Taiwan Today

In downtown Taipei, close to the Office of the President of the Republic of China (ROC), stands the Taipei Guest House, which was built by the Japanese in 1901 during the era of Japanese colonial rule over Taiwan (1895–1945). Since that time, the Taipei Guest House, one of the country’s most graceful historical buildings, has served as the setting for numerous significant political and diplomatic events. One of the most important of them occurred in April 1952, when Japan reiterated the renouncement of its claims to Taiwan with the signing of the Treaty of Peace between the Republic of China and Japan, also known as Sino-Japanese Peace Treaty or the Treaty of Taipei.

To gain a complete understanding of the foundation of the ROC government’s sovereignty over Taiwan, however, it is necessary to look back a few years earlier to November 1943, when, in the depths of World War II, President of the National Government of the ROC Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石, 1887–1975), UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill (1874–1965) and US President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) met in Cairo, Egypt to discuss the progress of the war against Japan and Asia’s postwar future. On December 1 that year, the three allies jointly released the Cairo Declaration, which, among other things, specified that Taiwan and the outlying Penghu Islands were among the Japanese-held territories that were to be restored to the ROC. December 1 this year will mark the 70th anniversary of the Cairo Declaration, a highly significant document that clearly establishes the ROC’s sovereignty over Taiwan.

Historian Chang Li (張力) is a research fellow in the Institute of Modern History at Taipei’s Academia Sinica, Taiwan’s foremost research institution, and contributed to a massive 12-volume history of the ROC that was published in 2011 by Taipei’s National Chengchi University. Chang points out that the Cairo meeting took place at a time when the Allied powers were experiencing battlefield success against the Axis nations and thus had begun to make postwar arrangements. The United States, which had provided military assistance to the ROC during the war, arranged the meeting of the three leaders in Cairo in order to “boost the morale of Chinese soldiers and citizens,” Chang says.

“The meeting of the leaders of the ROC, US and UK was an unprecedented event in our country’s republican history,” the historian says. “The ROC’s presence at the Cairo meeting allowed the government to express its opinions on domestic and international affairs.” Among the views Chiang expressed at the meeting were concerns over postwar conditions in East Asia, particularly in the area of territorial sovereignty.

After the meeting, the Cairo Declaration was released to articulate the Allies’ aims in conducting the war, the requirement that Japan hand over sovereignty of all occupied territories and the need to establish an independent Korea. “In order to achieve such goals, the three countries vowed to continue fighting until the day of Japan’s unconditional surrender,” Chang says.

The Cairo meeting and the terms of the declaration were major diplomatic achievements for the ROC, the historian says, as can be seen in the section that clearly details the territories over which the ROC was to assume sovereignty after the war. Instead of using the vaguer language that some called for at the time, the Cairo Declaration specifies that “Formosa, and the Pescadores [Penghu], shall be restored to the Republic of China.”

The Cairo Declaration was reconfirmed in the Proclamation Defining Terms for Japanese Surrender, more commonly known as the Potsdam Proclamation, which was released on July 26, 1945, again by the heads of state of the ROC, the United Kingdom and the United States. On September 2 that year, Japan accepted the terms of the Potsdam Proclamation by signing the Instrument of Surrender aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, Japan. “The ROC’s administration over Taiwan after Japan’s surrender was not only the result of an agreement by the victorious allies, but also the act of a sovereign state taking back its territory,” Chang says. He points out that the concept of recovery stems from an earlier assertion of sovereignty made on December 9, 1941, when the ROC declared war against Japan and abrogated the Treaty of Shimonoseki, an 1895 agreement in which the Qing dynasty (1644–1911) ceded Taiwan and all of the islands appertaining to Taiwan and Penghu to Japan after losing the First Sino-Japanese War. Accordingly, the outlying Diaoyutai Islands to the northeast of Taiwan have also been restored to the ROC.

On October 25, 1945, the Japanese army in Taiwan presented a document of surrender to the ROC government, which thereby saw its sovereignty restored over the land and has governed Taiwan since then.

Still, some maintain that the Cairo Declaration was merely an unsigned press communiqué and thus does not constitute a legal transfer of sovereignty. At an event held at the Taipei Guest House in August 2012 to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the 1952 Treaty of Peace between the Republic of China and Japan, however, ROC President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) pointed out that adherence to the Cairo Declaration is one of the conditions of the Potsdam Proclamation, which is the basis of the legally binding Japanese Instrument of Surrender. The official status of the Cairo Declaration and subsequent Potsdam Proclamation can also be seen in the fact that both are included in the Treaties and Other International Agreements of the United States of America 1776–1949 published by the US Department of State, Ma said.

Chang notes that the Cairo Declaration also provides a basis for sovereignty on the Korean Peninsula, as the document states that “in due course Korea shall become free and independent.” “South Korea places great emphasis on this document’s references to Korea’s liberation and independence, and there haven’t been any arguments about the declaration’s validity when it comes to Korean sovereignty,” the historian says.

Debate about the ROC’s sovereignty over Taiwan extends to the Treaty of Peace with Japan, more commonly known as the San Francisco Peace Treaty, which was signed by a number of the Allied Powers and Japan in that US city in September 1951 (the treaty formally took effect on April 28, 1952). Those who argue that Taiwan’s position is uncertain point out that although Japan renounced all claims to the territories it formerly occupied when it signed the San Francisco Peace Treaty, the pact does not state which power was to assume sovereignty over Taiwan.

In his address at the Taipei Guest House, Ma countered that argument when he explained that neither the Nationalists nor Chinese communists were invited to the meetings that culminated in the San Francisco Peace Treaty, so the treaty granted Allied nations, including the ROC, the authority to enter into separate treaties with Japan regarding the disposition of the territories it had occupied. In other words, the complicated international situation following the end of World War II required the establishment of a broad multilateral consensus—the San Francisco Peace Treaty—before subsequent bilateral agreements could be reached. In this sense, the Treaty of Peace between the Republic of China and Japan can be deemed “an extension of the San Francisco Peace Treaty,” the president said.

Important Milestone

When Japan surrendered Taiwan to ROC government officials in 1945, ROC citizenship was restored to the people of Taiwan, Ma said. The 1952 signing of the Treaty of Peace between the Republic of China and Japan marked another important milestone in the recovery of Taiwan because it effectively reconfirmed the 1945 transfer of sovereignty from Japan to the ROC, the president said.

Chang says that any current controversies over Taiwan’s status were unforeseen at the time the Cairo Declaration was announced and arose later due to changes in the political environment, both at home and overseas. In one domestic shift arising from Taiwan’s decades of democratic development, for example, some academics have proposed that Taiwanese people have a natural claim to sovereignty as a self-governing state.

In the end, celebrating landmark events such as the release of the Cairo Declaration gives Taiwanese people an opportunity to learn more about their history and its modern significance. As Ma noted on the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Peace between the Republic of China and Japan, developing an understanding of such events gives rise to an appreciation of the integral unity of Taiwan and the ROC, and that understanding will give citizens an even greater love for their land.

Write to Pat Gao at cjkao@mofa.gov.tw