Legacy Debate as Republic of China Marks
100 Years
According to this piece of BBC news, we find out a problem when
discussing Taiwan’s independency. Our government recognizes the formal name of
our country as ROC (Republic of China), and in the Constitution of ROC, it
writes, “中華民國領土，依其固有之疆域”, but
it doesn’t specify the parts which belong to its inherent territory. Should
Taiwanese insist on the name of ROC? Or should we recognize Taiwan as just
Taiwan?
The article starts from the 100th anniversary of ROC in 2011.
While many people in Taiwan celebrate the national day, there are some people
who have different opinion.
"The ROC is a Chinese
government exiled in Taipei. It should be out of Taiwan," said Tsay
Ting-kuei, who is one of a group of people who believe that when Japan lost
WWII, Taiwan technically should not have been handed over to the ROC because
that was not specified in the treaties signed between Japan and the Western
victors in the war.(BBC News)
Another business woman, Yeh Tsai-chu,
said, “The ROC's 100th anniversary has nothing to do with Taiwan. Besides, what
is there to celebrate? The ROC is not even recognised as a country by the rest
of the world.” (BBC News)
There are still many people credit KMT government with making Taiwan a
democratic country and becoming prosperous in economy. Despite these facts, it seems
that we have to choose between the name of ROC and Taiwan. Most the countries
in the world recognize Taiwan instead of ROC. If we go abroad with the passport
writing ROC, the customs officers categorize us as Chinese. ROC has lost its
membership in United Nations in 1971, and it is only admitted officially by
about 20 more countries.
Considering the Sun Flower Movement happened in March in 2014, which is
mainly the response of the students to Service Trade Agreement that is going to
be signed by our government with China, we can get a hint of the attitude of
both the government and the younger generation. There is concern among
Taiwanese that we are about to be integrated with China. Even the name of ROC
will become history. This is the reason of why the issue of whether Taiwan
should be independent is under severe debate recently.
Another student demonstration happened in Hong Kong, which is recognized
as Umbrella Revolution, can also be our lesson to learn. China government
promise Hong Kong to rule themselves when they were returned to as part of
China, but it turned out to be a lie. People are angry that they can only
choose from a pool of candidates that are approved by Beijing, so the
protestors occupied the central areas. Some people in Taiwan, including me, are
afraid that if we integrated with China, even the Beijing government promises us
democracy, we will end up like Hong Kong. We will eventually lose our most
precious value, freedom.
Reference
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