TAICHUNG (Taiwan News) — News media in free, democratic nations have a responsibility to fact-check—because democracy depends on it.

This is true even in the editorial and opinion sections. Different viewpoints and opinions based on the facts are perfectly acceptable and at times even laudable, as debate is healthy in a democracy.

However, on March 23, a leading Australian newspaper published an "opinion newsletter" from China's Ambassador to Australia Xiao Qian (肖千). It was a propaganda hit piece on Taiwan straight out of Chinese state media.

Australian publications often run the work of a prominent professor who advocates throwing Taiwan under the bus with a despicable lack of concern for the fate of the 23 million free people on Taiwan, democracy, and a total disregard for the fact that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after taking Taiwan, would proceed to its next target and regional peace would never be secure. His opinions I may find utterly inhuman and vile, but at least he mostly gets his facts straight.

That was emphatically not the case with Xiao’s attack piece. In fact, there were so many outright lies, distortions, and disinformation in just the first five paragraphs alone it filled up my entire previous column.

Finishing the job

This column is to finish the job of illustrating just how the CCP twists everything regarding Taiwan, and also making it clear why this Australian newspaper utterly failed in its duty. Newspapers should have respect for the veracity of the content they run, but the untruths in this opinion piece greatly outnumbered what few truths it contained.

After noting the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, Xiao writes: “The new government replaced the previous regime in a situation where China, as a subject under international law, did not change, and China’s sovereignty and inherent territory did not change.” This is wrong on several points.

The biggest is the territory claimed, though never fully occupied by the Kuomintang (KMT)-led “previous regime” aka the Republic of China (ROC) was not based on international law. After the fall of the Qing Empire in 1911, the ROC attempted to claim its entire territory.

The problem with this is that China was only one component part of a Manchurian — not Chinese — empire, and China had no claim over Mongolia, Tibet, Manchuria, the Uyghur peoples or Taiwan. For China to claim the entire empire would be like Iraq claiming the entire Ottoman Empire.

Both KMT and CCP were well aware of this as the progenitors of both rallied under a “topple the Qing, restore the Ming” slogan, which meant to restore native Chinese rule and expel their Manchurian rulers. Xiao is also mistaken on the claimed territory as the ROC claimed Mongolia, but the PRC backed off trying to claim it because at the time it was backed by the Soviet Union.

"has never changed"

After more of the same nonsense, Xiao continued: “But the sovereignty and territory of China have never been divided and will never be divided, and Taiwan’s status as part of China’s territory has never changed and will never be allowed to change.”

Except that sovereignty over Taiwan has changed hands many times. For thousands of years, Indigenous peoples ruled, later joined by the Dutch and Spanish in different parts of Taiwan.

After expelling the Dutch, chunks of Taiwan were ruled by the independent Kingdom of Tungning and Kingdom of Middag. From 1683 until 1895, or just over 200 years, the Manchurian Qing Empire never succeeded in controlling more than two-thirds of Taiwan, with the rest remaining in the hands of Indigenous peoples.

Then it was ceded “in perpetuity” to Japan in 1895, but at the end of World War Two, Japan was occupied by the Allied Powers, with the ROC representing the Allies in Formosa. So much for “Taiwan’s status as part of China’s territory has never changed.” Then Xiao goes on to write:

China’s policy towards Taiwan is consistent and clear. In 1971, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 2758, making it clear there is but one China in the world, Taiwan is part of China, and the government of the People’s Republic of China is the sole legal government representing the whole of China.

This is the meaning of the one-China principle, which is at the very heart of China’s core interests.

Resolution 2758 makes no reference to Taiwan. In fact, since the Japanese renounced sovereignty over Taiwan in 1952 in the Treaty of San Francisco, but did not specify to whom sovereignty would pass to, there is no internationally recognized treaty specifying exactly who does have sovereignty, which is why to this day many countries like the U.S. and U.K. officially consider Taiwan’s sovereignty “undetermined.”

Ethno-nationalist fantasies

The so-called “one-China principle” is a fiction created by ethno-nationalist imperialists to justify their irredentist fantasies. It has zero historical or legal foundation.

Xiao continues: “National reunification by peaceful means is the first choice of the Chinese government in resolving the Taiwan question, as it best serves the interests of the Chinese nation as a whole, including our compatriots in Taiwan.” Taiwanese people, who are the ones who know better what is best for them, would not agree.

All polling on the subject shows that support for being annexed by the PRC is in the low single digits, and that a clear majority of Taiwanese do not consider themselves to be Chinese. Taiwanese cherish their freedom and are justifiably proud of the democracy they have built.

The rest of the attack piece is full of comments about “red lines,” “core interests,” “separatist activities,” and “outside interference” of the type common in CCP mouthpieces like the Global Times and People’s Daily. And an Australian newspaper gave them a platform.

And that was shameful.