President Ma came out with another peach on the issue of Taiwan's sovereignty yesterday, this time claiming that the non-treaty wartime Cairo Declaration constitutes proof that Taiwan's sovereignty was accorded to China in 1943.
To wit: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. (Note: Japan never agreed to this)
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. (Note: In international law a declaration is not a treaty - the distinction is quite clear. Trying to upgrade a declaration to a treaty abrogates 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. (Note: This was by the Allied powers in wartime when it first seemed likely that the war against the axis could be won. Again a statement of intent does not override the later San Francisco Peace Treaty in which the sovereignty of Taiwan was legally encoded as 'undetermined')
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. (Note: This is a deliberate misreading of history. The Potsdam declaration made no mention of Taiwan but only referred to the Cairo Declaration. Both declarations were superseded by the SFPT in 1952 - the official treaty marking the Japanese surrender and allotment of her empire territories of which Taiwan was one. The Japanese surrender did not confirm the ROC had the right resume sovereignty over Taiwan)
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. (Note: If you want to avoid criticism for something in Taiwan, accuse your opponent of the very same charge levelled at yourself. I can think of no other political party in Taiwan, aside from Ma's KMT, which has so absolutely and categorically rewritten history and propagated falsehoods about the identity and history of Taiwan - the history textbooks are still used to this day to link Taiwan within a narrative of Chinese history)
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. (Note: the subtext here is that it is necessary for Ma and the KMT to preserve their selected reading on history presumably so as the KMT can later justify to subsequent generations why Taiwanese democracy was sacrificed on the altar of preserving the face of the CCP and the KMT)
“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.” (Note: I'm still waiting for the KMT to learn from its past. It can offer a thousand apologies before elections or on 2-28 but whilst ti negates Taiwan to support the ROC, I will never believe them as sincere)
