A two-week exhibition of the original diplomatic documents from the end of World War II will be held in Taipei next week to mark the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Sino-Japanese Peace Treaty, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday.
Along with the Sino-Japanese Peace Treaty, also known as the Treaty of Taipei, the original copies of the Treaty of Shimonoseki, or the Treaty of Maguan, the Cairo Declaration, the Potsdam Declaration and the Japanese Instrument of Surrender will also be exhibited at the Academia Historica from tomorrow until Aug. 19.
The Treaty of Taipei was signed on April 28 in 1952 in Taipei between the Republic of China (ROC) government and the government of Japan and went into effect on Aug. 5 the same year.
The treaty included the “renouncement to all right, title and claim to Taiwan (Formosa) and Penghu (the Pescadores) as well as the Spratly Islands [Nansha Islands, 南沙群島] and the Paracel Islands [Xisha Islands, 西沙群島]” by the Japanese and that “all treaties, conventions and agreements concluded before Dec. 9, 1941, between Japan and China have become null and void as a consequence of the war.”
The treaty’s wording meant that Japan surrendered its claims over the nation, without stating to whom it surrendered it.
However, the treaty does identify that “nationals of the Republic of China shall be deemed to include all the inhabitants and former inhabitants of Taiwan (Formosa) and Penghu (the Pescadores) and their descendants who are of the Chinese nationality.”
The treaty’s wording also followed the Treaty of San Francisco in 1951, to which both the ROC and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) were denied invitations due to the Chinese Civil War leaving uncertain which government was the legitimate representative of China.
However, National Taiwan University (NTU) honorary professor Cheng Ching-jen (鄭欽仁) said yesterday that the historical view of President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration was too “pro-China” and avoids the issue of “direct democratic power” and “power to the people.”
Although the Cairo Declaration and the Potsdam Declaration provide the basis for Taiwan’s legal status, the deciding treaty should be the Treaty of San Francisco, which should annul the both the Cairo and Potsdam declarations, Cheng said.
The Japanese government’s “renouncement to all right, title and claim to Taiwan (Formosa)” had not made clear to which government it ceded the country, which gave the right of government back to the Taiwanese, Cheng said.
However, at the time, Taiwanese were under the autocratic rule of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and were unable to resolve the issue.
Chen also said that the Treaty of Taipei did not state that Japan ceded Taiwan to the ROC.
Even in 1972, when Japan formally established diplomatic ties with China, Japan did not “recognize” that Taiwan was part of China’s territory because it felt that it had renounced the right of government over Taiwan and was in no position to state which country Taiwan belonged to.
Taiwan yesterday condemned the recent increase in Chinese coast guard-escorted fishing vessels operating illegally in waters around the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. Unusually large groupings of Chinese fishing vessels began to appear around the islands on Feb. 15, when at least six motherships and 29 smaller boats were sighted, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said in a news release. While CGA vessels were dispatched to expel the Chinese boats, Chinese coast guard ships trespassed into Taiwan’s restricted waters and unsuccessfully attempted to interfere, the CGA said. Due to the provocation, the CGA initiated an operation to increase
A crowd of over 200 people gathered outside the Taipei District Court as two sisters indicted for abusing a 1-year-old boy to death attended a preliminary hearing in the case yesterday afternoon. The crowd held up signs and chanted slogans calling for aggravated penalties in child abuse cases and asking for no bail and “capital punishment.” They also held white flowers in memory of the boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), who was allegedly tortured to death by the sisters in December 2023. The boy died four months after being placed in full-time foster care with the
A Taiwanese woman on Sunday was injured by a small piece of masonry that fell from the dome of St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican during a visit to the church. The tourist, identified as Hsu Yun-chen (許芸禎), was struck on the forehead while she and her tour group were near Michelangelo’s sculpture Pieta. Hsu was rushed to a hospital, the group’s guide to the church, Fu Jing, said yesterday. Hsu was found not to have serious injuries and was able to continue her tour as scheduled, Fu added. Mathew Lee (李世明), Taiwan’s recently retired ambassador to the Holy See, said he met
The Shanlan Express (山嵐號), or “Mountain Mist Express,” is scheduled to launch on April 19 as part of the centennial celebration of the inauguration of the Taitung Line. The tourism express train was renovated from the Taiwan Railway Corp’s EMU500 commuter trains. It has four carriages and a seating capacity of 60 passengers. Lion Travel is arranging railway tours for the express service. Several news outlets were invited to experience the pilot tour on the new express train service, which is to operate between Hualien Railway Station and Chihshang (池上) Railway Station in Taitung County. It would also be the first tourism service
RSS