China's planned annexation of Taiwan is not the answer
Ching-Chih Chen

Taiwan has never been, historically or legally, a part of China since1895 when the Manchu-led Ching Empire ceded Taiwan to Japan. Imperial Japan ruled Taiwan as a colony until 1945 when the US-led Alliance defeated Japan. By virtue of the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty, Japan renounced "all right, title and claim" over Taiwan. No recipient of the renounced sovereignty was designated. Cession of Taiwan without a recipient was neither unusual nor unique. In 1898, Spain renounced sovereignty over Cuba in the Treaty of Paris of 1898 after the Spanish-American War. Likewise, Libya and Somaliland were also relinquished by Italy without recipient according to the Treaty of Peace with Italy in 1947. In such cases, the renounced sovereignty naturally fell on the lap of the people. Taiwan is consequently a sovereign state by any name for more than half a century. The government of the People’s Republic of China that was founded in 1949, however, has claimed the island nation as part of China and has repeatedly threatened to invade Taiwan. To demonstrate China's determination to the people of Taiwan as well as to the Chinese themselves, China's National People's Congress unanimously passed its "Anti-secession Law" on March 14, 2005. The law authorizes the Chinese government to resort to the use of force, if necessary, to annex Taiwan.

In its attempt to annex Taiwan by force or any other means, the leaders of China should learn from history that since the early 20th century it has been proven again and again that annexation of another country or territory without the consent of the people will not last. As a matter of fact, nearly all such annexations sooner or later have been reversed. Let's examine some of these cases.

Believing that Korea and Japan had deep historical and cultural ties, Imperial Japan annexed Korea by virtue of the 1910 Treaty of Annexation. It was through intimidation and deception that the Japanese induced the Korean royal court to sign the Annexation Treaty. The Korean people, however, did not approve of the Japanese annexation; they continued to resist Japanese rule through various means. Korean resistance culminated in a large-scale, anti-Japanese demonstration on March 1, 1919. Japan's brutal suppression resulted in the deaths of thousands of demonstrators. Koreans continued to suffer under the harsh Japanese colonial rule. Fortunately for the Koreans, the US and its allies defeated Imperial Japan in 1945. Korea was subsequently declared an independent state once more.

In the case of Nazi Germany's annexation of Austria, Adolf Hitler believed that the German-speaking Austria should become part of Germany but he did not want to allow the Austrians to decide for themselves if Austria should become part of Germany. In 1938, Hitler's storm troops invaded and annexed Austria the day before the Austrian government had scheduled to have a referendum on the issue of German annexation. After the annexation, the Austrians initially thought that Austria would retain a considerable degree of separateness and only absorbed gradually by Nazi Germany. The Austrians, however, turned out to be wrong. In any case, the Allied forces defeated Nazi Germany and liberated Austria in1945. German annexation of Austria consequently lasted for only seven years.

A more recent case is the Iraqi annexation of Kuwait in 1990. Sadam Hussein claimed that Kuwait was historically a part of Iraq and dispatched his troops to invade Kuwait in August 1990. International indignation quickly contributed to the formation of a US-led military alliance. In early 1991, the allied forces over-whelmingly defeated the Iraqi troops in the Gulf War. The international military intervention brought to an end the short-loved Iraqi annexation of Kuwait and thus enabled the return of a sovereign Kuwait.

The people of East Timor, however, were not as lucky as the people of Kuwait. Their plight of suffering under Indonesian rule was ignored for nearly a quarter century after Indonesian troops invaded and occupied independent East Timor in 1975. The Indonesian leaders deemed that it was their right to bring the racially affiliated East Timor people under their rule. It was not until the late 1990's when no longer able to ignore the Indonesian atrocity toward the East Timor resistance that United Nation got involved. In August 1999, UN finally supervised a popular referendum in which overwhelming majority of the people of East Timor voted for independence from Indonesia. Less than three years later East Timor became internationally recognized as an independent state in May 2002.

The discussed cases above strongly show that in post-WWII world, annexation of another country would not last. In the age of freedom and human rights, the world would not tolerate the subjugation of unwilling people. The dissolution of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia in the late 1980's has further demonstrated that a country that was put together as a result of intimidation and war would have problem holding together. Yes, China has hung on to Tibet that it invaded and annexed in 1950. The Tibetans, however, desired independence. The Chinese military crushed independence uprising of the Tibetans in 1958 and compelled Dalai La and over 100,000 of his followers to flee to India. To this day Beijing has to station large police force as well as troops in Tibet to maintain its firm control over their unwilling Tibetan subjects. Continuing harsh rule over Tibet certainly has not helped the Chinese notoriety of widespread human rights violation. Why would China still want to annex yet another piece of land with people unwilling to come under Chinese rule?

Taiwan has developed separately from China for more than a century to the extent that the people on the island enjoy much higher standard of living and far more freedom and human rights than their counterpart in China. It is crystal clear that the great majority of the Taiwanese are opposed to Taiwan's becoming part of China. Taiwan is a democracy wherein no agreement of annexation by China could become a reality without the endorsement of the people through referendum. If there is to be real peace and stability in East Asia in general and in the Taiwan Strait in particular, China must learn to respect human dignity, international norms and the wish of the people of Taiwan.