September 2018

This argues that the 1943 Cairo Dec- laration, the 1945 Potsdam Agreement, and the instruments of surrender for Japan directed that all the Chinese territory it had conquered, including Taiwan, be “restored” to the Republic of China (ROC) (Hsieh 2009, 61).9 With the flight of Chiang Kai-shek’s defeated ROC government and his Kuomintang (KMT) party to Taiwan in 1949, the PRC asserts it was the legi. [...] According to the Taiwanese government’s counter-argu- ment, the PRC has not superseded it on Taiwan, where the ROC governed without interruption as a state separate from the mainland since 1949 (MOFA 2000).10 The third assertion in support of the PRC’s claim to sovereignty over Taiwan involves the claim that: Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, 157 countries have estab- lished di. [...] While no hard evidence sup- ports this claim, at the time of recognition the bureaucracy had to be mindful of the dangers of Canada being drawn into the regular PRC-Taiwan military conflicts with their continuing recognition of the ROC and the attendant possibility the US would call for our military sup- port.33 Thus, supporting the PRC over Taiwan may have appeared the safer short term bet for av. [...] This was especially the case on the political-security front where there has not been the remot- est suggestion of establishing any links or engaging in any military cooperation with Taiwan or its allies despite the regular security challenges to the island.37 The most serious of these was the 1995/96 Taiwan Strait crisis, which changed the outlook of many nations towards both Chi- na and Taiwan. [...] By 1994, France was forced to come to an agreement with the PRC that appeared to promise a cessation of French arms sales to Taiwan, and, in a reversal of its 1964 position, publicly accept “the Government of the People’s Republic of China as the sole legal government of China and 22 RETHINKING THE TAIWAN QUESTION: How Canada can update its rigid “One-China” policy for the 21st century Taiwan as a.