim credit for the Allied victory in Asia.
In Taipei, a source familiar with foreign affairs said yesterday that three points stand out in Washington’s stance on Taiwan’s unresolved international status.
First, Beijing is promoting this year as a milestone of three “80th anniversaries” — the victory of the “War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression,” the establishment of the UN and what it calls “Taiwan Restoration.”
By pairing such narratives with legal warfare and military displays, China is seeking to distort the international order established by the democratic world and replace it with one defined by Beijing and other authoritarian regimes, the source said.
Second, the presence of Russian President Vladimir Putin, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian at its Sept. 3 military parade showed Beijing’s intention to position itself in opposition to the democratic camp, they said.
Third, Beijing is again attempting to distort UN Resolution 2758, particularly during the UN General Assembly session, to advance the false narrative that Taiwan is part of China, the source added.
Such actions openly challenge the international order that has existed since the UN’s founding 80 years ago, making it unsurprising that Washington has chosen this moment to make clear its stance, they said.
Separately, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs welcomed and thanked the AIT for clearly stating the US’ position on Taiwan and for denying China’s claims, calling it further evidence of Washington’s firm support for Taiwan’s international participation.
“The Republic of China and the People’s Republic of China [PRC] are not subordinate to one another,” the ministry said, adding that it is an objective fact and the PRC has no right to represent Taiwan in the international community.
The Chinese government has recently launched a massive campaign of “legal warfare,” seeking to alter the regional “status quo,” legitimize its aggression, and undermine peace and stability, it said.
As a responsible member of the international community, Taiwan would continue to uphold the “status quo,” while encouraging more countries to speak out against China’s false narratives, it said.
Taiwan would also deepen cooperation with the US and other like-minded partners to safeguard peace, stability and prosperity in the region, it added.
Additional reporting by Su Yong-yao and Lee I-chia
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