In the first postwar months in 1945, British Foreign Office legal advisers wrote to support a position that was to be persistently taken by the British Government in the ensuing decade: “As a matter of law the Cairo and Potsdam Declarations quite definitely do not operate to effect any automatic or immediate alterations in the status of Formosa (Taiwan) on the cessation of hostilities with Japan…” If a reference to the Declarations was intended, the retrocession of Taiwan to China had indeed never been taking place. The 1951 Japanese Peace Treaty merely engendered a renunciation of Japanese sovereignty without any transfer to China, and agreements made with Chiang Kai-shek when he was invested with the administration of Taiwan merely put him there on a military occupation basis pending further arrangements, and did not of themselves constitute the territory Chinese. Previous studies of Taiwan’s legal status have tended to ignore the historical context or discuss overly selective sources. This paper draws upon government documents and analyzes legal advices both textually and contextually in terms of multilateral diplomacy. By focusing on the contribution by the British Foreign Office legal advisers to the shaping of international legal issues in the given decade, this paper reexamines Taiwan’s status in three aspects: Japan as a key player in Britain’s trade and strategic tilt to the Pacific region, occupation diplomacy and US-UK-Japan alliance in the early years of the Cold War, and contemporary transitions in collective security concepts in lieu of the use of force.

Authors:
Wen-shuo Liao, Academia Historica, Taiwan

About the Presenter(s)
Dr Wen-shuo Liao is a University Professor/Principal Lecturer at Academia Historica in Taiwan

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