Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) yesterday spoke of “four safeguards” as he called on Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to recognize the “undeniable fact that Sun Yat-sen’s (孫逸仙) overthrow of the Qing Dynasty established the Republic of China [ROC].”
Chu made the remarks at an exhibit at Taipei’s Zhongshan Hall to mark the 76th anniversary of Retrocession Day, when the KMT claims the Japanese ceded Taiwan to the ROC.
For 100 years, Taiwan’s history has been inextricably tied to the ROC, Chu said.
Photo: CNA
“It was through our resolve and hard work that we took back Taiwan. It was the hard work of the KMT that led to the protection, strengthening and democratization of Taiwan,” he said.
Chu criticized President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) for saying during her National Day speech that the ROC’s history on Taiwan started in 1949, the year KMT forces retreated from China and fled to Taiwan. Chu said that Taiwan had been a part of the ROC since 1945 when the Japanese surrendered the island and relinquished control.
Explaining his “four safeguards,” Chu said the KMT would “safeguard the Constitution; safeguard the democracy and freedom that comprised the spirit behind the nation’s founding; safeguard the safety, peace and prosperity of the 23 million Taiwanese; and safeguard the dignity of the ROC and the facts regarding its history.”
Chu said that if the KMT returns to power, he would make Taiwan Retrocession Day a national holiday.
“It was only through the retrocession of Taiwan that we were able to defend and strengthen Taiwan, and that we are able to have democracy in Taiwan today,” he said.
At one point when Chu was speaking at the podium, Taiwan Republic Office director Chilly Chen (陳峻涵) approached the podium, raised a banner and shouted that Retrocession Day was “the day Taiwan fell back into enemy hands.”
He was forcibly removed.
Also yesterday, Deh Tzu-tsai (鄭自才) and Wang Wen-hong (王文宏), two senior advocates of Taiwan independence, condemned the KMT for promoting the idea of Taiwan Retrocession Day and led supporters to protest outside the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“The people of Taiwan and the Penghu Islands must know our history, that what took place 76 years ago was not Taiwan’s Retrocession Day, but was the day that Taiwan and the Penghu Islands came under enemy occupation,” said Deh, chairman of the Sovereign State for Formosa and Pescadores Party.
The narrative of a retrocession for Taiwan and Penghu, as territories returned to the ROC is not an honest recounting of history, he added.
Deh said that the KMT military dictatorship of the time covered up the fact that after Japan’s defeat, Taiwan came under custodianship of Allied forces as headed by the US, and Taiwan’s political status was not settled.
“The ROC regime perpetrated the biggest lie of the century by distorting it as Allied forces retroceding Taiwan to the ROC, which then declared it as retrocession of Taiwan back to the embrace of the Chinese motherland, which is a fraudulent claim,” he said.
Wang, chairman of the 228 Victims Care Association of Taiwan, said that after examining historical documents, “it is clear that ROC regime did not obtain the sovereignty nor the right to govern Taiwan and Penghu.”
“The sovereignty issue can only be settled when a referendum is held for Taiwanese to vote for self-determination,” he said.
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