Los Angeles vigil for Taiwan enters fifth month outside federal builing

The Defense and State Departments in Washington, D.C. know nothing about a United States Military Government for Taiwan but federal employees in Los Angeles can explain that is what motivates two dozen protesters each week.

Each week, regardless of weather conditions, two dozen dedicated people return every Tuesday to the Los Angeles federal building to ask the United States to evict the Republic of China in-exile from Taiwan.

The vigil members carry signs and pass out handbills that talk about USMG responsibilities under the San Francisco Peace Treaty. The treaty, which formally ended World War II between the United States and Japan, established the United States as the “principal occupying Power” over Taiwan.

Vigil members, citing the San Francisco Peace Treaty language, conclude that the only way the United States can properly and lawfully discharge its treaty duties is with a military government since Taiwan remains under occupation.

In October 1945, the United States landed Republic of China troops on Taiwan as its proxy occupation force to process Japanese soldiers. The U.S. then allowed Chiang Kai-shek to move two million Chinese and his Chinese Nationalist government to Taiwan in 1949 when Chiang was driven from China by the Communist revolution there.

In 1952 the U.S. Senate ratified the San Francisco Peace Treaty which officially established the United States as the “principal occupying Power” over Taiwan despite the presence on the island of the Kuomintang regime of Chiang Kai-shek as the American proxy occupation power.

Vigil members now call upon the United States to exercise its “principal occupying Power” to evict the ROC regime from Taiwan and permit self-determination by the Taiwanese people.

Two of the vigil participants are in their 90’s and remember Taiwan when it was Japanese territory. The oldest, affectionately called Grandma by the others, now splits her time between the Los Angeles federal building and her church. One week she carries a sign and the next she prays for Taiwan.

Grandma has inspired a 90 year-old man to join the weekly vigil and everyone quickly called him Grandpa.

Nieco Tsai, an organizer of the vigil for Taiwan, explains, “We keep coming back each week because we have to. We hold the dream that is the people of Taiwan’s dream--let Taiwan be a real Taiwan.”