Thursday, 24 February 2011
Deportation of 14 Taiwanese not about sovereignty
The Philippines’ deportation of 14 Taiwanese to mainland China along with 10 mainlanders, who were believed to be involved in an international fraud scheme, has stirred up a hornet’s nest in Taiwan, with politicians claiming violation of the nation’s sovereignty.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Deportation of 14 Taiwanese not about sovereignty
By FRANK CHING
24 February 2011
The Philippines’ deportation of 14 Taiwanese to mainland China along with 10 mainlanders, who were believed to be involved in an international fraud scheme, has stirred up a hornet’s nest in Taiwan, with politicians claiming violation of the nation’s sovereignty.
Taipei maintains that the 14 suspects should have been repatriated to Taiwan for possible trial rather than sent to the mainland.
Its Foreign Ministry said that the repatriation was a ‘violation of the jurisdiction principle of nationality’ and expressed ‘strong protest’ against the Philippines.
While the case may well be settled amicably between Beijing and Taipei now that the two sides are on friendly terms, it does raise serious questions whose answers are likely to prove deeply embarrassing to the government of President Ma Ying-jeou, who has rejected the policy of seeking independence for the island.
Thus, President Ma recently enjoined all public officials to refer to the other side of the strait as ‘the mainland’ rather than as ‘China’.
His government, after all, is that of the Republic of China while that across the strait is known as the People’s Republic of China.
In theory, the Republic of China encompasses the mainland. Thus, while the Philippines referred to ‘Taiwan nationals’, there is a real question as to who should be considered a ‘Taiwan national’ and not a ‘Chinese national’.
If there is ‘one China’ that includes both the mainland and Taiwan, it would seem to follow that all the people would share the same nationality.
Certainly, the two million people who followed Chiang Kai-shek to Taiwan in 1949 had the same nationality as their compatriots who stayed behind.
When the People’s Republic of China was proclaimed, it did not change anyone’s nationality status. Nationality does not change with changes in government.
But the nationality of those who lived in Taiwan under Japanese occupation is a different story. Under the Treaty of Shimonoseki by which Japan acquired Taiwan in 1895, the occupants were given two years in which to decide if they wanted to leave Taiwan.
Article 5 of the treaty said that, after the two-year period, those inhabitants ‘who shall not have left such territories shall, at the option of Japan, be deemed to be Japanese subjects’.
Thus, in 1945, when China regained control of Taiwan after Japan’s defeat in World War II, it regained control of an island whose inhabitants were Japanese nationals, not Chinese. Did their nationality subsequently change?
In 1952, Tokyo and the government of Chiang Kai-shek signed a peace treaty known as the Treaty of Taipei, formally ending the state of war. That treaty included an article that said ‘nationals of the Republic of China shall be deemed to include all the inhabitants and former inhabitants of Taiwan and Penghu and their descendants who are of the Chinese nationality in accordance with the laws and regulations which have been or may hereafter be enforced by the Republic of China in Taiwan’.
Moreover, since the Treaty of Shimonoseki was abrogated after the Japanese surrender in 1945, it can be argued that inhabitants of Taiwan never became Japanese nationals. But it is doubtful that an abrogation of a treaty can retroactively change the nationality status of people before the abrogation.
Currently, it seems, since both Beijing and Taipei acknowledge that there is only one China, they also agree that there is only one Chinese nationality.
When a jurisdictional question arises, a foreign country has to decide which government has jurisdiction over Chinese nationals. And since the great majority of countries recognise Beijing and not Taipei as the government of China, Taiwan is likely to lose out most of the time.
Thus, it is in Taiwan’s interests not to raise the discussion to the level of the ‘jurisdiction principle of nationality’, as its Foreign Ministry has done.
Indeed, there is no principle under international law that says criminal suspects should only be tried in their own countries. In fact, courts all over the world conduct trials of foreigners on a daily basis. There is no question of sovereignty involved.
Former vice-president Annette Lu, who is often seen as an ideologue favouring Taiwan independence, has weighed in on this case - but from the standpoint of a legal scholar.
Ms Lu pointed out that the incident was simply a cross-border criminal case that was not related to sovereignty. She asked that the matter be considered rationally, rather than ideologically. She is right.
Post a Comment