Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

The way the government has danced to the tune of China in its recent designation of an air defense identification zone (ADIZ) in the East China Sea is tantamount to a “tacit acknowledgement” that China has sovereignty over Taiwan’s territorial airspace, an academic said yesterday.

China declared the ADIZ with the intent to claim that the airspace over Taiwan falls within its jurisdiction, and the Taiwanese government’s docile response can be interpreted as an agreement to hand over sovereignty to China under international law, said Chris Huang (黃居正), an associate professor at the Institute of Law for Science and Technology at National Tsing Hua University.

Two current democracies, Mongolia and Taiwan, opposites in size and population, have a strange, intertwined past. Mongolia is now the world’s 19th largest state in area, but ranks 140th in population. Diminutive Taiwan barely makes 137th by area, yet it ranks 51st in population. However, their polar fate runs deeper and involves a shifting relationship vis-a-vis the nebulous character of what is or can be defined as “one China.”

The current twist in this relationship started in 1911. At that time, the island of Taiwan was part of Japan, but on the Asian continent, a developing Republic of China (ROC) — one which would ironically later be forced to seek refuge in Taiwan — declared a rebellious independence from the Manchu Qing Empire.