President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday said the Republic of China (ROC) has had sovereignty of Taiwan since 1943, when Japan “agreed” to give the ROC government claim to Taiwan proper and the Penghu Islands.
While some argue that the Cairo Declaration of 1943 was little more than a press release, Ma said, in his view, the communique signed by the three leaders — ROC president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), US president Franklin Roosevelt and British prime minister Winston Churchill — in Cairo should be treated as a “treaty” in international law.
Ma said it was a statement of intent by the Allied powers in World War II that, after the Japanese surrender, territory that Japan had “stolen” from China — including three provinces in northeast China, as well Taiwan and the Penghu Islands — would be “returned” to China.
Photo: CNA
The subsequent Potsdam Declaration of 1945 and Japan’s surrender document confirmed that the ROC had the right to resume sovereignty over Taiwan and the Penghu Islands, Ma said.
Ma made the remarks at the inauguration of the President and Vice President Records Museum in Taipei.
With the passage of time, Ma said, history becomes vague and some people deliberately change it to satisfy the needs of various agendas.
Citing a recent cross-strait controversy over which camp had led the eight-year war of resistance against the Japanese, Ma said evidence showed that it was the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) — not the Chinese Communist Party — that led the way.
Quoting former US president Theodore Roosevelt, Ma said it was important to preserve history so that the next generation would know what happened in their parents’ and grandparents’ time.
“To bring together the records of the past and to house them in buildings where they will be preserved for the use of men and women, a nation must believe in three things,” Ma quoted Roosevelt as saying. “It must believe in the past. It must believe in the future. It must, above all, believe in the capacity of its own people to learn from the past so that they can gain in judgment in creating their own future.”
Located behind the Presidential Office, the museum is housed in an 86-year-old Baroque-style historic building. Academia Historica, which took ownership in 2006, spent three years renovating the four-story building. Although the museum was opened yesterday to coincide with Double Ten National Day celebrations, the final remodeling on the fourth floor is not expected to be completed until March.
AGING: While Japan has 22 submarines, Taiwan only operates four, two of which were commissioned by the US in 1945 and 1946, and transferred to Taiwan in 1973 Taiwan would need at least 12 submarines to reach modern fleet capabilities, CSBC Corp, Taiwan chairman Chen Cheng-hung (陳政宏) said in an interview broadcast on Friday, citing a US assessment. CSBC is testing the nation’s first indigenous defense submarine, the Hai Kun (海鯤, Narwhal), which is scheduled to be delivered to the navy next month or in July. The Hai Kun has completed torpedo-firing tests and is scheduled to undergo overnight sea trials, Chen said on an SET TV military affairs program. Taiwan would require at least 12 submarines to establish a modern submarine force after assessing the nation’s operational environment and defense
A white king snake that frightened passengers and caused a stir on a Taipei MRT train on Friday evening has been claimed by its owner, who would be fined, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) said yesterday. A person on Threads posted that he thought he was lucky to find an empty row of seats on Friday after boarding a train on the Bannan (Blue) Line, only to spot a white snake with black stripes after sitting down. Startled, he jumped up, he wrote, describing the encounter as “terrifying.” “Taipei’s rat control plan: Release snakes on the metro,” one person wrote in reply, referring
The coast guard today said that it had disrupted "illegal" operations by a Chinese research ship in waters close to the nation and driven it away, part of what Taipei sees a provocative pattern of China's stepped up maritime activities. The coast guard said that it on Thursday last week detected the Chinese ship Tongji (同濟號), which was commissioned only last year, 29 nautical miles (54km) southeast of the southern tip of Taiwan, although just outside restricted waters. The ship was observed lowering ropes into the water, suspected to be the deployment of scientific instruments for "illegal" survey operations, and the coast
An inauguration ceremony was held yesterday for the Danjiang Bridge, the world’s longest single-mast asymmetric cable-stayed bridge, ahead of its official opening to traffic on Tuesday, marking a major milestone after nearly three decades of planning and construction. At the ceremony in New Taipei City attended by President William Lai (賴清德), Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰), Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) and New Taipei City Mayor Hou Yu-ih (侯友宜), the bridge was hailed as both an engineering landmark and a long-awaited regional transport link connecting Tamsui (淡水) and Bali (八里)
RSS