TAIPE (Reuters) – China is intentionally uncharacterizing the documents of the time of World War II to press and isolate Taiwan, as these agreements did not determine the island’s final political status, the US embassy in Taipé said.
The 80th anniversary of the end of the war has been marked by a bitter dispute between Taipé and Beijing about its broader historical meaning and its relevance these days.
Beijing says that documents such as Cairo’s statement and Potsdam’s proclamation support his legal claims of sovereignty on the island, as they ask Taiwan to be “restored” to Chinese rule at the time he was a colony of Japan.
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The Chinese government at the time was the Republic of China, which fled in 1949 to Taiwan after losing a subsequent civil war with Mao Zedong’s communists.
The Republic of China remains Taiwan’s formal name, and his government states that no World War II agreement mentioned the Popular Republic of China de Mao because it did not exist at the time, so Beijing has no right to claim Taiwan now.
“China intentionally decharacterizes documents from the time of World War II, including Cairo’s statement, Potsdam proclamation and San Francisco Treaty, to try to support his coercive campaign to subjugate Taiwan,” the US Institute said in a statement on Monday.
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“Beijing’s narratives are simply false, and none of these documents determined Taiwan’s final political status,” added the US embassy in the statement sent by email to Reuters.
Japan signed the San Francisco Peace Treaty in 1951, resigning his claims on Taiwan, although the island’s sovereignty was not resolved in this pact. Beijing states that the treaty is “illegal and invalid” as it is not part of it.
China’s Foreign Ministry expressed “strong dissatisfaction” with Monday’s comments, saying they are misleading.
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“A series of legal documents, such as Cairo’s statement and Japanese surrender document, clearly confirm China’s sovereignty about Taiwan and Taiwan’s status,” Lin Jian Ministry spokesman in Beijing said.
The US ended its official ties with Taipei in 1979, when they recognized Beijing, but remain the most important international supporter on the island.
Washington follows a “one China policy”, for which he officially assumes any position on Taiwan’s sovereignty and only recognizes China’s position on the subject.
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“False legal narratives are part of Beijing’s wider campaign to try to isolate Taiwan from the international community and restrict sovereign choices from other countries compared to their Taiwan interactions,” the US Institute added in Taiwan.
Taiwan Foreign Minister Lin Chia-Lung thanked the US Mission statement.
“Our country and the Popular Republic of China are not subordinate to each other, and the Popular Republic of China has no right to represent Taiwan in the international community,” Lin said in a statement.
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On September 3, Chinese President Xi Jinping supervised a great military parade in Beijing to mark the anniversary of the war.
