Editing Political status of Taiwan (section)

==== Taiwanese independence ====

'''Taiwan already is sovereign and independent'''
# The peace that was brokered in the Treaty of Shimonoseki was breached by the [[Boxer Rebellion]], which led to the conclusion of the Boxer Protocol of 1901 (Peace Agreement between the [[Historical powers|Great Powers]] and China),<ref>{{Citation
|url=http://www.china1900.info/ereignisse/boxerprotokoll.htm
|title=Boxer Protocol, Peking 7. September 1901; Peace Agreement between the Great Powers
|publisher=China um 1900; in Den Ugen Der Zeit
|access-date=2007-10-06
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080210014645/http://www.china1900.info/ereignisse/boxerprotokoll.htm
|archive-date=10 February 2008
|url-status=dead
}}</ref> and China, not by the [[Second Sino-Japanese War]]. The Treaty of Shimonoseki was a [[dispositive treaty]]. Therefore, it is not voidable or nullifiable (this doctrine being that treaties specifying particular actions which can be ''completed,'' once the action ''gets completed,'' ''cannot'' be voided or reversed without a new treaty specifically reversing that clause). Hence, the ''[[unequal treaty doctrine]]'' cannot be applied to this treaty. By way of comparison, as 200,000,000 Kuping [[tael]]s were not returned to China from Japan, and Korea had not become a Chinese-dependent country again, the cession in the treaty was executed and cannot be nullified. The disposition of Formosa and the Pescadores in this treaty was a legitimate cession by conquest, confirmed by treaty, and thus is not a theft, as described as "all the territories Japan has stolen from the Chinese" in Cairo Declaration.
# It should also be noted that the Qing court exercised effective sovereignty over primarily the west coast of Taiwan only, and even then did not regard the area as an integral part of national Chinese territory.
# The "Cairo Declaration" was merely an unsigned press communiqué which does not carry a '''legal status''', while the Potsdam Proclamation and Instrument of Surrender are simply [[modus vivendi]] and [[armistice]] that function as temporary records and do not bear legally binding power to transfer sovereignty. Good faith of interpretation only takes place at the level of treaties.
# The "retrocession" proclaimed by ROC in 1945 was legally null and impossible since Taiwan was still ''de jure'' part of Japan before the post-war San Francisco Peace Treaty came into effect on 28 April 1952. Consequently, the announcement of the mass-naturalization of native Taiwanese persons as ROC citizens in January 1946 is unjust and void ''[[Ab initio]]''. After the San Francisco Peace Treaty came into effect, the sovereignty of Taiwan naturally belonged to the Taiwanese people.
# Some of Taiwan independence supporters once used arguments not in favor of Chinese sovereignty to dispute to legitimacy of the Kuomintang-controlled government that ruled over Taiwan; they have dropped these arguments due to the democratization of Taiwan. This has allowed the more moderate supporters of independence to stress the [[popular sovereignty]] theory in order to accept the legitimacy of the ROC government in Taiwan; they hold that the island of Taiwan is ''already'' an independent state which is formally called the Republic of China. President [[Lai Ching-te]] and former President [[Chen Shui-bian]] (both members of the moderate pro-independence [[Democratic Progressive Party]]) have supported this position, which is known in Taiwanese politics as [[Huadu (Taiwan)|''Huadu'']].
# Sovereignty transfer to the ROC by [[custom (law)|prescription]] does not apply to Taiwan's case since:
## Prescription is the manner of acquiring property by a long, honest, and uninterrupted possession or use during the time required by law. The possession must have been ''possessio longa, continua, et pacifica, nec sit ligitima interruptio'' (long, continued, peaceable, and without lawful interruption). For prescription to apply, the state with title to the territory must acquiesce to the action of the other state. Yet, PRC has never established an occupation on Taiwan and exercised sovereignty;
## Prescription as a rule for acquiring sovereignty itself is not universally accepted. The [[International Court of Justice]] ruled that Belgium retained its sovereignty over territories even by non-assertion of its rights and by acquiescence to acts of sovereign control alleged to have been exercised by the Netherlands over a period of 109 years;<ref>{{Citation
|url=http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/index.php?p1=3&p2=3&k=32&case=38&code=bnl&p3=4
|title=Case Concerning Sovereignty Over Certain Frontier Land 
|date=20 June 1959
|publisher=International Court of Justice
|access-date=2009-04-14
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140522070111/http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/index.php?p1=3&p2=3&k=32&case=38&code=bnl&p3=4
|archive-date=22 May 2014
|url-status=dead
}}</ref>
## Also by way of comparison, even after 38 years of continuous control, the international community did not recognize sovereignty rights to the [[Gaza Strip]] by Israel, and the Israeli cabinet formally declared an end to military rule there as of 12 September 2005, with a removal of all Israeli settlers and military bases from the Strip;
## A pro-independence group, which formed a ''Provisional Government of Formosa'' in 2000, argued that both the [[228 incident]] of 1947 and the Provisional Government of Formosa have constituted protests against ROC government's claim of retrocession within a reasonable twenty-five-year (or more) acquiescence period;<ref>{{Citation
|url=http://www.taiwannation.com.tw/cairo05.htm
|script-title=zh:中國國務院台辦新聞發佈會實錄
|language=zh
|publisher=taiwannation.com.tw
|access-date=2007-10-06
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140630225437/http://taiwannation.com.tw/cairo05.htm
|archive-date=30 June 2014
|url-status=live
}}</ref>
## Taiwanese residents were unable to make a protest after the [[228 incident]] due to the authoritarian rule under KMT regime which suppressed all pro-independence opinion; and
## Japan was not able to cast a protest as it was under [[military occupation]] at the time; however, it did not renounce its sovereignty over Taiwan until 28 April 1952.<ref>{{Citation
|url=http://www.taiwandocuments.org/sovereignty.htm
|title=Sovereignty
|publisher=Taiwan Documents Project
|access-date=2007-10-06
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061015124645/http://www.taiwandocuments.org/sovereignty.htm
|archive-date=15 October 2006
|url-status=live
}}</ref>