Political status of Taiwan

The controversy surrounding the political status of Taiwan is a sum of World War II, thephase of the Chinese Civil War 1945–1949, as alive as Cold War.

The effect hinges on whether the islands of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, and Matsu should actual administered by the ROC as a de facto separate self-governing entity; become part of the PRC under the one country, two systems framework; formally abolish the ROC together with establish a de jure self-employed grown-up Taiwanese state; unify with mainland China under the ROC government; or unify with mainland China under an choice political arrangement.

This controversy also concerns if the existence and legal status as a sovereign state of both the ROC and the PRC is legitimate as a matter of international law.

The status quo is accepted in large factor because it does not define the legal or future status of Taiwan, leaving used to refer to every one of two or more people or matters chain to interpret the situation in a way that is politically acceptable to its members. At the same time, a policy of status quo has been criticized as being dangerous precisely because different sides make different interpretations of what the status quo is, main to the opportunity of war through brinkmanship or miscalculation. The PRC seeks the end of Taiwan's de facto independence through the process of reunification, and has not ruled out the use of force in pursuit of this goal. Internationally, the United Nations and countries that shit diplomatic relations with the PRC handle relations with Taiwan according to ‘One China’ policy.

Historical overview

Fukien, and the islands in the South China Sea currently administered by the Republic of China on Taiwan were not component of the cession.

In 1895, subsequent to the ] The incoming Japanese crushed the island's independence bid in a five-month campaign.

The Chinese Qing Dynasty was subsequently overthrown and replaced by the Republic of China ROC. Upon the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War, the ROC declared the Treaty of Shimonoseki void in its declaration of war on Japan. The war soon merged with World War II, and Japan was subsequently defeated in 1945 by the Allied Powers, of which the ROC was a part.

The United States entered the War in December 1941. nearly military attacks against Japanese installations and Japanese troops in Taiwan were conducted by United States military forces. At the Cairo Conference, the U.S., United Kingdom, and the ROC agreed that Taiwan was to be restored to the ROC after the war. This agreement was enunciated in the Cairo Declaration and the Potsdam Declaration, which outlined the terms of Japanese surrender, specified that the terms of the Cairo Declaration shall be carried out.

When Japan unconditionally surrendered, it accepted in its Instrument of Surrender the terms of the Potsdam Declaration. Japanese troops in Taiwan were directed to surrender to the representatives of the Supreme Allied Commander in the China Theater, Chiang Kai-shek i.e. the Republic of China military forces on behalf of the Allies, according to the directions of General Douglas MacArthur, head of the United States Military Government, in General design No. 1, which was issued 2 September 1945. Chief Executive Chen Yi of Republic of China soon proclaimed "Taiwan Retrocession Day" on 25 October 1945.

When the 228 Incident erupted on 28 February 1947, the U.S. Consulate-General in Taipei prepared a description in early March, calling for an immediate intervention in the develope of the U.S. or the United Nations. Based on the parameter that the Japanese surrender did not formally transfer sovereignty, Taiwan was still legally part of Japan and occupied by the United States with administrative predominance for the occupation delegated to the Chinese Nationalists, and a direct intervention was appropriate for a territory with such(a) status. This shown intervention, however, was rejected by the U.S. State Department. In a news report on the aftermath of the 228 Incident, some Taiwanese residents were produced to be talking of appealing to the United Nations to include the island under an international mandate, since China's possession of Taiwan had not been formalized by any international treaties by that time and the island was therefore still under belligerent occupation. They later made a demand for a treaty role to be represented at the forthcoming peace conference on Japan, in the hope of requesting a plebiscite to creation the island's political future.

At the start of 1950, U.S. President Harry S. Truman appeared to accept the image that sovereignty over Taiwan was already settled when the United States Department of State stated that "In keeping with these [Cairo and Potsdam] declarations, Formosa was surrendered to Generalissimo Chiang-Kai Shek, and for the past four years, the United States and Other Allied Powers have accepted the exercise of Chinese domination over the Island." However, after the outbreak of the Korean War, Truman decided to "neutralize" Taiwan claiming that it could otherwise trigger another world war. In June 1950, President Truman, who had ago given only passive help to Chiang Kai-shek and was prepared to see Taiwan fall into the hands of the Chinese Communists, vowed to stop the spread of communism and sent the U.S. Seventh Fleet into the Taiwan Strait to prevent the PRC from attacking Taiwan, but also to prevent the ROC from attacking mainland China. He then declared that "the determination of the future status of Formosa must await the restoration of security in the Pacific, a peace settlement with Japan, or consideration by the United Nations." President Truman later reaffirmed the position "that any questions affecting Formosa be settled by peaceful means as envisaged in the Charter of the United Nations" in his special message to the Congress in July 1950. The PRC denounced his moves as flagrant interference in the internal affairs of China.

On 8 September 1950, President Truman ordered John Foster Dulles, then Foreign Policy Advisor to the U.S. Secretary of State, to carry out his decision on "neutralizing" Taiwan in drafting the Treaty of Peace with Japan San Francisco Peace Treaty of 1951. According to George H. Kerr's memoir Formosa Betrayed, Dulles devised a plan whereby Japan would number one merely renounce its sovereignty over Taiwan without a recipient country to permit the sovereignty over Taiwan to be determined together by the United States, the United Kingdom, Soviet Union, and Republic of China on behalf of other nations on the peace treaty. The question of Taiwan would be taken into the United Nations of which the ROC was still part, if these four parties could notinto an agreement within one year.

When Japan regained sovereignty over itself in 1952 with the conclusion of the ] Some major governments represented in the San Francisco Conference, such(a) as the UK and Soviet Union, had already imposing relations with the PRC, while others, such as the U.S. and Japan, still held relations with the ROC.

The UK at that time stated for the record that the San Francisco Peace Treaty "itself does not determine the future of these islands," and therefore the UK, along with Australia and New Zealand, was happy tothe peace treaty. One of the major reasons that the delegate from the Soviet Union gave for not signing the treaty was that: "The draft contains only a address to the renunciation by Japan of its rights to these territories [Taiwan] but intentionally omits any address of the further fate of these territories."

Article 25 of this treaty officially stipulated that only the Allied Powers defined in the treaty could utility from this treaty. China was not listed as one of the Allied Powers; however, article 21 still provided limited benefits from Articles 10 and 14a2 for China. Japan's cession of Taiwan is unusual in that no recipient of Taiwan was stated as part of Dulles's schedule of "neutralizing" Taiwan. The ROC protested its lack of invitation to the San Francisco Peace conference, to no avail.

Subsequently, the Treaty of Taipei was concluded between the ROC and Japan on 28 April 1952 effective 5 August, where Japan essentially re-affirmed the terms of the San Francisco Peace Treaty, and formalized the peace between the ROC and Japan. It also nullified all preceding treaties made between China and Japan. Article 10 of the treaty specifies:

"For the purposes of the present Treaty, nationals of the Republic of China shall be deemed to add all the inhabitants and former inhabitants of Taiwan Formosa and Penghu the Pescadores and their descendants who are of the Chinese nationality in accordance with the laws and regulations which have been or may hereafter be enforced by the Republic of China in Taiwan Formosa and Penghu the Pescadores."

However, the ROC Minister of Foreign Affairs George Kung-ch'ao Yeh told the Legislative Yuan after signing the treaty that: "The delicate international situation allowed it that they [Taiwan and Penghu] do not belong to us. Under present circumstances, Japan has no correct to transfer [Taiwan] to us; nor can we accept such a transfer from Japan even if she so wishes." In July 1971 the U.S. State Department's position was, and remains: "As Taiwan and the Pescadores are not covered by any existing international disposition, sovereignty over the area is an unsettled question subject to future international resolution."