Taiwan’s Legal Break with China Has Finally Begun

Taiwan’s Legal Break with China Has Finally Begun

By Professor Chiang Huang-chih

On July 7, 2025, at the Asia-Pacific Research Forum jointly hosted by the International Law Association and the American Society of International Law, Taiwan's Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung delivered a carefully crafted speech that may mark a pivotal moment in Taiwan’s international legal identity. Speaking to dozens of international law experts from over twenty countries, Lin clarified a stance long overdue: that Taiwan’s sovereignty cannot—and should not—be judged through the outdated lens of the 1943 Cairo Declaration or the 1945 Potsdam Proclamation. Instead, he affirmed that international legal determinations regarding Taiwan must rest upon the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty, in which Japan renounced sovereignty over Taiwan without designating a recipient.

This is no small shift in tone. For decades, the Republic of China (ROC) government in Taiwan sustained an ambiguous legal narrative—publicly insisting that Taiwan "was returned" to China in 1945, even while aware, as declassified diplomatic records show, that this claim lacked legal merit under international law. Now, Lin has made it official: the ROC did not acquire sovereignty over Taiwan in 1945. The government at that time merely assumed administrative control on behalf of the Allied Powers. The assertion that sovereignty was transferred to China was a political fiction—one that the People's Republic of China (PRC) continues to exploit, claiming Taiwan as its own.

Taiwan’s government, having democratized and localized over the past several decades, now has the confidence to shed these historical burdens. In doing so, it draws a clear line between the ROC of 1945—a regime that collapsed in mainland China—and the ROC (Taiwan) of today, a functioning liberal democracy representing the will of its people.

This distinction matters. For too long, the ROC’s historical claim of representing "all of China"—a narrative once mirrored by the PRC—reinforced Beijing’s insistence that Taiwan remains a part of China. Even after losing its seat at the United Nations to the PRC in 1971, Taiwan’s diplomatic apparatus continued to defend an untenable "One China" framework, inadvertently strengthening the PRC's case in international forums and weakening Taiwan’s own argument for sovereign recognition.

Minister Lin’s statement changes the narrative. By distancing Taiwan’s modern-day polity from the wartime ROC, the Taiwanese government is beginning to assert that today's Republic of China (Taiwan) is not a continuation of the Chinese civil war-era state, but a political entity born of democratic legitimacy and the principle of effective control. This perspective aligns with the Montevideo Convention's criteria for statehood: a defined territory, a permanent population, a government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other states.

If Taiwan is to secure greater international space and reduce the risk of coercion or conflict, this new legal framing is essential. It breaks free of the trap laid by both the ROC’s past and Beijing’s present—that Taiwan can only ever be defined in relation to China. Instead, it reclaims Taiwan’s right to define itself on its own terms: not as a renegade province, not as a leftover regime-in-exile, but as a vibrant, self-governing democracy with the right to exist in peace.

Naturally, this shift does not mean Taiwan must reject its cultural, historical, or emotional ties to China. But legally and politically, Taiwan must stop pretending that it is part of a bifurcated Chinese sovereignty. Doing so only bolsters the PRC's legal rationale for claiming Taiwan and legitimizes threats of force under the guise of "internal affairs."

Recognizing that the ROC of 1945 and the ROC (Taiwan) of today are not legally identical is a necessary step toward securing Taiwan’s future. The time has come for the international community to confront a simple but powerful truth: Taiwan is not China's unfinished business—it is a nation in its own right.


Reference

https://talk.ltn.com.tw/article/paper/1715830

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