WHO's "China (Province of Taiwan)"?

May 23, 2009
Draft

 WHO's "China (Province of Taiwan)"?

By John J. Tkacik, Jr.

In a commentary published last week in another newspaper, my good friend, former Taiwan representative in Washington, Stephen Chen (Chen Hsi-fan 陈锡蕃) asks people like me not to "trouble your mediocre little minds" (庸人自扰) with the issue of "Taiwan sovereignty" when it comes to things like joining international organizations. Ambassador Chen rejoices that, when "my country returned this year to the World Health Organization" (WHO) as an observer, it was a clear "breakthrough."

Alas, if the "country" of Taiwan (or the "Republic of China") had "returned" to the international health organization, it would indeed have been a breakthrough. Rather, it seems that a delegation from a place known officially to the WHO as "China (province of Taiwan)" was admitted under the shortened name "Chinese Taipei" – for one session. Taiwan has no standing to "return" to the WHO next year, unless, of course, Taiwan participates under the guidance and leadership of the PRC.

Sadly, Taiwan's conditional "observer status" in the World Health Organization was the opposite of a breakthrough – Taiwan's (or "Chinese Taipei's") status in the WHO ranks it below the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, and "the Sovereign Order of Malta" judging from the protocol order of speakers at the Sixty-second World Health Assembly. Perhaps, when Taiwan becomes a formal "Special Administrative Region" of China, it can have its own permanent observer in the WHA.

Nonetheless, Taiwan's ruling Kuomintang party wants all to be joyous. At least a delegation from "Chinese Taipei" was there in Geneva – who cares if its status as a "province" of China was humiliating? If I understand Ambassador Chen correctly, this is because Taiwan really has no "sovereignty" separate from "China" – which in his view is "the Republic of China".

In Ambassador Chen's May 21 commentary for the United Daily News, he states flatly "Taiwan sovereignty' simply does not exist, only in the Republic of China is there sovereignty, because sovereignty resides in the independent state." To the ambassador, "The island of Taiwan" as a state really doesn't exist. In the Manchu era, he says, "the Manchus possessed Taiwan's sovereignty;" and then "the Manchus ceded Taiwan to Japan, and thus Japan possessed Taiwan's sovereignty in accordance with a treaty." All true.

But then Chen asserts that "after World War II, Japan "signed a 'Sino-Japanese Peace Treaty' with the Republic of China, and naturally the Republic of China possessed sovereignty over Taiwan."

Alas, like so much of the KMT's view of Taiwan's "sovereignty", it is not based in international law.

When the ROC concluded its treaty with Japan, ROC foreign minister George Kung-chao Yeh explained to the Legislative Yuan that even with the 1951 Treaty, “the delicate international situation makes it that [Formosa does] not belong to us. Under present circumstances, Japan has no right to transfer Taiwan and Penghu to us; nor can we accept such a transfer from Japan even if she so wishes."

Ambassador Chen would have Taiwanese believe that ROC-Japan Treaty formally transferred sovereignty over Taiwan from Japan to the ROC government in Taipei – which also possessed sovereignty over the rest of China. Fifty years later, Taiwan's former president Chen Shui-bian abandoned ROC claims to Mongolia and Tibet, but Taiwan's current president Ma Ying-jeou defines the "Mainland Area" as "the territory of the Republic of China outside the Taiwan Area."

This is a existential conundrum for the ROC government as it seeks a "peace Legally, therefore, the KMT views the Chinese civil war as an ongoing battle between the Chinese Communist Party which "effectively controls" the Chinese Mainland, and the Chinese Nationalist Party which "effectively controls" the Taiwan Area. The KMT believes that the outcome of the Chinese civil war has yet to be settled, which may account for the KMT's reported eagerness to conclude a "peace agreement" with Beijing.

Yet, there can be no doubt that the Communists have won the civil war and that any "peace agreement" with the Nationalists will result in all China being placed under the sovereignty of China's "sole legal government", i.e. the People's Republic. The KMT government's faith in the promise of a "mutual non-denial" formula is unfounded. As the WHO's nomenclature of "China (province of Taiwan)" proves, the PRC persists to this day in denying the existence of the "ROC". Beijing has always asserted – as it did in its February 2000 "White Paper" on the topic – that "since the KMT ruling clique retreated to Taiwan, although its regime has continued to use the designations 'Republic of China' and 'government of the Republic of China,' it has long since completely forfeited its right to exercise state sovereignty on behalf of China and, in reality, has always remained only a local authority in Chinese territory."

Increasingly, the KMT's position on Taiwan's "sovereignty" –President Ma's, Ambassador Chen's and the Mainland Affairs Council's – is morphing into the CCP's position: that their "country" is really nothing more than the WHO's "China (province of Taiwan)". That's enough to trouble anyone's little mind.



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