Bush and Hu on Nov 21, 2004

Bush, Hu Jintao agree on North Korea, Taiwan

DAMAGE CONTROL: US President George W. Bush met the Chinese president in Chile yesterday, apparently voicing sustained not support Taiwan's independence
AP , SANTIAGO, CHILE
With fresh support from China in hand, US President George W. Bush hopes to minimize public differences with Asian allies over how to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions and come back to the bargaining table.

On the sidelines of a weekend-long economic summit with Pacific Rim leaders, Bush met yesterday in quick succession with all four of the US' partners in now-stalled talks with the communist regime.

China was first up, and Chinese President Hu Jintao said after the meeting, "We ... exchanged views on the question of Taiwan. I expressed my high appreciation to Bush's adherence to the `one China' policy and the three communiques, and to his opposition to [Taiwan's] independence."

A senior Chinese government official, appearing in Santiago on Friday, said China will push for North Korea to resume negotiations.

"I believe you can never push too hard for a good purpose," said Kong Quan, chief spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

Meetings with the leaders of Japan, South Korea and Russia were to follow.

Believing that having all five partners on the same page from a high-profile international summit will have an impact on North Korea, Bush's goal is a tough united front reinforcing a demand that North Korea completely give up its pursuit of nuclear weapons and insisting that any talks with Pyong-yang occur only with all the partners present.

With North Korea demanding economic aid and US guarantees of nonaggression as incentives, South Korea and China, in particular, have suggested it may be necessary to be more flexible.

Chiang says Chen is hallucinating about `soft coup d'etat'

By Lin Chieh-yu  STAFF REPORTER
Former Minister of National Defense Chiang Chung-ling yesterday strongly denied that he was in charge of planning the alleged "soft coup d'etat" after the March 20 presidential election. Chiang criticized President Chen Shui-bian for defaming his lifetime of military service for the purpose of electioneering and said that he does not exclude the possibility of litigation.

"He [Chen] is schizophrenic. If he has any guts he can just name me directly. If he dares to name me, I will sue him," Chiang said when questioned by the media.

"He is the leader of the country and chief commander of the army, yet for the purpose of an election, Chen is delirious, making no sense of what he says and suffering from hallucinations. Not only has his statement humiliated me, it is an insult to the national defense force and all high-ranking officers," Chiang said.

"The way things stand, can the public still vote [for him]? I call upon the public to clear up the truth and get rid of him [Chen] through their votes." Chiang said.

At an election rally on the night of Nov. 13, Chen for the first time accused a few retired high-ranking military officials of attempting to lead a "soft coup d'etat" after the March 20 presidential election. Chen said that their method was to persuade some high ranking military officials to resign or fake an illness in order to create national instability, as a show of their dissatisfaction with Chen's re-election.

On Friday night, Chen continued to explain the details of the soft coup d'etat. He directly named retired general Hsu Li-nung, the New Party's spiritual leader and former director of the General Political Warfare Department, and a former national defense minister of secretly persuading retired officials and the public gathered in front of the Presidential Office to object to the elected president. This amounted to a revolution, Chen said.

The president also said that, at the time, there was a Chinese government unification-supporting Web site calling for the military and police to attack the Democratic Progressive Party's headquarters, charge into the Presidential Office and kill the president.

Chen's statement aroused further controversy among some political groups. The media asked Chiang for his reaction. Chiang was enraged, saying, "If he has evidence, then get the prosecuting departments to charge me."

Chiang said, "after the election I did visit then National Defense Minister Tang Yao-ming in hospital but I did not ask him to resign. On the contrary, I urged him not to resign, for the sake of national security and stability."

He also immediately asked that Tang and Admiral Lee Jye, former Chief of the General Staff, as well as the incumbent Minister of National Defense, clarify whether President Chen's allegation was truthful.

Hsu Li-nung is not in Taiwan now, but his wife has indicated to the media that Chen's statement is "killing her in her rage."

The chairman of the New Party, Yok Mu-ming , who made phone calls to Hsu yesterday morning, said that Chen's action is tearing the nation apart and creating a national rift.

Taiwan is sovereign but abnormal

The draft guidelines for the high school history curriculum recently announced by the Ministry of Education have sparked controversy. The part of the curriculum on Taiwan history prompted discussions about the San Francisco Peace Treaty and Cairo Declaration, among other agreements.

After World War II, the legal status of Taiwan was "undetermined." However, after close to 60 years of evolution, the legal status of Taiwan has been "determined."

Today, Taiwan is an independent sovereign country -- although not yet a "normal" country. The treaties and documents relevant to this process of evolution need to be explained from the perspective of public international law.

The San Francisco Peace Treaty is the most authoritative international treaty when it comes to defining the territory of defeated Japan after the World War II. The legal force of this treaty surpassed and replaces the Cairo Declaration and Potsdam Declaration. In the 1943 Cairo Declaration, the heads of the state of the US, Great Britain, and China declared their hope that after the end of the World War II Taiwan and Penghu should be returned to China.

The 1945 Potsdam Declaration stated in Article 8 that the agreement in the Cairo Declaration will be followed.

The San Francisco Treaty, which was signed on September 8, 1951 and then came into force on April 28, 1952 explicitly stated that Japan surrendered the sovereignty and all rights over Taiwan and Penghu. However, it did not state which country was the recipient of the rights and sovereignty handed over by Japan. As a result, Taiwan neither belonged to the Republic of China (ROC) nor the People's Republic of China (PRC). The legal status of Taiwan was therefore undetermined at the time.

This is the basis of the claim that Taiwan's status is yet to be determined. The consensus underlying the San Francisco Peace Treaty was that the undetermined status would be decided when the time comes based on principles outlined in the United Nations (UN) Charter, in particular the right to self-determination and opposition against military aggression. For example, when the US and the ROC signed the bilateral joint-defense treaty in 1954, the US secretary of state at that time emphasized that the legal status of Taiwan would be determined at the appropriate time.

The Cairo Declaration and the Potsdam Declaration were political statements jointly issued by the Allies unilaterally prompted by military needs and in the face of expected victory. Japan, which at the time held sovereignty over the territories in question, did not participate in these declarations. Therefore, they had neither legal force under public international law nor the effect of transferring sovereignty.

On the other hand, the post-war San Francisco Peace Treaty had the participation of both the victorious Allies and also defeated Japan. Through the treaty, the holder of sovereignty over Taiwan and Penghu, Japan, explicitly relinquished sovereignty. Unlike that declaration, in this treaty the need to maintain long-term peace and stability was taken into consideration in addition to military needs.

Under public international law, the end of a warring state between countries requires the signing of a peace treaty. The relinquishment or transfer of territories also require treaties as a legal basis. The legal force of the San Francisco Peace Treaty surpassed the Cairo Declaration and overturned that declaration. No wonder that the Chinese government has always emphasized the importance of the Cairo Declaration in taking the position that Taiwan is part of China, while neglecting to make any mention of the San Francisco Peace Treaty.

The Sino-Japan Peace Treaty signed by the ROC and Japan on April 28, 1952 did not change the status of Taiwan. In the process of negotiating the treaty, although the ROC government repeatedly asked Japan to explicitly state that the ROC was the recipient of the sovereignty being handed over, Japan did not comply. Instead, Japan followed the San Francisco Peace Treaty in the provisions dealing with the sovereignty over the territories of Taiwan and Penghu.

Therefore, just like the San Francisco Peace Treaty, Article 2 of the Sino-Japan Treaty contained only a reiteration by Japan of its relinquishment of sovereignty, rights and claims over Taiwan and Penghu. This treaty also failed to state the recipient country.

Before the San Francisco Peace Treaty, no other country, including China, could have legally acquired sovereignty over Taiwan and Penghu. On the other hand, after Japan signed the San Francisco Peace Treaty to relinquish sovereignty, rights and claims over Taiwan and Penghu, thereafter it was no longer in any position to determine the status of Taiwan and Penghu.

Therefore, from the peace treaty signed with the ROC government in 1952, to the joint US-China Shanghai communique of 1972 to the formal US recognition of the PRC in 1979, none said that Taiwan and Penghu belong to the ROC or PRC government.

After Japan surrendered its rights, claims, and sovereignty over Taiwan, Taiwan belonged neither to ROC nor the PRC. It instead belongs to the people of Taiwan. This is the consistent with the principle of self-determination and the inherent power of the people. The right to self-determination -- which became widely accepted after World War II -- emphasized that possession of territory is an issue of survival, human rights and welfare of the inhabitants, and not an issue of a transfer of property.

The theory of absolute sovereignty claimed by the Chinese government essentially states "once part of Chinese territory, always Chinese territory." This is an outdated concept left over from the feudal era, when people were seen as subjects of kings and rulers. This is completely at odds with the spirit and principles of contemporary public international law.

The people of Taiwan have sovereignty over Taiwan. After the war, Taiwan evolved from a land under military occupation by the Allies into an independent sovereign country. It is an ongoing evolution. From the standpoint of public international law, since 1895, when China ceded Taiwan to Japan in the Treaty of Shimonoseki, Taiwan has never been part of the Chinese territory.

Taiwan has become a country through a process of continuous evolution. During this process, Taiwan has experienced a couple of important periods: the Japanese colonial period (1895-1945) and the military occupation by the Allies (1945-1952), ending with the San Francisco Peace Treaty (1952), when Taiwan's status became undetermined after Japan relinquished its sovereignty, rights, and claims over the country.

The 1971 Resolution No. 2758 of the United Nations General Assembly did not resolve the issue of Taiwan's legal status. The exiled Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) continued its illegal military occupation of Taiwan through authoritarian rule from 1949 through 1987. After the lifting of martial law in Taiwan, the nation underwent political transformation and began a process of nativization and democratization. As a result, from 1988 through 2004, Taiwan has developed its own unique political, economic, social, and cultural systems, fully materializing the right to self-determination of the people of Taiwan.

In the past Taiwan's status was undetermined. However, it has now evolved into an independent sovereign country -- a country that exists independent from the PRC. This is the result of the development of Taiwan's unique political, economic, social and cultural systems, the implementation of the right to self-determination, and the democratization and nativization of ROC.

The "special state-to-state" discourse declared by former president Lee Teng-hui  in 1999 and the "one country on each side" declaration issued by President Chen Shui-bian in 2002 were important testimonies to the nation's evolution into an independent sovereign country.

Taiwan is a country and it possesses all the requirements of statehood: 23 million people, effective and rightful control over the territories of Taiwan, Penghu, Matsu, and Kinmen, a government capable of policy-making, and the power to engage in interactions with other countries of the world.