BEIJING: China on Tuesday criticized a U.S. expert for using invalid historical documents to call black white, warning that attempts to challenge the widely recognized one-China principle are doomed to fail.
In an opinion piece, Michael Rubin, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, claimed the “one-China policy is a lie.” He cited the so-called San Francisco Peace Treaty, saying the treaty only mentioned that Japan renounced all rights, titles and claims to Taiwan and the Penghu Islands but did not cede sovereignty to any other state.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian responded at a regular press conference, saying the article itself is a lie that attempts to obscure and hollow out the one-China principle and use the Taiwan question to contain China.
He spread rumours in the name of scholars and research institutions under the cloak of academia, and the content of his articles clearly contradicts the common sense of history and law, Zhao said, referring to Rubin.
The United States had excluded China and the Soviet Union when reaching the so-called San Francisco Peace Treaty after World War II, Zhao said.
He said the treaty violated relevant regulations in the Declaration by United Nations, signed in 1942 by 26 countries, including the United States, the Soviet Union and China, as well as the UN Charter and basic norms of international law.
“The treaty’s regulations on the sovereignty and territory of China, which was not a signatory, were illegal and invalid,” Zhao said.
He noted that the Chinese government has solemnly stated from the very beginning that the so-called San Francisco Peace Treaty is null and void, as it was prepared, drafted and signed without the participation of the People’s Republic of China and that it will never be recognized by the Chinese government.
Countries, including the Soviet Union, Poland, Czechoslovakia, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Mongolia and Vietnam, also refused to recognize the validity of the “peace treaty,” according to Zhao.
There is only one China, and Taiwan is part of it, Zhao reiterated, adding that a number of international legal documents, including the Cairo Declaration and the Potsdam Proclamation, acknowledged China’s sovereignty over Taiwan.
“Although the two sides of the Taiwan Straits have not yet been completely reunified, the fact that both the mainland and Taiwan belong to one China has never changed, and China’s sovereignty and territory have never been divided,” Zhao said.
