Dear Mr. Chung: (E-mail to OCTA Webmaster from Jeff Geer)
I appreciate your positive email, and I have been working very hard to assist the people of Taiwan through this unique but lawful predicament of the SFPT. I should acquaint you with my background. I am a Gulf War veteran whom was cross-trained in military civil affairs regulations very much like George Kerr. I also completed my B.A. degree in International Studies (Taiwan/China) at State University of New York (Brockport).
The legal documents on the Taiwan Documents Project are most helpful, but only if you truly understand that the written word is not the last word. Just as the British Common Law is the "unwritten" interpretation of the US Constitution, SFPT must be understood in the context of FM 27-10 Laws of Land Warfare. FM 41-10 Civil Affair Regulations outlines the nature of intentional ambiguities of the legal nature of a civil administration of friendly territory in comparison to the civil administration of "occupied territory". http://216.103.65.124/afm/FM41-10/CH11.PDF This further helps with FM 27-10 for the "treaty transition" on April 28,1952, as explained in Paragraph 353 and 354. http://www.adtdl.army.mil/cgi-bin/atdl.dll/fm/27-10/Ch6.htm#s2 Paragraph 358 will further explain the significance of Kerr's actions on October 25, 1945, because the ROC 'retrocession' of Taiwan is null.
What has basically happened is the USA has continuously and silently held the Taiwan territory in an interim treaty status of being a "trust territory" under the customary laws of occupation. As you will note from Kerr's book, Chiang Kai-Shek was always hoodwinking the USA, when his cronies were not abusing the Taiwanese people. So Mr. Kerr just lawfully impaired the ROC sovereign claims to Taiwan on October 25, 1945, and the USA maintained that legal ambiguity of Taiwan political status under SFPT. However, the notion that Taiwan status has no civil rights is a constitutional fallacy under the laws of occupation. While indefinitely held as a friendly territory of SFPT cession, the island is not to be deprived of its most basic civil rights. That is outlined in my letter to the Taipei Times on February 28, 2001.
In a situation of limbo cessions, it is quite customary for the US Congress to determine the political status and civil rights of the native inhabitants of the ceded territory. This really differs from an official status of being a trust territory under the UN Charter with rights of self-determination. The Supreme Court ruled that such interims of ambiguous political status of a peace treaty cessions might be as undetermined or undefined for an indefinite period, but the basic civil rights are still constitutionally defined, even if such a cession is held in a treaty limbo as "aliens". Such civil rights were again congressionally reaffirmed that nothing shall contravene the American interest in the "human rights" of Taiwan Relations Act.
Congress has never clearly defined your legal civil rights of SFPT cession, but the Supreme Court has. TAIP needs your assistance. Dylan Tsai has been attempting to bring a US federal lawsuit for lawfully recovering the KMT assets stolen from the "Japanese nationals" of Formosan descent under SFPT. The bilateral Treaty of Taipei was unilaterally abrogated by Japan in 1972, but only after the approval of Nixon under the Shanghai Communiqué on February 28, 1972. Only the Treaty of Taipei made the ROC nationality laws become legally applicable to the inhabitants of Taiwan, not "Retrocession Day". Now the SFPT supersedes the bilateral treaty and there are serious questions about the true "interim" nationality status of Formosan family registers. Without the Treaty of Taipei, the Shanghai Communiqués are perhaps the only continuing authority of any type of a "Chinese nationality" for Taiwanese island natives. Customarily, the laws of occupation hold that the nationality of the island territory will become the "interim nationality" of the cession. In short, are you a "Taiwan national" of SFPT, or a ROC Chinese?
It seems that Nixon and Zhou Enlai chose the 1972 date for its very auspicious value to the Taiwanese people since 1947. Isn't it time to stop being denied your basic civil rights under SFPT, and to claim your "interim status" constitutional rights of the laws of war? If you don't, how long before Holbrooke and friends succeed in a Fourth Communiqué? Fifty years of a limbo cession is a long time, but 30 years of the unconstitutional capriciousness of the Shanghai Communiqués is only a huge insult to past injury. Both are unforgiving. Please study, omprehend, and give your full support to the people of Taiwan, as they are protected by the US Constitution and SFPT until a peaceful resolution of the political status of Taiwan.
Ultimately, this is about you, the people of Taiwan, determining your sovereign rights of SFPT, and especially about not allowing "them" to do for you.
Best Regards,
Jeff Geer
February 19, 2002