Page 268 - Chinese SIlver By Adrien Von Ferscht

FREE CHINA
Taiwan
post 1949 [possibly earlier, given historic ambiguity - see notes below]

This is a mark that surfaces from time to time if one is connected in any way to Chinese Export Silver. The first
thing to note is it is not Chinese Export Silver.

The term "free area of the Republic of China" has persisted to the present day in the ROC legislation. The need
to use the term "free area" in the Constitution arose out of the discrepancy between the notion that the Republic
of China was the sole legitimate government of China, whereas in 1949 The Peoples’ Republic of China came
into being, superseding the existence of ‘The Republic of China’.

According to the Constitution promulgated in 1947 before the fall of mainland China to the Communists the
national borders of the Republic of China could only be changed as a result of a vote by the National Assembly
[amendments passed in 2005 transferred this power to the electorate through the method of referendum]. In the
absence of such constitutional changes, the Republic of China's official borders were to be regarded as all of
mainland China and Outer Mongolia [including Tannu Uriankhai] in addition to the territories it controlled.

Until the mid-2000s, maps published in Taiwan depicted mainland provincial and national boundaries as they
were in 1949, disregarding changes by the Communist administration post-1949.

While the 1991 revisions of the Constitution granted the sovereignty rights to the Taiwanese people, it did not
explicitly name Taiwan and instead used the term "free area" to maintain the notion that the Republic of China
encompassed more than Taiwan. In ordinary legislation, the term "Taiwan Area" is usually used, especially in
contexts of trade and exchange. In contrast to the "free area" is the "mainland area", which Act Governing the
Relations Between Peoples of The Taiwan Area and The Mainland Area defines as "the territory of the Republic
of China outside the Taiwan Area." However, on more practical grounds, the "mainland area" refers simply to
mainland China.

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