My Chinese friends will hate me if I tell them this, but...

[kyllo_in_china]

Taiwan (technically) still belongs to the U.S

Comments

[will21cn]

Plausible, but an apparent hole in this argument is, that all the U.S. administrations' One-China policy for the past 50 plus years would have been unconstitutional and every single President had committed treason by claiming "our" Taiwan as part of China. :D

[kyllo_in_china]

Well, it seems that way, until you analyze our Taiwan policy statements in all their vagueness. We have claimed that Taiwan is not a sovereign nation (legally true), and affirmed that there is only "one China" (rhetoric imposed by the PRC). The loophole here is that nobody has explicitly defined the word "China." We've never actually said that Taiwan is part of the People's Republic of China, because it never has been.

[will21cn]

"The U.S. side declared: The United States acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China. The United States Government does not challenge that position. It reaffirms its interest in a peaceful settlement of the Taiwan question by the Chinese them-selves. With this prospect in mind, it affirms the ultimate objective of the withdrawal of all U.S. forces and military installations from Taiwan. In the meantime, it will progressively reduce its forces and military installations on Taiwan as the tension in the area diminishes."

http://www.nwc.navy.mil/apsg/communiques.htm

Politics and diplomatic terms... I am off to the bed. :(

This is the loophole that I was talking about.

[kyllo_in_china]

The United States acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China. The United States Government does not challenge that position

At the time, Chiang Kai-Shek wouldn't have challenged this position, either! He always claimed that Taiwan was part of China. Where he disagreed was over which government was the legitimate one. The ROC claimed that it was the sole legitimate government of China, and that the mainland was illegally occupied by communist bandits.

The US also went further in the Shanghai Communique, by saying:
The United States of America recognizes the Government of the People's Republic of China as the sole legal Government of China

But because, according to the San Francisco Peace Treaty, the US government still holds legal administrative authority over Taiwan, the ROC is not a legally sovereign government, and this statement is thus not contradictory.

Note that in the Shanghai Communique, the PRC side makes claims like: Taiwan is a

[wuyuansheng]

so if all that you said is true, what is the purpose of U.S. trying to maintain such a vague stand on the Taiwan issue?

What is the point of 'technically' having the administrative power over Taiwan while the whole world does not really know about it?

[kyllo_in_china]

Because this vagueness is exactly what allows us to have formal diplomatic relations with China, while still preventing China from invading Taiwan. "Technically" having this administrative authority gives us a legal basis for providing Taiwan with military defense

[mcsarah]

I maintain that Taiwanese citizens should be subject to mandatory tattoos at birth reading "Property of the United States" . . . on their necks.

I mean, I know I have a hard enough time identifying my bitches without some sort of tagging system. But that's just me.

Any pandas lately?

[kyllo_in_china]

Well, actually tattooing it on their skin would kind of remove the subtle ambiguousness of it all, and defeat the whole purpose of our foreign policy, don't you think?

Sorry, no pandas here lately. But China recently decided to donate two pandas to Taiwan, and they're polling mainlanders on what the names should be. The most popular names suggested are clever little puns where if you read the two pandas' names together, it means "reunification." It's kind of depressing that even pandas are political these days...

[shawnli]

Wohhhh,politics!~

I have no idea what this means,but it's politics which I don't care.

Just wish for the better!~

Hey, 李翔宇！

[kyllo_in_china]

Haha, yeah. There are those people like me, who have a passionate love/hate relationship with politics, and then there are those people who just couldn't care less.

Anyway, welcome to livejournal! I added you as a friend.