Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
語言:
English
Photo Credit: Ministry of Public Security of the People’s Republic of China/Public Domain
IN AN UNUSUAL incident, Chinese airlines have emphasized that how Taiwanese book tickets for trips outside of China has not changed. Specifically, Taiwanese need to use their Taiwan Compatriot Permit when leaving China and their ROC passport when entering a third country.
How Taiwanese book tickets while in China came into question after Taiwanese passengers were reportedly informed that their tickets were canceled for trips between China and Japan as well as China and Cambodia, on the basis of the One China Principle. It was claimed that neither Taiwan Compatriot Permits nor ROC passports could be used to purchase tickets because of the One China Principle.
This would be a strange claim, in that even if China’s One China Principle affirms that Taiwan is part of China, the Taiwan Compatriot Permit is a travel document issued by the Chinese government. Although there are cases of Taiwanese being detained by the Chinese government, with nine Taiwanese disappearing in China per month according to the Mainland Affairs Council, it is unlikely that the Chinese government would prevent Taiwanese altogether from leaving China on the basis of the One China Principle. However, it is to be questioned whether the Chinese government would make actions such as buying tickets more tied to the Taiwan Compatriot Permit rather than the ROC passport.
Indeed, that other countries require an ROC passport for travel shows that the ROC passport cannot be replaced by the Taiwan Compatriot Permit. This gestures toward Taiwan’s implicit de facto recognition, even if it lacks de jure recognition, in that Taiwanese nationals abroad are still administered under travel documents issued by Taiwan rather than China. It would require significant strong-arming, as well as bureaucratic maneuvering, for China to try otherwise.
Still, one notes that the Chinese government frequently wishes to create the perception that Taiwanese abroad are viewed as Chinese nationals, and this is an international consensus. This is in line with the broader practice by the Chinese government of seeking to conflate its own One China Principle with the many different One China policies by various international governments, suggesting that there is international consensus on Taiwan in the form of UN Resolution 2758. At times, this is successful in confusing even governments of what their own policies on Taiwan is.
Efforts are also made to deceive the unaware that China administers Taiwan, rather than Taiwan having its own independent government, economy, currency, military, borders, and free and fair elections. Chinese pressure leading airlines to list Taiwan as a province of China in online drop-down menus may be another example of this phenomenon.
To this extent, when Taiwanese nationals require assistance abroad, such as in the case of accidents, natural disasters, or the outbreak of conflicts, Chinese embassies have sometimes sought to depict themselves as more able to help Taiwanese than Taiwanese representative offices. An effort is made to depict Taiwanese representatives as inept and unable or unwilling to help their fellow Taiwanese abroad. Apart from seeking to convey the image of Taiwan as small and weak in comparison to China, the attempt is further to suggest that international consensus views China as administering Taiwan.
The ROC passport’s existence itself gestures toward Taiwan’s de facto recognition. Despite Taiwan not being a member of the UN and there having been cases of Taiwanese denied admittance to UN facilities on the basis of the ROC passport, the passport still contains electronics that conform to the standards set by the UN. In this sense, the ROC passport serves to facilitate international travel by Taiwanese and is, in fact, one of the stronger passports in the world. And while there has been contention in past years about how the ROC passport is easily confused with the PRC passport, that the issue of passports recurs when it comes to Taiwan’s national status serves to demonstrate how China seeks to limit Taiwan’s international space.