Taiwan needs to shore up national defense instead of emphasizing its independent sovereign status, a Japanese law professor who spent part of his youth in Taiwan before World War II said at a Taipei seminar on Wednesday.
"From the international law perspective, Taiwan is already an independent country with its own territory, government and people," said Shigeru Oda, a professor at Japan's Tohoku University and a former judge at the International Court of Justice for 27 years.
"There's no need for Taiwan to stress the fact of independence," Oda said. "Instead, what Taiwan urgently needs to do is shore up its national defense."
The Oda family moved to Taiwan when it was under Japanese colonial rule (1895-1945). During that period, Oda's grandfather and father served as doctors in Taiwan, helping to establish medical schools.
Oda, 79, grew up and received most of his secondary education in Taipei before returning to Tokyo in 1945 to pursue an international law career, which has taken him to the US and the Netherlands.
During the last 60 years, Oda has occasionally visited Taiwan and described himself as "nostalgic" and holding special feelings for it.
Oda addressed a full house about how Taiwanese had been reluctant to talk about politics after the tragic Feb. 28 Incident of 1947, in which many elite Taiwanese professionals were jailed or executed by the then Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government.
In his view, Oda said, Taiwan was wrong to adopt an "all or nothing" approach in its battle to defend its seat in the UN in the early 1970s. Because of former dictator Chiang Kai-shek's (蔣介石) reluctance to make any compromise on the Republic of China's national title, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution No. 2758 in 1971, giving the "China" seat to Beijing at the expense of Taipei.
The seminar, entitled "My perspective on Taiwan," was part of a series of activities to commemorate the late Democratic Progressive Party chairman Huang Shin-chieh (
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