Michal Thim and myself begin this piece....
In Taiwan a small but remarkably positive step took place this month: on July 12 the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) of the Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan quietly removed a webpage that erroneously claimed that Taiwan was part of China. The Tsai administration also announced changes to the school curriculum, under which the Cairo Declaration will no longer be taught in Taiwan’s schools as the canonical definition of Taiwan’s status. Predictably, this action met with outrage from Beijing and its allies inside Taiwan, who once again cited the Cairo Declaration and bitterly attacked the Tsai government’s decision.Go thou and read!
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Michael,
ReplyDeleteThanks to you and Mr. Thim for the well written analysis in The Diplomat. It is encouraging to see some sanity there, in contrast to the frequent misrepresentations rampant in KMT, CCP, and (too often!) thoughtless international media commentary on this subject.
Keep getting these articles out into the mainstream: they are essential markers for reference in the inevitable Google-searches of international media reporters. If nothing else, they help to flag that there is an issue, so reporters need to either do more homework or at least tread more carefully when quoting misrepresentations.
I have seen the various interpretations of Cairo, San Francisco, Taipei etc. in the past; but I would say the most compelling new quote in your article is the quotation from the FM at the time, Yeh Kung-chao, where he starkly acknowledges "However, the delicate international situation makes it that they do not belong to us."
That quote, and any others like it, are strong points that I've never seen before. They robustly corroborate your commentary about Taiwan's undefined status, and notably about the KMT's deliberate misrepresentations thereof.
As a general note, the more you can pile on this sort of quotations, the better. On the other hand, although I appreciate the poetic sting of comments like "acolyte of the Cairo cult" I would suggest being a little more circumspect about those kinds of dramatic epithets in these articles. They reveal too much emotional investment and the potential for bias, and dilute a little bit from what is already a compelling argument.
Full disclosure: I do the same thing in my own writing too - it's hard to resist when I feel strongly about the subject, as I know you do. But as a 3rd party reader, it is a little jarring. Your Diplomat audience here is an uninformed international readership, so presenting your carefully researched diplomatic and legal analysis dryly and clearly - as you did for almost all of it - is perhaps the most compelling approach.
PS. Following up my earlier comment: as you described, the Cairo Declaration was a non-binding statement of intent among allies in the midst of the darkest days of WWII, when the prospects of the allies ever winning the war was in deepest doubt. As such, you might describe at the time as a "statement of wishful thinking" more than anything else.
ReplyDeleteNevertheless, in commercial terms it would likely be equivalent to a Letter of Intent (LOI). In the commercial world, a Letter of Intent is by definition non-binding, and merely outlines the areas of broad understanding in advance of drafting a definitive and binding agreement.
Sometimes in commercial LOIs, to avoid any disagreement after the fact, there is an additional sentence reiterating that the letter is non-binding for the avoidance of doubt (with the exception of the confidentiality and jurisdiction clause).
Of course, the Cairo Declaration was a diplomatic expression among allies during conflict, rather than a commercial agreement. I guess the equivalent of the commercial "LOI in advance of Definitive Agreement" sequence of discussions, in the diplomatic realm, is something like this "joint statement to be followed by binding treaty". Right?
Also, I have never parsed the Cairo Declaration in its application to other countries or territories than Taiwan. Are there examples in there, for example statements relating to other territories, that were not complied with by the parties subsequent to the war's end? I suspect there were, especially in relation to the USSR; but I'm curious. The more numerous there are contradictions between the Cairo Declaration and the subsequent actions of the parties, the more clearly it is that the Declaration was neither binding nor viewed as binding by any of the parties.
Thanks as always for your insightful and informative Taiwan analyses!
Of course, the Cairo Declaration was a diplomatic expression among allies during conflict, rather than a commercial agreement. I guess the equivalent of the commercial "LOI in advance of Definitive Agreement" sequence of discussions, in the diplomatic realm, is something like this "joint statement to be followed by binding treaty". Right?
ReplyDeleteyep.
Peter Enav really think the situation is bad:
ReplyDeletehttps://sentinel.tw/taiwan-gun-urgent-call-action/
Donald Trump like think he is Jacksonian. Jacksonians will circle the wagon and start shooting if they think their honor has been harmed by other. China has been dissing the US on North Korea and it will end in tears. Don't under estimate the effect of Otto Warmbir when the time comes.
Mattis and the gang need to get ready.
Looking at the text of the Cairo Declaration, it seems more like what today would be a joint press release rather than anything formal like a binding treaty. Clearly the CSK folks got some free rein to insert their preferred wording in the China section where the US and UK at the time couldn't care less and were not paying attention in contrast to the far larger issue of fighting against Japan in WWII.
ReplyDeleteEven the characterization of Formosa as "stolen from the Chinese" is factually baseless. You could perhaps say that about territory like Manchuria taken by force leading up to the war. But not Taiwan. Transferred formally by treaty in 1895 from the Qing to Japan is called "stolen from the Chinese"? WTF?
So a casually written, intentionally misleading, factually incorrect clause slipped into a broader statement of intent to fight Japan in the midst WWII is the basis for CSK / ROC claims throughout subsequent history?