The formation of a new state under the name "Taiwan" is indispensable if the nation is to pursue a formal declaration of independence, pro-independence activists said yesterday.
"Taiwan should abandon its formal designation of the Republic of China [ROC] ... and apply for UN membership under the name `Taiwan' to show the world the people's willingness to pursue formal independence," said Hsu Shih-kai (許世楷), a member of Taiwan Heart (台灣心會), a new think tank.
Reviewing the history of the birth of new states throughout the world, Liao Fu-te (廖福特), an assistant research fellow of the Institute of European and American Studies at Academia Sinica, said the determination of the people to pursue the formation of a new state is the key to success.
Both Hsu and Liao expressed their opinions during a panel discussion held by the think tank yesterday morning to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Peace between Japan and Taiwan, signed in Taipei on April 28, 1952.
Article 2 of the treaty said, "Japan has renounced all right, title and claim to Taiwan [Formosa] and Penghu [the Pescadores] as well as the Spratly Islands and the Paracel Islands."
The treaty ceased to be effective after Japan shifted diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1972, said historian Chang Yen-hsien (
Chang and Hsu said neither the San Francisco Treaty nor the 1952 treaty specified whether the ROC, then holding the China seat in the UN under the KMT, could legally acquire sovereignty over Taiwan and Penghu after Japan renounced its claim to these areas.
The ROC under the KMT regime took over Taiwan after Japan renounced its claims to the province, but Hsu argued that, over the years, Taiwan, as a political entity, has become a de facto sovereign state.
"Nowadays foreign nationals have to apply for a Taiwan visa before visiting Taiwan, and this is indicative of the fact that Taiwan has been sovereign in de facto terms," Hsu said.
The next step leading to Taiwan's formal independence, the think-tank member added, was to apply for UN membership as a new nation under the name "Taiwan."
The ROC lost its China seat in the UN in 1971. Under resolution 2758, the UN General Assembly decided to oust the ROC and admit the People's Republic of China by a vote of 76 for and 35 against, with members 17 abstaining.
Critics see Taipei's efforts to rejoin the UN as an attempt to revise the status quo, including the international lip service paid to Beijing's "one China" principle. These critics blame this slighting of the status quo for Taiwan's failure to re-enter the world body.
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