World Net Daily: Taiwan Part of US

Richard Hartzell, who has long battled on behalf of foreigners here in Taiwan, has also been arguing for the last few years that Taiwan is actually a territory of the US. The argument is not accepted by anyone internationally, but it is a rational argument and worth exploring. Today Michael (New Hampshire Bushman) clued me in that Hartzell has published it in World Net Daily.

Let's look at Taiwan. All military attacks against Taiwan during the World War II period were conducted by the United States, so the U.S. is the "conqueror." The surrender of the Japanese military forces in Formosa was on Oct. 25, 1945, thus beginning the military occupation, and the administrative authority for this military occupation was delegated to Chiang Kai-shek (aka the Chinese nationalists or Republic of China). The treaty between the U.S. and Japan came into effect on April 28, 1952. Japan renounced the territorial sovereignty of Taiwan, but no receiving country was named. The Republic of China flag should have come down at this point.

So, who has legal jurisdiction over Taiwan? Article 23 of the peace treaty confirmed that the United States was the principal occupying power, and Article 4b gave the USMG full authority to make final disposition of "Formosa and the Pescadores." So, does the military government of the principal occupying power end with the coming into effect of the peace treaty? For a territorial cession, the answer is no.

Last year Poagao remarked that Hartzell was going incite a war, because if China ever began to think that the US thought it owned Taiwan, it would respond with alacrity. Perhaps. But the validity of this argument should be thrashed out in public, not neglected. It is a shame that it has to appear in the kooky right-wing paper World Net Daily, though.

Hartzell has a website with a deeper exploration of the topic.

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