Taiwan not renegade province
This is in response to the AFP's Beijing report entitled China irm on Taiwan which appeared in The Jakarta Post's July 8, 1995 (Saturday) edition.
South African President Nelson Mandela's intuitive wisdom should be highly commended when he said that his country would not sever diplomatic ties with Taiwan in order to establish relations with China. Ties between any two countries should be based on the merit both parties envisage the relationship would bring about; a third party has no right whatsoever to attempt to disrupt or to dictate its healthy development. South Africa's efforts to break the traditional mode of triangular linkage (in this case the Pretoria-Taipei-Beijing triangle) provides a new model for other nations to emulate.
It is improper to refer to Taiwan as a rebel or renegade province as the media often does in providing background to their readers. All who are familiar with the recent history of China know that the People's Republic of China was founded in 1949, after a civil war, and it has not at any time since controlled Taiwan. Therefore, it improper to refer to Taiwan as a "breakaway province." Taiwan, along with Kinmen, Matsu and Pescadores, is now administered by the government of the Republic of China (ROC). The ROC was founded Jan. 1, 1912 after a revolution led by Dr. Sun Yat-sen, who is honored as the Republic's Founding Father. In the wake of the Chinese Civil War in 1949, the government of the Republic of China moved its seat of government to Taiwan and continued the pursuit of Dr. Sun's goals by building a modern, democratic, and equitably prosperous social order.
The ROC government of Taiwan also considers both mainland China and Taiwan as parts of a greater China and feels they should be unified as soon as the political gap between the two sides is narrowed. So, the most appropriate designation for Taiwan for the time being should be, as I see it, "the model province of a yet to be unified China."
DAVID Y.S. TZOU
Information Director
Taipei Economic and Trade Office
Jakarta