20101027 A glimpse behind the Chinese veil

A glimpse behind the Chinese veil

Sunday was the eve of Taiwan Retrocession Day, the anniversary of the day in 1945 when the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) claims the Japanese ceded Taiwan to the Republic of China (ROC). It was also the day the head of the Chinese delegation to the Tokyo International Film Festival, Jiang Ping (江平), caused a diplomatic incident by insisting that the Taiwanese delegation use the name “Taiwan, China.”

The whole sorry affair has left President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) with egg on his face. His “cross-strait diplomatic truce” bubble has burst. The Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) honeymoon is over. The mask has slipped, and Taiwanese have caught a glimpse of what lies beneath. No wonder pan-blue politicians have been more vocal in their criticism of Jiang’s words than members of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

It’s a classic case of the Emperor’s new clothes and has exposed how little weight the words Ma used in his Taiwan Retrocession Day address actually carried when he said Taiwan is already the Taiwan of the Taiwanese people, the Taiwan of the Republic of China. All that served to do was muddy the waters even further.

Ma mentioned the Cairo Declaration, the Potsdam Declaration and the official Japanese surrender, saying these provided the basis for the ceding of Taiwan to the ROC, and therefore the foundations of Taiwan Retrocession, and that they were binding. He added that then-US president Harry Truman said, back in 1950, that each country accepted that the ROC on Taiwan had sovereignty.

Retrocession Day was established by the KMT government and is an important part of the KMT’s claim that it has a legitimate right to rule Taiwan. The fact that Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) took over responsibility for the rule of Taiwan from Japan means that rule by the KMT (or the ROC) in Taiwan is both proper and legitimate. This is the first Taiwan.

The DPP has a different interpretation. In its view the KMT government in Taiwan was worse than the Japanese colonial government that preceded it, because of the 228 Incident and White Terror. For the DPP Taiwan Retrocession Day has negative and objectionable connotations. Moreover, although Japan did surrender in the China theater of war to the Allied Forces, the text of the Treaty of San Francisco merely stated that Japan relinquished sovereignty over Taiwan, but did not specify to which country. This is why many people consider the issue of Taiwan’s sovereignty to be unresolved, and why the DPP government from 2000 to 2008 referred to Taiwan Retrocession Day simply as the anniversary of the end of the war. In this context, Taiwan is an independent, sovereign country. That is the second Taiwan.

The KMT and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) arrived at what is known as the “1992 consensus,” the idea that there is “one China, with each side having its own interpretation.” The KMT holds that the “one China” is the ROC in Taiwan and not the People’s Republic of China in China. Of course, Beijing disagrees, as Jiang’s insistence has shown. As far as this interpretation goes, Taiwan is merely a province of China, which is where they get “Taiwan, China” from — this is the third Taiwan.

It is hard to say whether there is really a consensus on “one China, with each side having its own interpretation.” What is clear is that between the KMT, the DPP and the CCP, there are “three Taiwans, with each party having its own preferred interpretation.”

Jiang’s performance at the Tokyo International Film Festival was for the benefit of the press, but it actually served to close the distance between the KMT and the DPP’s definition of Taiwan. At the same time, it also widened and made the gap between the definition of the two political parties in Taiwan and the CCP clearer than ever.