A coalition of Taiwanese pro-sovereignty groups on Thursday, August 27, rejected Beijing’s use of the Cairo Declaration as a basis for claiming sovereignty over Taiwan and said a newly opened monument to the document in Egypt was part of Chinese efforts to push that claim internationally.

The Cairo Declaration is a 1943 wartime joint communiqué issued by the U.S., the UK, and the Republic of China that, among other things, stated “all the territories Japan has stolen from the Chinese, such as Manchuria, Formosa, and the Pescadores, shall be restored to the Republic of China.”

On August 15 this year, China opened a monument at the Marriott Mena House hotel, where the 1943 declaration was made. China's state-run Xinhua News Agency called the declaration an “important historical and legal basis” for its claim that Taiwan is part of China.

The Taiwan Alliance said at a press conference at the Legislative Yuan on Thursday that the People’s Republic of China, founded in 1949 and never having governed Taiwan, cannot use the declaration to claim sovereignty over Taiwan.

Asked by Rti about the monument, Taiwan Youth Generation Exchange Association Chairperson Chen Li-fu (陳俐甫) said China’s ultimate purpose was to “conduct united front work toward the world and erase the Taiwanese people’s rights to self-determination and autonomy.”

Chen also suggested Egypt had a commercial incentive, arguing the monument would draw Chinese tour groups. “As long as Egypt lets China erect the monument, all Chinese people must go there to check in and take selfies,” he said.

Formosa Humanistic Care Association Chairperson Chou Ni-an (周倪安) described China as “a fraudulent country, a bandit state.”

“If it wants to go there and do something to deceive people, it does it,” the former lawmaker said, adding that Taiwan’s government should mobilize education, media, civil defense, and broader society to counter Chinese infiltration.

Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry said on May 12, nine days after China announced the monument, that the 1951 Treaty of San Francisco superseded political declarations including the Cairo Declaration and did not grant sovereignty over Taiwan to the People’s Republic of China.