Note: The following template letter is for your reference to send to the local newspapers. Please ask them to publish your article around September 8 -- the 50th anniversary of the San Francisco Peace Treaty.

Who Owns Taiwan?

The people of Taiwan

September 8, 2001 marks the 50^th anniversary of the San Francisco Peace Treaty. One outstanding question remains from this Treaty, by which the Allied Powers formally ended the war with Japan. Who owns Taiwan?

In the Treaty, Japan renounced Aall right, title and claim@ to Taiwan, but no beneficiary was named. The shared expectations of the parties to the Peace Treaty was that Taiwan's legal status, though temporarily left undetermined, would be decided at an opportune time in accord with the principles of the United Nations Charter - notably the principles of self-determination of people and non-use of force in settling territorial or other disputes.

Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist government had been given trusteeship of Taiwan after World War II and moved there fully in 1949. Chiang wrecked havoc on the native Taiwanese who made up 85% of the people on the island. No freedom of the press, speech or assembly was allowed. The people never had the opportunity, as so many former colonies did after World War II, to decide their own future. Self-determination was denied them.

Chiang's myth - that his Nationalist regime was the real government of Taiwan and all of China as well - was tacitly supported by the U.S. Twenty years after the San Francisco Peace Treaty, in October 1971 at the United Nations, Chiang's myth was replaced by a new one - that Mao Tsetung's regime represented China, and Taiwan as well.

In reality, Taiwan has existed as a sovereign, independent country for over fifty years. Taiwan and the PRC are two separate sovereign states, diverging fundamentally in their political, economic, social and cultural systems. Taiwan is not part of the PRC; it is not a Arenegade province of the PRC.@ Taiwan's present and future destiny is not an internal affair of the PRC.

Although Taiwan has been kept outside the United Nations for the past thirty years and its formal diplomatic relations with other countries have greatly shrunk, Taiwan has not ceased to exist. Thanks to the tireless efforts of its intelligent, hardworking people Taiwan has evolved into a country that is economically prosperous and politically democratic.

Instead of an internationally supervised plebiscite, the Taiwanese people have achieved effective self-determination through their collective efforts in the political, economic, social, and cultural spheres.

Current U.S. policy states that any resolution of the Taiwan Strait question must be peaceful, mutually accepted by the PRC and Taiwan, and, because Taiwan is a democracy, have the consent of the people of Taiwan. In effect, the policy treats Taiwan and the PRC as equal partners that the U.S. wishes to see engage in a dialogue that leads to both sides agreeing on what Aone China@ means.

Now that the citizens of Taiwan have exercised their democratic rights, effectively achieving the right to self-determination implied in the San Francisco Peace Treaty, it is time for the U.S. to articulate a Aone-PRC, one Taiwan policy@ that reflects this new reality.