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China's claim on Taiwan is irrefutable
Lau Guan Kim Updated: 2004-09-28 09:09
The strident cry for many Chinese is: Taiwan is China's!
What an emotive feeling!
That Taiwan does not belong to China because it was returned after WW2 to KMT is self-serving and tenuous. As KMT was the de facto government of China, international protocol demanded that it receive the victor's prize on behalf of China the return of Taiwan from a defeated Japan in accordance with the terms set out in the Cairo Conference (1943) of the three great allies in WW2: the US, China and England.
The 1895 Treaty of Shimonoseki following China's defeat in the 1894 Sino-Japan War was signed between China and Japan whereby the former ceded Taiwan to the latter. If Taiwan were not China's, would Japan take all the trouble to formalize its victory imposing a humiliating treaty on China to cede Taiwan?
There is no doubt that Taiwan belongs to the Chinese on either side of the Strait.
This was bolstered by the Cairo Conference (22-26 November 1943), a gathering of three great allies: the US, China and England to declare their purpose in the war against Japan:
"It is their purpose that Japan shall be stripped of all the islands in the Pacific which she has seized or occupied since the beginning of the First World War in 1914, and that all the territories Japan has stolen from the Chinese, such as Manchuria, Formosa, and the Pescadores, shall be restored to the Republic of China."
The key declaration here is "… and that all the territories Japan has stolen from the Chinese, such as Manchuria, Formosa, and the Pescadores, shall be restored to the Republic of China."
But the Taidu, while denying Taiwan is never the Republic of China, a name for the government of Taiwan, claim China was returned to the Republic of China named in the Cairo Declaration of 1943.
This would have meant the Taidu's claim is China belongs to Taiwan.
Wait! The Republic of China was not in existence in Taiwan in 1943 or at anytime before 1949. This means, like booty of war as in the 1894 Sino-Japanese War, Taiwan is now the returned property to China, which fought along side the victorious Allies in WW2.
It then means the Republic of China represented China under the KMT (Guomindang), and thus the Cairo Declaration returned Taiwan to its rightful owners - the Chinese.
The Chinese people rejected the KMT in 1949, and now call it the People's Republic of China. That means the Republic of China belongs to the Chinese people, and not an inheritance of the KMT or Taidu secessionists.
So the Taidu can claim Taiwan collects its own taxes, has an army and a government; but this does not alter the fact that Taiwan is a renegade province and has no legal right to collect taxes, have army or even exist as a separate entity except as linked by the umbilical cord to Mother China.
Most importantly you cannot deny the existence of tongwen tongzhong (same culture same race).
The irrefutable proof is that the allies in WW2 recognised Formosa (the old name for Taiwan) to be China's, and returning it to the Republic of China means China, and not the KMT in Taiwan.
Even at that stage when China was the sick man of Asia, the international European community recognised Taiwan as part of China.
Much earlier, Zheng Chenggong (or Koxinga [guoxingye] to the West) particularly made the Dutch very aware of this.
Among the arguments heard was that the original people of Taiwan was not Chinese, and hence Taiwan does not belong to China.
Pro-independence people in Taiwan unknowingly step on the toes of their "would-be-saviours," the Americans. That argument means that the US also does not belong to the Americans, and even worse, its other ally Japan is made to feel it robbed the Polynesians of their islands.
Another fallacy is that the government of Taiwan is democratically elected by the Chinese in Taiwan and is the de jure authority of the mainland. It is preposterous that some twenty-three million Chinese can represent China, whose 1.3 billion Chinese had no choice in choosing the president of Ttaiwan province.
What it all boils down to is that Taiwan was not rightfully and legally returned to the Chinese people, notwithstanding historical and political realities.
Instead, the illegal occupants call themselves democratic and delude themselves they represent the cry for democracy in China. Whatever they yodel cannot hide the fact that they are squatters on Chinese territory.
If the pro-independence camp claims people of Taiwan are not Chinese, than these people are illegal occupants and should be evicted.
The gall of it all when the Taidu cite as proof of Taiwan's independence no taxes paid to China and it has a form of government not under control of the mainland. We have to define the term from the outset that the government of Taiwan is the untidy end of the Chinese Civil War and that the rulers of the island are thus renegades occupying China's territory.
It sounds like the Taidu do not know what "illegal" means. By that term, whatever the Taidu and cohorts claim as theirs is null and void.
And since when would robbers pay rent in a house they stole?
Not paying rent does not mean the robbers own the house. It means the Taidu are robbing the Chinese of their inheritance.
Taiwan is an unfinished Chinese civil war. It should have been decided in the 1950s had not the Korean War erupted. It was revenge by America for China's intervention in that war.
There is still a state of war between Taiwan and China. No formal end of the civil war was signed, neither was there a treaty to say Taiwan can exist as an independent state.
The right to determine whether Taiwan is an independent state from China now rests with the Chinese people in China and the island. Nowhere is that determination stridently known that Taiwan belongs to China, and thus is a Chinese province and not a sovereign state.
Two solutions are left open. Peaceful path by way of reunification, or war if the Taidu declare Taiwan's independence.
Legally, China can opt for military action against Taiwan. As Taiwan is recognised as an integral part of China, this is an internal affair of China.
That also means any outside party coming to the aid of either China or the renegades in Taiwan is interfering in the domestic affair of China.
Lee Teng-hui and Chen Shui-bian liken Taiwan to Kosovo, and China to Yugoslavia. Their gamble is the US will invoke its Taiwan Relations Act once China opts for military action.
But many Americans see no compelling reasons why 280 million Americans should sacrifice their lives for 23 odd million Taiwanese.
Saving the necks of Taiwanese is not the national interest of America.
| The above content represents the view of the author only. |
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