President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday said various historical documents “clearly showed” that Taiwan “returned to the embrace” of the Republic of China (ROC) in 1945 after Japan signed the Instrument of Surrender to bring an end to World War II.
Although China ceded full sovereignty of Taiwan and all its islands to Japan in perpetuity in the 1895 Treaty of Shimonoseki, nobody would have imagined that Taiwan would “return to the embrace” of the ROC 50 years later, Ma said.
The 1943 Cairo Communique, worked out by the ROC president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), then-US president Franklin Roosevelt and then-British prime minister Winston Churchill, said Japan should return Taiwan, Penghu and other territories in northeast China that it had “stolen” from the Chinese, Ma said.
The Potsdam Declaration of 1945 reaffirmed the Cairo Communique and gave the ROC the right to take sovereignty over Taiwan and Penghu, he said.
According to Ma, in its Instrument of Surrender, Japan accepted the terms of the Potsdam Declaration and former US president Harry Truman also accepted the idea that sovereignty over Taiwan was settled as the US Department of State said that the US and other Allied powers accepted the exercise of Chinese authority over Formosa, which was surrendered to Chiang.
The 1952 Sino-Japanese Peace Treaty (also known as the Treaty of Taipei) affirmed the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty, and stated that the Japanese government would renounce any claims to Taiwan, Penghu, the Spratly Islands and the Paracel Islands, Ma said, adding that the 1952 treaty “asserted” that the legal successor government of the territories was the ROC.
“All of this is very clear and [represents] legal and political evidence,” Ma said.
Although the Japanese built “some” infrastructure in Taiwan, Ma said, its rule was abusive and high-handed.
“However, all this is history. I am not trying to incite hatred, but while we can forgive the mistake of the Japanese invasion, we must not forget the history of blood and tears,” he said.
Ma made the remarks at the opening ceremony of a special exhibit in commemoration of the 65th anniversary of the victory in the war of resistance against the Japanese and the “retrocession” of Taiwan at Taipei Zhongshan Hall yesterday morning.
Zhongshan Hall was where the ROC government accepted the surrender of Japan in 1945.
The exhibition was organized by the Taiwan Provincial Government and the Taipei City Government.
Ma said wars must be honored, but peace must be emphasized, and the reason his administration chose to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the victory in the war of resistance was to make the public feel proud of Taiwan because “Taiwan has become the Taiwanese people’s Taiwan and the ROC’s Taiwan.”
Deputy Taipei Mayor Allen Chiu (邱文祥) pledged to build Taipei into “the capital of all Chinese of the 21st century.”
Taiwan Provincial Government Governor Lin Jung-tzer (林政則) said the eight-year war of resistance was led by Chinese Nationlist Party (KMT) troops and because of their victory, Taiwan and Penghu were able to “retrocede” from the hands of the Japanese.
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