Description: The Human Rights Crisis in Taiwan: Fundamental QuestionsAt the November 2008 APEC meeting in Peru, Chinese President Hu Jintao urged the new US administration under President Obama to tread carefully on "the thorny issue of Taiwan."
However, this issue only appears "thorny," or difficult to unravel, because it is built on a series of highly irregular legal maneuvers in the 1945 to 1955 period. Most prominently, the announcement of the annexation of Taiwan territory on Oct. 25, 1945, by the Republic of China (ROC) regime, and mass naturalization of native Taiwanese people as ROC citizens in Jan. 1946, were/are technically war crimes. This is because after the Japanese surrender ceremonies and before the peace treaty came into effect, Taiwan was "occupied territory."
When various drafts of the post-war peace treaty were still being contemplated, the politicians and other "China experts" heatedly debated whether the People's Republic of China (PRC) or the ROC should be considered the legal government of China. What they failed to comprehend was that when the ROC's central government moved to "occupied Taiwan" in Dec. 1949, (two months after the PRC was founded in Beijing on Oct. 1st), it had already become a government in exile.
In the final version of the San Francisco Peace Treaty (SFPT), Japan ceded Taiwan without naming a "receiving country", however, the island wasn't left as terra nullius for China to annex. Specifically, the United States retained jurisdiction over Taiwan in the role of "principal occupying power," and that role has continued up to the present day.
Beginning in the Fall of 2008, although much attention has been given to the deteriorating human rights situation in Taiwan under the Presidency of Ma Ying-jeou, most media commentators have totally ignored the highly questionable legal fundamentals of the ROC's regime in Taiwan.
Additionally, all US Presidential administrations over the last 50 years have essentially closed their eyes to the provisions of the Senate-ratified SFPT, treating it as a "lost treaty." Obviously, this situation needs rectification at an early date.
For more information, including the details of the related court case now in the US Court of Appeals, see http://www.civil-taiwan.org/press.htm
Sponsored by:Global Forum International
Location: Lisagor Room
This event is not affiliated with the National Press Club or the Eric Friedheim Library.
