The end of World War II brought the people of the former Japanese colony of Formosa no peace. Unlike all other colonial peoples who gained independence after the war, the US’ “one China” policy trapped them, in the words of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, in “political purgatory.” The policy also trapped the US in fear of a war with China.
It started in 1943, when the US in the Cairo Declaration promised Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) that “Formosa shall be restored to the Republic of China [ROC] after the war.”