中文
By Shao Xia
The Taipei 101 skyscraper. [Photo/Xinhua]
The "American Institute in Taiwan" (AIT) recently revived the outdated claim of "Taiwan's status undetermined." The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) authorities in Taiwan quickly echoed this rhetoric, further promoting the false narrative that both sides of the Taiwan Straits do not belong to one and the same China. This is an old topic that has been revisited countless times. It lingers not because the facts are unclear, but because some persist in distorting them. History, however, has already rendered its judgment.
The manufactured myth
The "Taiwan's status undetermined" fallacy is nothing new; it is an outdated claim that dates back to the Truman administration. The United States' inconsistency and flip-flopping on this issue are far from novel.
In fact, the United States has explicitly acknowledged that Taiwan is part of China. For instance, former U.S. President Harry Truman noted in a statement in 1950 that "for the past four years, the United States and other Allied Powers have accepted the exercise of Chinese authority over the island." The then-U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson further clarified that there had been no legal challenge to China's sovereignty over Taiwan when the island became a province of China.
It was after the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950 that the United States, driven by its strategy to contain China, drifted away from this position and put forward the claim that "Taiwan's status is undetermined." To give this argument a veneer of legitimacy, in 1951 the U.S. orchestrated the San Francisco Peace Conference under the pretext of resolving postwar issues between Japan and the Allied Powers, deliberately leaving Taiwan and the Penghu Islands' sovereignty undefined. In 1952, the U.S. further pressured the Kuomintang (KMT) government led by Chiang Kai-shek to sign the so-called Sino-Japanese Peace Treaty, which made no explicit provision for returning Taiwan and the Penghu Islands to China.
Since then, Washington has frequently resorted to this rhetoric as part of its efforts to contain China and hollow out the one-China principle.
Taiwan's inalienable status
Taiwan has always been an inseparable part of China's territory since ancient times. In 1895, Japan forced the defeated Qing government to sign the unequal Treaty of Shimonoseki and cede Taiwan and the Penghu Islands. While the treaty was indeed an unequal one that forfeited China's sovereignty, the very act of cession proves that Taiwan and Penghu were already an integral part of Chinese territory before 1895.
During World War II (WWII), the governments of China, the United States and the United Kingdom issued the Cairo Declaration, which, along with the subsequent Potsdam Proclamation, explicitly stipulated that Japan must return the territories it had stolen from China, including Taiwan and the Penghu Islands. The Chinese government officially restored its exercise of sovereignty over Taiwan when it accepted Japan's surrender in Taiwan on October 25, 1945. This act definitively resolved the status of Taiwan, completing its return to China both in law and in fact.
A light show illuminates the Taipei 101 skyscraper, January 2, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua]
The AIT's recent revival of the "Taiwan's status undetermined" claim not only openly contradicts the Cairo Declaration and the Potsdam Proclamation, but also invokes the so-called Treaty of San Francisco, an illegal and invalid document issued after WWII, when the United States gathered a group of countries to negotiate a separate peace with Japan while deliberately excluding China and the Soviet Union.
This treaty constituted a clear breach of Declaration by the United Nations, signed by the Allied "Big Four" – the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and China – in 1942, which explicitly prohibited any signatory from concluding a separate peace with the enemy. Furthermore, it blatantly disposed of China's lawful territory behind its back, in direct contravention of the UN Charter and fundamental norms of international law.
As for the so-called 1952 Sino-Japanese Peace Treaty, it is even more untenable. Signed by the KMT government, which by then no longer represented China, it was illegal and void from the outset.
The illegality and invalidity of these treaties aside, China had already restored its sovereignty over Taiwan, both de jure and de facto, in 1945. Consequently, Japan had no legal right whatsoever to dispose of Taiwan – a territory that never belonged to it – in the 1951 treaty, nor could it alter Taiwan's legal status.
The claim that Taiwan's status is "undetermined" is nothing more than a politically manufactured zombie, serving solely the scheming agendas of "Taiwan independence" separatists and external forces. History will ultimately side with justice. Any attempt to bring this zombie back to life is a blatant insult to international justice and historical facts. Those who try it will be nailed to the pillar of shame forever.
The author is a special commentator on international affairs for CGTN.
