News Release
Posted: August 29, 2017

Subject: The Validity of Territorial Claims Based on the Cairo Declaration

The December 1943 Cairo Declaration that wrapped up a meeting held in Cairo between Winston Churchill, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Chiang Kai-shek is often cited as the primary legal foundation for the PRC’s and the ROC’s claims to territorial sovereignty over Taiwan.

At various public occasions, Beijing’s leaders have invoked the Cairo Declaration to establish that Taiwan is an inalienable part of China. The KMT has also long cited the Cairo Declaration as the legal basis for Taiwan’s return to the Republic of China.

In December 2013, for instance, former Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou affirmed the validity of the Cairo Declaration as an "international treaty," stating that it is the legal basis upon which Taiwan was restored to the ROC post-World War II.

Subject: Letter of Clarification Received from the National Archives and Records Administration

The US National Archives do not consider the Cairo Declaration a treaty. Several years ago, FAPA received a letter from the assistant archivist for records services at the Archives just outside Washington DC, who wrote: "The National Archives and Records Administration has not filed this [Cairo] declaration under treaties. [ . . . ] The declaration was a communique and it does not have [a] treaty series (TS) or executive agreement series (EAS) number."

The National Archives flatly contradict the KMT claims that the Declaration is a treaty, and with one fell swoop also voids the basis for Beijing’s "One China Principle" claims.

Indeed, the Cairo Declaration was merely intended as a "declaration of intent" about the world’s affairs among the three leaders – a mere statement of war aims, the territorial reassignments of which had to be solemnized in a formal peace treaty after Japan’s surrender. It has negligible status in international law as a treaty or convention.

Although important at the time, the Cairo Declaration does not have any legal binding power 65 plus years later, allowing neither the KMT nor the PRC to derive territorial claims from it.

Formosan Association for Public Affairs
Washington, DC