Being an independent state
Some people have recently proclaimed: “Taiwan and China, one side, one state.” My mind responded that this “China” should be the “Republic of China” (ROC), not the “People’s Republic of China” (PRC).
Shigeru Oda, an authority in international law, published the thesis A Sovereign Independent Country, Taiwan — Taiwan’s Status Within International Law in 2006. He concluded: “Taiwan was not part of the PRC in the past. Taiwan is not part of the PRC now either.”
He also said “Taiwan’s independence” should never have to be separated from that of the PRC.
The concept of separating Taiwan from the PRC should never have existed.
Needless to say, the so-called “Taiwan independence” movement of the past half-century should have meant “Taiwanese independent from the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-ROC.”
It has never had anything to do with the PRC regime in Beijing. His view is identical with that of my late husband, C.C. Yang (楊基銓).
The Liberty Times published an article by my husband on July 26, 1998, titled “The sovereignty of Taiwan independence and the ROC,” in which he wrote that the only way to reach the real sovereignty of Taiwanese independence, to break away from China’s entanglement and to ensure Taiwan’s security, was to draw a line between Taiwan and the ROC. We need to make a clear division between Taiwan and the ROC.
I believe that before China’s reunification issue is resolved, the ROC government should move to Kinmen and Matsu to act as truly “Taiwan and China, one side, one state.” After that, Taiwan will not have any connection with the ROC.
We all have a sense of crisis about Taiwan’s future. Therefore, we always say: “Let’s fight to win.”
However, this sentence is not very practical, it’s just like the popular saying, “To use a fist to crack the stone lion.” The result is that while the stone lion is cracked, your fists are injured. Your hands might even be so badly damaged as to become unusable.
We need to use a machine to process this stone lion job. We need to use wisdom, and not be swayed by personal feelings. I sincerely hope to gather like-minded people together to study the possible strategies.
International treaties and historical facts indicate that the sovereignty of Taiwan and Penghu was not vested under the ROC government. It is a right of Taiwanese to establish their own country.
When you use bulldozers, high-rise buildings can be crushed to the ground in a short time. In the market I frequently hear statements like: “Incompetent government that cannot take good care of its people, let’s pull it down now!”
However, the best policy is to use wisdom with the “bulldozers” to overturn the long-ruling KMT.
YANG LIU HSIU-HWA (楊劉秀華)
Taipei
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