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ROC forced citizenship on unwary
Taiwanese
By Chen Yi-nan 陳逸南
The Treaty of Shimonoseki was signed on April 17, 1895, in the Japanese city
that lends the treaty its name. It came into effect on May 8 that same year.
According to the treaty, Taiwan belonged to Japan, but people living in Taiwan
were given the opportunity to choose their nationality by either leaving or
staying within two years of the treaty being signed. This ability to choose
one’s own nationality is a basic human right.
In the book On Taiwan’s Status and Relations, edited by National Chengchi
University history professor Hsueh Hua-yuan (薛化元), it says that the Republic of
China (ROC) government announced in January 1946 that the people living in
Taiwan had “regained” their status as ROC nationals, which gave rise to
diplomatic protests from the UK and the US.
Wang Shih-Chieh (王世杰), who was then minister of foreign affairs, also mentioned
this event in a letter to Huang Kuo-shu (黃國書), a Taiwanese legislator at the
time.
In the same book, it is stated that the Taiwan Provincial Administrative
Executive Office said on Jan. 20, 1946, that the people of Taiwan Province had
their Chinese nationality restored as of Oct. 25, 1945, according to an order by
the Executive Yuan on Jan. 12, 1946.
The UK foreign ministry sent a communique to the ROC embassy in London on Aug.
31, 1946, saying that although it conceded that Taiwan was under the control of
the ROC government, London regretted that it could not accept that Taiwanese had
already had their Chinese nationality restored, according to A New Discourse on
Taiwan’s Status by former Academia Historica president Lin Man-houng (林滿紅).
In a thesis about the peace treaty, Lin said that the US State Department in a
November 1946 memorandum to the ROC government said that it was in full
agreement with the UK’s position on this matter.
Official documents from April 19, 1952, that the Japanese government made public
said that Taiwanese were to lose their Japanese nationality as soon as the
Sino-Japanese Peace Treaty — commonly known as the Treaty of Taipei, which did
not enter into force until Aug. 5, 1952 — took effect. Clearly, then, the
Taiwanese were forced to accept ROC nationality before the peace treaty had even
come into effect. This was not only absurd and unreasonable, it was also in
violation of international law.
Former foreign minister George Yeh (葉公超) made an additional remark to the
legislature in July 1952 on the Treaty of Taipei: He said that Article 10 of the
treaty — on the legal status of the people in Taiwan and Penghu — was not
mentioned in the Treaty of San Francisco, but that is was of great importance to
the people of Taiwan.
Imposing ROC nationality on Taiwanese without asking their prior consent and
without giving them a choice in the matter is clearly in contravention of
international legal principles and was done seven years before the Treaty of
Taipei was ratified.
Chen Yi-nan is vice convener of Taiwan Society North’s science
and technology subcommittee.
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