TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The Ministry of Foreign Affairs reaffirmed Tuesday that the 1951 Treaty of San Francisco did not transfer Taiwan’s sovereignty to China, as debate intensifies between Tokyo and Beijing over the treaty’s legal status.
Andrew Lee (李憲章), head of the ministry’s Department of Treaty and Legal Affairs, said the government’s position on the treaty has been consistent: Taiwan and China are not subordinate to each other, per ETtoday. “This is the political status quo and an objective fact,” said Lee, noting that the PRC cannot represent Taiwan in the international community.
Lee explained that after World War II, the Treaty of San Francisco superseded political declarations such as the Potsdam and Cairo Declarations. “The People’s Republic of China has never administered or ruled Taiwan for a single day, which is a historical fact,” he said.
Under the treaty, Japan renounced “all right, title, and claim to Formosa and the Pescadores.” It did not specify the handover of those territories, now known as Taiwan and Penghu, to any particular country.
Lee said Taiwan’s political liberalization and democratization from the 1980s, along with the first direct presidential election in 1996, and three subsequent transfers of power, have strengthened its democratic system. This has, he said, confirmed the current situation of equality and non-subordination between Taiwan and China.
Lee stressed that only a democratically elected government chosen by Taiwan’s 23 million people has the legitimacy to represent Taiwan in the international community.
On Nov. 26, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said Japan and Taiwan “maintain nongovernmental working-level relations,” per The Asahi Shimbun. She added, “Having renounced all rights and claims under the Treaty of San Francisco, we are not in a position to recognize Taiwan’s legal status.”
Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Mao Ning said on Nov. 28 that China has “never recognized anything” in the treaty, including sovereignty over Taiwan, per China’s state-run Xinhua. Mao cited sections of the 1972 Sino-Japanese Joint Statement in which the PRC claims to be the sole legal government of China and purports that Taiwan is an inalienable part of its territory.
However, the joint statement offers no explicit Japanese endorsement of PRC sovereignty over Taiwan, providing only an acknowledgment of Beijing’s position.
