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Far Eastern Economic Review
James Chang [LETTERS, 4 June] quite accurately argued that the right to self-determination does not apply to Taiwan under international law because it is not a colony. But that does not prevent Taiwan from becoming an independent state. Therefore, I would not attach much relevance as he did to Paragraph 6 of the UN Resolution 1514 (Declaration on the Granting of Independent to Colonial Countries and People) which states that “any attempt at the partial or total disruption of the national unity and the territorial integrity of a country is incompatible with the purpose and principles of the Charter of the United Nations.” Time has come for those within Taiwan to act as realistically as those without in recognising the fact that it is no longer practicable to consider either Peking or Taipei as the government of a single state of China, with Taiwan as a part of it. The issue now is not any more about the recognition of governments (whether it is de jure or de facto), but rather the problem of a divided state as the same goes for East/West Germany and North/South Korea. It is becoming clear that the international community considers China and Taiwan as two separate entities. The clearest example is perhaps the US where even though the Carter administration withdrew its recognition of the Taiwan Government as the government of one-state China, the US still continues to deal with Taiwan separately, such as maintaining a separate trade mission in Washington. And Taiwan meets all the criteria of statehood. It has a permanent population, a defined territory, and a government which has the capacity to enter into legal relations with other states. Thus, so long as the international community continues to deal with Taiwan as a separate entity, the better are the prospects of Taiwan becoming an independent state. In fact, it is in the best interest of the people of Taiwan to do so, and they should not be deprived of their natural rights to decide for the future of Taiwan. And if the world recognises Taiwan as an independent and sovereign state, then any use of force by the Peking government to regain Taiwan would be in contravention of Article 4 of the UN Charter. Conversely, if the world is not behind any Taiwan declaration of independence, then the Chinese Government can legitimately claim that is has every right to employ force to quell an internal insurrection, and that it is purely an internal affair which no other states have the right to intervene.
Roger Tan, London 16.07.1987
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