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46DE FACTO STATES AND SOVEREIGNTY AS CONTESTED INCOMPATIBILITY
ДЕ-ФАКТО ГОСУДАРСТВА И СУВЕРЕНИТЕТ КАК ОСПАРИВАЕМОЕ ПРОТИВОРЕЧИЕ
DOMESTIC AND INTERNATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY: THE DISPUTES OVER THE STATUS
OF ABKHAZIA, NORTHERN CYPRUS, AND TAIWAN*
**
Bruno Coppieters
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
ORCID: 0000-0003-3043-139X
© B.Coppieters, 2022
DOI: 10.20542/2307-1494-2022-1 -47-66
Abstract Sovereignty is a key concept in discourses regarding the disputes over the status of Abkhazia, Northern Cyprus, and Taiwan. It helps the conflicting parties to communicate their positions regarding their preferred status of the contested territory and indicates the limits that negotiations are not permitted to transgress. It frames a parent state's policy of nonrecognition, intended to prevent permanent separation, and a contested state's policy of recognition to prevent its own subordination. In defending their claims, the conflicting parties do not enjoy equal conditions. The contested state's lack of recognition weakens its position in the international order. The parent state will make use of this asymmetry at the international level to weaken the contested state's claims to sovereignty. The contested state, by contrast, will try to achieve legal recognition through international agreements. This is possible with regard to competences that it exercises as a de facto territorial authority. This means that the control a contested state exercises at the domestic level is transferred to the international level, to strengthen its claims to sovereignty. The distinction between domestic and international sovereignty is useful for analyzing these strategies and conflict dynamics. This article analyzes disputes over the status of a breakaway territory in terms of these two categories. In particular, it explores how nonrecognition policies by parent states and recognition policies by contested states at the international level affect the latter's sovereignty at the domestic level.
* The article is a part of the project "Post-Crisis World Order: Challenges and Technologies, Competition and Cooperation," supported by a grant from the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation program for research projects in priority areas of scientific and technological development (Agreement no. 075-15-2020-783). The author is very grateful to Janis Grzybowski, Pasha L. Hsieh, Erol Kaymak, Anna Rudakowska, and Catherine Woollard for their comments on this paper, and to Veronica Kelly for the language editing.
** Bruno Coppieters (Belgium) is Professor Emeritus at the Department of Political Science, Vrije Universiteit Brussel.
Бруно Коппитерс - заслуженный профессор Департамента политологии Vrije Universiteit Brussel [Брюссельского свободного университета].
Keywords secession, sovereignty, contested state, Abkhazia, Georgia, Cyprus conflict, cross-Strait relations, Taiwan
Название Внутренний и международный суверенитет: споры по поводу статуса статьи Абхазии, Северного Кипра и Тайваня
Аннотация Суверенитет является ключевым концептом в дискурсах по поводу статуса Абхазии, Северного Кипра и Тайваня. Он помогает конфликтующим сторонам транслировать свои позиции по поводу предпочтительного для них статуса спорной территории и обозначает пределы и рамки переговоров по этим вопросам. Он задает параметры проводимой материнским государством политики непризнания, которая ставит целью предупредить окончательное отделение его части, а также определяет параметры политики спорного государства, которое стремится не допустить своего подчинения. Формулируя свои требования, конфликтующие стороны находятся в неравных условиях. Дефицит признания спорного государства ослабляет его позиции в рамках мирового порядка. Материнское государство использует эту асимметрию на международном уровне для ослабления позиций спорного государства, претендующего на суверенитет. Спорное государство, напротив, стремится достичь официального признания посредством заключения международных соглашений. Это возможно в тех ситуациях, когда речь идет о компетенциях, которые оно осуществляет в качестве фактической власти на контролируемой им территории. Таким образом, внутренний контроль спорного государства над своей территорией транслируется на международный уровень, что придает силу его притязаниям на признание суверенитета. Для анализа этих стратегий и динамики соответствующих конфликтов полезно провести разграничение между внутренним и международным суверенитетом. Именно в этих категориях в статье анализируются споры о статусе непризнанных образований. Особое внимание уделено тому, как политика непризнания со стороны материнских государств и политика признания со стороны спорных государств на международном уровне влияют на внутренний суверенитет последних.
Ключевые сецессия, суверенитет, спорные государства, Абхазия, Грузия, конфликт на слова Кипре, отношения между двумя сторонами Тайваньского пролива, Тайвань
I. Introduction
Diplomatic relations presuppose sovereign equality. This kind of equality is ruled out, however, in negotiations to resolve conflicts over secession, which involve the authorities controlling a breakaway territory and its population. Or at least, that is the view of parent states confronting breakaway entities: they refuse to recognize the statehood of these entities or to establish diplomatic relations with them. Nevertheless, negotiations do take place. In some cases, parent states are actually prepared to recognize the political representatives of breakaways as being de facto in control of a territory and its population, or even as equal partners in negotiations. Such forms of recognition are granted on a political basis but may also have legal consequences, for instance if such recognition occurs in the context of a ceasefire agreement. But they do not amount to recognition of sovereign statehood.1
Sovereignty is central to all disputes on secession. This article starts out from the perspective that it is indivisible. In some cases, different state authorities may share it
between them - but if they do, their relationship must be clearly regulated. The indivisibility of sovereignty corresponds to the unity of the state.2 It is linked to territoriality, which is also part of the definition of a sovereign state,3 so competing claims to sovereignty over a territory call into question both national identity and statehood itself. This is precisely the kind of division that takes place in the case of secession, in a situation where the conflicting parties both claim to have authority over a territory and its population, although only the breakaway entity has effective control over them. By claiming sovereignty and independence, a breakaway entity clearly does not consider itself constitutionally bound to a central state authority. This contrasts with the claim of the central government that the disputed territory and its population still fall under its constitutional authority and that they have no separate international status.
Hobbes regarded sovereignty as the artificial soul of a state, as a principle that brings life to a state.4 In the same way as a body without soul is not alive, a state without sovereignty - i. e. an artificial soul - is not alive. To Hobbes' metaphorical description of sovereignty as an artificial soul it may be added that a soul and a sovereign state each belong simultaneously to two different orders. While a soul is part of earthly life and, at the same time, of eternal life, sovereignty characterizes both the domestic and the international orders. Just as the soul links earthly life to eternal life, sovereignty links the domestic order to the international order.
In terms of domestic sovereignty, self-proclaimed but unrecognized states share crucial characteristics with recognized states - for example in having a government that controls a population on a well-defined territory, with its authority linked to the enforcement of rights, responsibilities, and duties. In terms of sovereignty, this implies a certain symmetry between the sides where domestic forms of governance are concerned. This is reflected in the concept of a "de facto state"5 - one of the many political science terms describing political entities that claim to be states but are not recognized as such. But no such structural symmetry is present at the international level. A state confronting a breakaway entity benefits from its full membership of the international community in implementing a policy of nonrecognition, while the breakaway entity receives far more limited external support in attempting to secure its own existence - support that is generally confined to military and economic assistance from a patron state. This structural asymmetry means that a lack of recognition entails major hurdles along the path to affirming international rights and responsibilities and to achieving foreign policy objectives. The political science concept of a "contested state", which is used throughout this article, reflects this asymmetry. It indicates that a state's existence is disputed in the international community, up to the point where even its description as a state and its rhetorical claims to domestic and international sovereignty are challenged.
States that recognize each other as states acknowledge, mutually, their domestic and international sovereignty and the indissoluble link between these two dimensions. This relationship between domestic and international sovereignty must be conceived differently, however, in the case of a secessionist conflict. Here the legal and political ties associated with a mutual recognition of statehood are absent from the relations between the conflicting parties. This article analyzes disputes over the status of a breakaway territory in terms of domestic and international sovereignty. In particular, it sets out to examine how nonrecognition and recognition policies at the international level affect claims to sovereignty at the domestic level.
The first question concerns the conflicting parties' use of the term sovereignty (or related terms) in negotiations to express political preferences about status and to indicate the red lines these negotiations are not allowed to cross. The second question concerns how the parent state makes use of the asymmetry between it and the
contested state at the international level, to weaken the latter's international presence and to challenge its rhetorical claims to international and domestic sovereignty. In other words: the parent state's nonrecognition policy at the international level, which challenges the international sovereignty of the contested state, has a further objective -to diminish the contested state's authority and control over its territory and its population
- and this policy deserves to be examined. The third question concerns the contested states' policy that seeks to have particular domestic competences recognized at the international level. Contested states assume that a policy that is successful in terms of their claim to international sovereignty also enhances their control over their territory and population, and thereby strengthens their claim to domestic sovereignty. In this case, sovereignty is expected to traverse corresponding domains at the domestic and international levels. But these expectations are not always met, and such a recognition policy may even have unintended effects in the case of bilateral agreements between the contested state and the parent state. This process needs to be described in more detail.
This article refers to the disputes over the status of Abkhazia, Northern Cyprus, and Taiwan to illustrate these conflict dynamics. Insofar as domestic sovereignty is concerned, each of these conflicts has a very different origin. At the time when the Soviet Union was dissolved in 1991, Abkhazia was a federated entity within it. Northern Cyprus was created as a contested state only after the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974; and the conflict over the status of Taiwan was generated not by an attempt to secede from China, but rather by the communists' failure to take control of the island despite having defeated the nationalists in the Chinese civil war (1927-1949).
In addition, regarding international sovereignty, each of these contested states has a different patron state: Russia, Turkey, and the United States, respectively. Finally, each conflict has given rise to a particular policy of nonrecognition by the parent state and its allies in the international community; while, in turn, the recognition policies of these three contested states also diverge. The People's Republic of China (PRC) did not oppose Taiwan's integration into the world community as long as such integration did not take place at the diplomatic level and provided it could not seen as a political step distancing Taiwan from the "One China" idea. In practice, the PRC stipulates further conditions in every case, such as when it insists on the "correct" name under which Taiwan can participate in international organizations, but it is not against such integration in principle. This position contrasts with that of the Greek Cypriot and Georgian governments, which generally do oppose such integration. The article analyzes the effects of all these policies
- the nonrecognition policies of the parent states, and the recognition policies of the contested states - on the domestic sovereignty of the contested states in the areas of trade, education and elections. To be considered effective, each of these policy areas requires a certain degree of internationalization.
The main body of this article is divided into four parts. Following the introduction, the first section deals with the way in which the concept of sovereignty links the domestic order to the international. The conceptual distinction between domestic and international sovereignty helps in the analysis of the positions and strategies of the conflicting parties. In the second section, the history of the conflict between the Georgian and Abkhaz authorities over the status of Abkhazia is briefly described. The analytical distinction between domestic and international sovereignty is used to describe the position of each party, before answering the questions mentioned above. The third and fourth sections use the same approach to analyze the conflicts over the status of Northern Cyprus and Taiwan, respectively. A comparative analysis of the conflicting parties' use of the vocabulary relating to sovereignty and the effects of this is presented in the conclusion.
II. Domestic and international sovereignty
Domestic sovereignty is either absolute or limited. In the first case, sovereign authority is concentrated in a single ruler, while in the second case it is distributed among a number of institutions.6 But domestic sovereignty is inherent in all states without exception. It is proper to their exercise of governmental control over a defined territory and its population. Domestic sovereignty means that every state has an ultimate authority that is rooted in the political community.7 The state's constitution regulates this institutional set-up. The idea of domestic sovereignty further indicates that all states are equally sovereign, regardless of their territorial size, population size, or wealth. All states have the same internal structure - in terms of governmental control over a population and a territory - and it is this structural sameness or symmetry that determines the legal relationship between them. It can therefore be said that domestic sovereignty precedes international sovereignty, or, to take a second formulation, that the international order is dependent on the internal order of states, or - to take a third formulation - that the domestic order is constitutive of the international order.8 The institutional capacity to establish relations with other states - a crucial characteristic of domestic authority and control, and thus of domestic sovereignty - precedes diplomatic practice. But the domestic order and the individual characteristics of states are also to a certain extent the product of the international relations between states. States constitute themselves as individual entities whenever they confront other states or cooperate with them, and international norms have a constitutive role in shaping their domestic legal and political order. In states' exercise of sovereignty, interstate borders indicate territorial limits. Relations between states - expressed in economic, military, or other terms - either strengthen or threaten individual statehood.
The participation of states in the international community is conditional on their being recognized by others. Recognition allows states to enter into non-hierarchical relations with other states. The relationship between the domestic and international orders can be described as a contrast between a hierarchical relationship between the various elements constituting a state and the formally equal relations between states.9 The exclusive authority and control of a state over a territory and the hierarchical relationship between its constituent elements that is proper to domestic sovereignty are reflected in the state's monopoly of violence on its territory. By contrast, equal sovereignty is the ordering principle for individual elements in the international order. Sovereignty thus allows a differentiation between two types of order with entirely different dynamics, one with a supreme authority and one without, and each of these two orders entails very different rights, responsibilities, and duties for individual states.10
Contested states may have the same internal structure as existing states, but if they are not recognized as sovereign they will still not be regarded as equal to other states in terms of rights, responsibilities, and duties. Recognition is generally described as a political act with legal consequences, and the same can be said of a policy of nonrecognition. This means, for instance, that certain acts by contested states, such as issuing travel documents, will not necessarily be recognized as valid in the international community; the parent state may either tolerate or reject them, and its position on travel documents will be taken into account or even adopted by its allies. Some nonrecognition policies negatively affect contested states' claims of domestic sovereignty. For example, independent international missions to observe elections heighten the domestic legitimacy of electoral systems: they verify whether elections have been organized freely and fairly, thereby enhancing the legitimacy of a state's democratic institutions. A refusal by the international community to send such observation missions to monitor the democratic
nature of elections in contested states, or its outright condemnation of elections, has negative consequences for the domestic legitimacy of these elections. Contested states may invite individual observers who are supportive of their cause, but they do not confer the same degree of legitimacy as the observer missions sent by official international organizations. This is important in situations where the results are challenged by a domestic opposition. Other examples are the extent to which a lack of international economic agreements limits domestic economic choices or the fact that international recognition is a crucial issue for educational policies.
Domestic sovereignty is not recognized when territories are considered to be militarily occupied, whether that be legally - in conformity with international law - or illegally - for instance, following a war of aggression. In such cases, domestic sovereignty is denied. The local authorities then risk being perceived as instruments of the occupying power.
Recognition does not refer exclusively to statehood. The de facto authorities of a contested state may be recognized in a particular sphere, or as having particular competences, for the sake of reaching a legally binding agreement with them. They may then be regarded as an armed group, for instance, or a trading entity rather than a state. Contested states may then be bound by ceasefires or trade agreements, or by their participation in multilateral structures. In such cases, a contested state is recognized as an entity functionally, on the basis of its de facto control over a territory and a population - with the result that the control exercised by a contested state over its territory and population is transferred to the international level. This recognition takes place in a particular field or in relation to particular competences, but it does not imply international recognition of sovereign statehood. It may, nevertheless, strengthen the rhetorical claim of a contested state that its domestic sovereignty has found expression in a recognition of its international sovereignty.
It may be concluded that a lack of recognition creates an international environment that is not favorable to contested states or their claims to sovereignty. Where contested states are confronted internationally with a policy of nonrecognition of their statehood, the authority and decision-making freedom they have domestically is at risk of being diminished. Still, these states may be able to achieve limited forms of recognition in particular functional domains, which would enable them to claim some international rights, responsibilities, and duties. Contested states therefore have an even greater interest than recognized states in trying to establish formal relations at an international level: they need this not only to reach crucial objectives in fields such as security and trade, but also to strengthen their rhetorical claims regarding domestic and international sovereignty - even if such a link between recognition in a particular functional domain and sovereign statehood will be denied by their adversaries.
In all these cases, the use of the term "sovereignty" is linked to a particular strategy adopted by the conflicting parties. Furthermore, it makes the positions of these parties more intelligible to others, by signaling long-term expectations regarding status.
III. Abkhazia
Any study of sovereignty in a secessionist dispute must take its institutional context into account. In the case of the dispute over the status of Abkhazia in the Soviet period, we are dealing with a constitutional framework that established a strict hierarchical relationship between union republics, autonomous republics, and other administrative units.11 Union republics, such as Georgia, were sovereign under the Soviet constitution, but this was not the case for autonomous republics such as Abkhazia, which was part of
Georgia. Here the term sovereignty had a certain practical meaning in terms of domestic sovereignty, even though every level of authority in the Soviet administrative system was subordinated to a highly centralized Communist Party.12 The national movement in Abkhazia regarded such domestic sovereignty as a highly valuable objective, as it would undo the subordination of their republic to Georgia. Since the 1970s, several major protest movements in favor of sovereign status have emerged in Abkhazia. The Georgian population living there, in turn, mobilized against any form of separation.
The limitation of sovereignty to the domestic exercise of state power lost its meaning with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. In 1994, after achieving victory in the Georgian-Abkhaz war of 1992-1993, Abkhazia adopted a new constitution, Article 2 of which solemnly declared that "the sovereignty bearer and sole source of authority in the Republic of Abkhazia shall be its people, i. e., the citizens of the Republic of Abkhazia".13 In practice, however, most of the Georgian inhabitants of Abkhazia who had fled were not granted authorization to return, and the majority of the Georgian inhabitants of the Gal(i) region were not given access to citizenship.
After the 1992-1993 war, the Abkhaz did not rule out the possibility of a settlement based on a confederal model whereby Abkhazia would be on a par with Georgia. But a confederal relationship between the two entities would imply the international recognition of Abkhazia as a sovereign state. Tbilisi rejected this option. Georgia preferred a federal arrangement whereby Abkhazia would be granted a wide range of powers, perhaps including exclusive areas of competence, but without acquiring either domestic or international sovereignty.
Abkhazia's unilateral declaration of independence in 1999 ruled out any further negotiations on status. Georgia was not prepared to discuss the option of independence, while Abkhazia refused to negotiate on an option that contradicted its declaration of independence.
The Georgian-Russian war of 2008 led to the expulsion of Georgian troops from the Kodor(i)14 Gorge, the last piece of the Abkhaz territory still under Georgian control. It was followed by the recognition of Abkhazia by Russia and some other countries. Before 2008, the Georgian authorities still agreed to negotiate with the Abkhaz authorities because of their de facto authority, but after the war this position changed, and no political negotiations between the parties on the bilateral level have been held since. Georgia regards the Abkhaz territory as being occupied by Russia, in contravention of international law. From Georgia's perspective, Abkhazia therefore not only lacks domestic and international sovereignty, but its authorities are not regarded as having even de facto control over the territory or population of Abkhazia.
Georgia sees this occupation as provisional and wants to prevent any form of internationalization of the conflict that would cast doubt on its sovereignty over Abkhaz territory. Within the Georgian government, it is not the Georgian minister for foreign affairs who is in charge of policies towards Abkhazia and South Ossetia, but a "state minister for reconciliation and civic equality" - a title reflecting the government's view that these two conflicts are basically not foreign, but domestic. This ministry deals with the provision of services for the population of Abkhazia in the fields of health and education. It focuses on providing support for individuals, as Tbilisi regards any support given to Abkhaz institutions - including in the fields of healthcare and education - as a form of state recognition. The Georgian authorities cannot provide such services in Abkhazia itself, but some inhabitants of Abkhazia do travel to Georgia to access healthcare or to attend educational institutions.
However, even though Georgia's policy towards Abkhazia is conceived as part of its domestic policy, it is still considered to have an international dimension. The Georgian
ministry of foreign affairs pursues a nonrecognition policy internationally. This ministry has persuaded many of Georgia's allies that, under international law, Abkhazia is to be regarded as occupied. The United States and many European Union (EU) members have accepted this point of view, as has the European Parliament. By contrast, the EU diplomats in the European External Action Service (EEAS) consider this term politically counterproductive, as it creates serious obstacles to establishing a dialogue and cooperation with Abkhazia, including with civil society there.15
The Abkhaz authorities vigorously oppose Georgia's framing of the conflict as falling within its domestic sovereignty. As a result, they refuse to deal with the Georgian state minister for reconciliation and civic equality. In their view, the conflict must be resolved through Georgia's recognition of Abkhazia as independent and the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two foreign affairs ministries. This is, of course, a non-starter for Georgia.
Before the Georgian-Russian war of early August 2008, Russia's peacekeeping mission in Abkhazia had to bear in mind that, formally, it was acting on Georgia's territory. This entailed several constraints. Russia's subsequent recognition of Abkhazia, along with South Ossetia, on August 26, 2008, freed it from these limitations: it no longer had to reach agreement with the Georgian government regarding its military presence in Abkhazia. As Russia sees it, decisions such as this now come within the power of the sovereign Abkhaz government.
In line with its view of Abkhazia as an occupied territory, Tbilisi refuses to talk directly to Sukhum(i), and negotiates only with Moscow. Multilateral negotiations are held within the framework of the Geneva International Discussions (GID), which were set up to deal with the security and humanitarian consequences of the 2008 war. These negotiations are co-chaired by the UN, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and the EU and do not address the political status of Abkhazia. This is the only multilateral framework in which the Abkhaz authorities are present, but they do not have any representative status, and Abkhaz representatives can participate only in their personal capacity.
Abkhazia has diplomatic relations with a few countries, such as Venezuela and Syria, but only its bilateral relations with Russia are of any practical significance. Thanks to the Georgian policies of nonrecognition, the Abkhaz authorities do not participate in any multilateral framework of any importance apart from the GID. They are not even involved in international organizations that are led by Russia, such as the Eurasian Economic Union - their membership of that organization would require recognition by its other member states: Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. The talks between international organizations or representatives of Western governments and the Abkhaz authorities are held mainly for information purposes. In terms of concrete, practical objectives, their discussion topics are generally confined to what is necessary for the provision of humanitarian support or for the preparation of the regular meetings in Geneva.
The policy of nonrecognition pursued at the international level by parent states and their allies does to a certain extent affect the status of contested states at the domestic level, in terms of domestic sovereignty. The isolation of the Abkhaz authorities leaves them with limited capacity in external trade and finance, which affects their international sovereignty. This in turn limits their domestic economic choices, which affects their domestic sovereignty. Abkhazia depends entirely on the Russian market; this is conspicuously the case with the local tourism industry and agriculture. The Georgian policy of nonrecognition also has a negative impact on higher education in Abkhazia. The Abkhaz State University (ASU) does not have a policy of internationalization that reaches
beyond Russia.16 Unlike Russian universities, the ASU could not be active in the highly integrated educational space created by the Council of Europe and the European Union. Its study programs are not accredited by independent organizations, which makes it more difficult to conduct educational reforms and improve the quality of education. Students from Abkhazia have no guarantee that their degrees will be accepted by universities in other European countries, with the notable exception of Russia. Elections organized in Abkhazia are not considered legitimate by most other countries. This is not helpful for strengthening its democratic institutions.
IV. Northern Cyprus
The Republic of Cyprus became independent in 1960, at a time when its population was approximately 80 percent Greek Cypriot and 18 percent Turkish Cypriot. The distribution of power between these communities was contested from the start. The Greek Cypriots maintained that the Turkish Cypriots were overrepresented in the state institutions: they favored majority rule, whereby the constitutional status of the Turkish Cypriot community would be reduced to that of a minority. The Turkish Cypriots, on the other hand, argued that the two communities had equal rights. A further contentious issue was the power of the leaders of each to veto executive decisions. These divergences led to deadlock in decision-making: the Turkish Cypriots were accused of obstructing the constitution and the Greek Cypriots of circumventing it.17 The Greek Cypriots made several attempts to reform the constitution in their own favor. Then, in 1963, the Turkish Cypriots withdrew from the state institutions, claiming that the Greek Cypriots had excluded them by unilateral and unconstitutional means. Seeking protection, they set up enclaves.18
The creation of the Republic of Cyprus resulted from very specific dynamics relating to domestic and international sovereignty. According to the Treaty of Guarantee - that was signed in 1960, the year the constitution came into force - Greece, Turkey, and the United Kingdom were the international guarantors of the independence and territorial integrity of Cyprus. Giving these external actors the right to intervene was seen as a means of last resort to resolve domestic conflicts. The guarantors' powers were designed to defend Cypriot independence against any irredentist attempt at unity with Greece or any division of the island. The treaty aimed to preserve the state's sovereignty by limiting its international sovereignty. But while Greece and Turkey were international guarantors, they were also actively involved in the domestic disputes in Cyprus: the military junta in power in Athens from 1967 to 1974 strove for unity with Cyprus where it supported a radical pro-union faction, while Turkey, naturally, opposed this irredentist policy.
The balance of military power between Greece and Turkey did not favor Greece. In terms of logistics, Turkey is only 40 miles from the island, whereas Greece is 600 miles away.19 Turkey responded to a coup d'état on 15 July 1974 against President Makarios, the Greek Cypriot leader, by invading the island. It claimed to be acting in accordance with the Treaty of Guarantee, but instead of restoring the status quo ante it divided the island into two parts. Almost one third of all Greek Cypriots were displaced.20
The United Nations, which has had a presence on the island since 1964, has made numerous attempts to resolve the conflict through status negotiations, but it has failed to achieve a settlement. In 1983, the UN Security Council (UNSC) condemned the declaration of independence by the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus as "legally invalid" and called "upon all States to respect the sovereignty, independence, territorial
integrity, and non-alignment of the Republic of Cyprus" by refusing to recognize any other Cypriot state.21
In the status negotiations, each of the two conflicting parties adopted a firm position on the question of sovereignty. The most interesting and fruitful discussions took place during the drafting of the so-called Annan Plan by the UN.22 Numerous arguments put forward by the sides had already been discussed in earlier negotiations, but this time they made a much greater effort to reach a compromise.
The Turkish Cypriots feared any form of subordination, while the Greek Cypriots felt threatened by any legitimization of a separation. To counter these threats, both sides referred to sovereignty. The Turkish Cypriots, for their part, generally stressed that their preference was for a settlement based on the sovereign equality of two independent states.23 Regarding the option of a federation, as favored by the United Nations, they argued that the sovereignty of the federal state should have its source in the constituent entities.24 This position was considered unacceptable by the Greek Cypriots: they were not against a federation, but they argued that only the federation could be sovereign. They were opposed to the description of the federation's constituent units as sovereign and to formulae that might suggest that sovereignty emanated from these constituent units:25 they were convinced that such positions would be used by the Turkish Cypriots as a political leverage in a struggle for independence or might even be interpreted as granting a right to secession.26
The Turkish Cypriots had already accepted the idea of a bizonal and bicommunal Cypriot federation in 1977. It would be based on political equality between the constituent states. This was eventually formalized in the Annan Plan as equal status for the two communities, which was supposed to guarantee that neither would be granted authority or jurisdiction over the other.27 Except where it was stated that the federation was sovereign, references to sovereignty were replaced by the adverb "sovereignly":28 under the Annan Plan, the federation would exercise its constitutional powers "sovereignly".29 Cyprus would be a state with a single sovereignty, a single international personality, and single citizenship. International sovereignty would thus lie with the federation, but domestic sovereignty was conceived as being shared by the federal state and its constituent entities.30 This compromise accorded with the position that sovereignty remained indivisible, even if the latter term was not explicitly used in the plan.
The Annan Plan linked the federal political system of a reunified Cyprus to the structures of the EU. A distinction was made between the competences of the constituent units and those of the federation. The policies of the constituent units were coordinated at the federal level, allowing each of the two levels to participate in European decision-making without infringing the respective competencies attributed to them. The federal level was to facilitate the coordination of the constituent entities' policies towards the EU, while the constituent entities would themselves defend their common position at the EU level by representing the whole federation as a single entity. This distribution of tasks over three levels of decision-making was highly complex, but it facilitated a compromise between the two Cypriot communities when it came to the exercise of international and domestic sovereignty.31
In the April 2004 referendum held in both parts of Cyprus, the Turkish Cypriot population voted in favor of the Annan Plan, but three quarters of the Greek Cypriots voted against, dashing all hopes of a settlement. Their criticism of the referendum's proposal was directed at the multiple veto rights for the communities, the over-representation of Turkish Cypriots in state institutions, and other institutional mechanisms designed to implement the equality principle. In the eyes of the Greek Cypriot community, these provisions would make the state dysfunctional, despite its
integration into the EU. They also considered it unfair that the Annan Plan envisaged no more than a partial return of the Greek Cypriots who had fled their homes. Greek Cypriot president Tassos Papadopoulos was also opposed to the UN plan. He criticized the fact that his own position as a head of state would be downgraded to that of a mere community leader. Papadopoulos declared that when elected president he had been handed an internationally recognized state, and it was not his intention to deliver a community. He further stated that the federal mechanisms proposed would deepen the separation between the communities.32
The Greek Cypriot opponents of reunification were convinced that joining the EU as a divided island would allow for a better settlement in the future. Their government, they believed, would be able to make Turkey's accession to the EU conditional on concessions in future negotiations on reunification. This calculation presupposed that, for the sake of the EU membership, Turkey would force the Turkish Cypriots into a settlement more in line with the Greek Cypriot demands. But their desired outcome failed to materialize.
In 2010, the Greek Cypriots' nonrecognition policy managed to block a European Commission initiative to develop direct trade between the EU and Northern Cyprus. In their view, such an arrangement would imply that Northern Cyprus was considered a separate legal entity - an implication that was also unacceptable to the majority of the European Parliament. This refusal had severely negative consequences for the economic development of Northern Cyprus. By contrast, the Greek Cypriot policy of nonrecognition was, despite all efforts, unable to halt the development of the higher education sector in Northern Cyprus or the establishment of links with universities in the EU. Regarding the democratic character of the elections in Northern Cyprus, there is no major disagreement between the sides, even if there is no question of the EU's sending an election observation mission there.
V. Taiwan
In 1971, the PRC replaced the Republic of China (ROC), commonly referred to as Taiwan, as one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. Taiwan then ceased to participate in the UN. It became diplomatically isolated at the international level, although it continued to receive political support and military assistance from the United States. At the time, the conflict over Taiwan's international status was not linked to the issue of secession. Both sides claimed to represent China and also claimed full domestic and international sovereignty over the territory and population currently under control of the other side. This position ruled out any negotiations on dual representation either in the UN, or in any other international organization.
The nature of the conflict changed with the political democratization in Taiwan at the end of the 1980s. Beijing was deeply concerned at the shift taking place at the top of the Kuomintang (KMT) and at the rise of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). This party, set up in 1986 in opposition to the KMT, strove for a separate national identity and international status for the island. The PRC feared that the DPP's policy would render the separation permanent, despite all the efforts to improve economic ties with the island. These two concerns came to the fore at the end of the 1990s when KMT leader Lee Tengh-hui stressed the sovereignty and statehood of Taiwan, and even more so in 2000 when the DPP leader Chen Shui-bian was elected president. Chen did not seek closer links with Mainland China, but tried, on the contrary, to mobilize international support for Taiwan's membership of international organizations, including those linked to the UN. This policy, designed to expand Taiwan's international sovereignty, failed to gather
support from Western countries: both the United States and the EU regarded it as confrontational and criticized it as posing an unnecessary risk to the stability of cross-Strait relations. In 2005, China's National People's Congress promulgated the so-called Anti-secession Law which stated that attempts at secession would justify the use of coercive means as a last resort.
An improvement in relations across the Taiwan Strait came in 2008, with the victory of the KMT's presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou. Taipei and Beijing were each convinced that a deepening of relations in the economic and social fields would serve them both well, despite their widely diverging positions on status and security.33 Bilateral agreements were signed in fields such as trade, finance, tourism and maritime transport, leading to a marked increase in trade flows and people-to-people contacts across the Strait. Taiwanese investments on the mainland multiplied, and Taiwan was able to raise its international profile through increased participation in multilateral organizations, in line with its claim to international sovereignty. But the political opposition in Taiwan saw this improvement of cross-Strait relations as creating asymmetric dependence patterns. Moreover, they felt that the negotiations with the Mainland lacked democratic legitimacy, and this was perceived as a direct threat to domestic sovereignty. Ma managed to win a second presidential term in 2012, but he failed to achieve such positive results in cross-Strait relations as in his first term.
The DPP returned to power in 2016, with the victory of its candidate Tsai Ing-wen at the presidential elections. She ended the détente policy with Beijing - without, however, returning to the confrontational policies that had characterized the Chen presidency. Tsai Ing-wen's second mandate, starting in 2020, has been strongly affected by the military buildup in China and rising tensions between China and the United States. Taipei mobilized Western support on issues to do with status and security, which antagonized Beijing even further.
This brief history of cross-Strait relations needs to be supplemented by a more detailed analysis of the way in which the conflicting parties addressed the issues of domestic and international sovereignty in the last three decades. At the beginning of the 1990s, each side set up a quasi-official organization to deal with cross-Strait relations. On the mainland, this was the Association for Relations Across the Straits (ARATS), and on Taiwan - the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF). These institutions were created for pragmatic reasons. They were directly controlled by their respective governments, but without being part of government. This made it possible for them to interact with sufficient authority to negotiate agreements while not addressing the question of statehood. The divergences between the sides regarding Taiwan's sovereign status and identity would therefore not necessarily exclude negotiations or agreements.
Over the years, Beijing and Taipei have proposed various formulae to clarify their positions on domestic and international sovereignty. Taipei has traditionally insisted on the equality of the sides, while Beijing has focused on the indivisibility of China - each side expressing its preferences through a specific status formula or a criticism thereof.
ARATS and SEF met in November 1992 to discuss their views on "One China", but they were unable to reach agreement as to its precise meaning. According to the Mainland, they both agreed that "the two sides of the Strait belong to one China and would work together to seek national reunification".34 On the Taiwanese side, there were strong divergences between the KMT and the DPP regarding the significance of the 1992 meeting. The KMT stressed the right for Taiwan and the Mainland to give a specific interpretation to the idea of a single China, as stated in its formula of "One China with respective interpretations".35 The DPP took a more radical view and denied that there could be any kind of agreement with the Mainland on the issue of One China.
In 1999, Lee Teng-hui, who served as the president of Taiwan from 1988 to 2000, rejected the idea that the conflict should be considered an intrastate one. He stressed the sovereign equality of the sides by defining cross-Strait relations as a special form of state-to-state relations.36 This formulation of the status question stressed equality, and even sovereign equality, without affirming Taiwanese independence. But the fear of subordination to the PRC was also expressed by other formulae. Lee also declared, for instance, that the ROC had been independent and sovereign since 1912 and that there was therefore no need to declare its independence.37
If Lee was ambivalent about the future status of Taiwan in terms of international sovereignty, his successor Chen openly defended the idea of separation, although this too fell short of an outright declaration of independence. Chen went a step further than Lee by stating that "The Republic of China is Taiwan; Taiwan is the Republic of China". This formulation excluded unification from the equation and was therefore criticized by the PRC as a provocation.38 Chen also often repeated the longstanding DPP formula that there was "one country on each side (of the Taiwan Strait)".
Lee had introduced the idea of popular sovereignty into the public debate about Taiwanese identity and the nature of cross-Strait unification.39 However, any political identity that emphasized democratization was feared by Beijing because it might facilitate separation, especially if popular sovereignty was associated with direct democracy. This was the case for the proposal put forward by Lee's successor, Chen, which linked unification to domestic sovereignty by underlining the importance of referenda in determining the international status of Taiwan and its membership of international organizations.
"One country, two systems" is the best-known expression of the PRC's view of a settlement, but Beijing has also used other formulae, such as "There is one China, and Taiwan and the mainland are both parts of it."40 The PRC has also put forward a federalist view of a future settlement, along the lines of a single, indivisible China, where sovereignty would be shared between the two regimes, in a structure such as a commonwealth or economic union.41 Regarding Taiwan's international sovereignty, the PRC has accepted the integration of Taiwan into the global economy and the establishment of links with other countries in principle, as long as these links are not overtly political or diplomatic.
The PRC has made bilateral agreements conditional on Taiwan's agreement with the idea of "One China", but the agreements themselves do not refer to any interpretation of this idea.42 This is part of the same pragmatic approach that characterized the creation of ARATS and SEF. It has also been possible for Taiwan to join multilateral organizations that do not require statehood as condition for membership. In these instances, the PRC imposed conditions concerning the name under which Taiwan would join, insisting that Taiwan's belonging to China must be clear from its membership name. In the World Trade Organization (WTO), for instance, it is reflected in the name "Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, and Matsu (Chinese Taipei)". A pragmatic approach is also characteristic of Taiwan's participation in international agreements where its legal status is defined in functional terms such as "customs territory", "trade entity", or "fishing entity". All of these titles and indications of legal status neatly circumvent the question of sovereign statehood.
For the PRC, this pragmatic approach to the question of status is transitory, even though reunification is conceived of as being a long-term process. In 1979, confronted with the urgent need to counter the Soviet Union, Chairman Mao Zedong said that China could wait for a whole century before completing its reunification with Taiwan.43 Chinese
leaders have also stated, however, that their patience did have limits and that coercive ways to achieve a settlement could be used as a last resort.
The United States and other Western countries have acknowledged Beijing's "One China" principle, but they themselves do not recognize it or accept it as a principle. Regarding Taiwan's statehood they have, nevertheless, followed a nonrecognition policy that could be described as a "One China" policy. They further acknowledge that Beijing rejects any form of external mediation in the cross-Strait conflict. Back in 1972, the United States pledged that it would not support Taiwan's independence.44 In 1979, in the Taiwan Relations Act, the United States committed itself to supporting Taiwan's capability to defend itself militarily - leaving open the question of how it would actually defend the island in practice. Every U.S. administration has put forward its own view of this strategic ambiguity.45
Taiwan's economic strength and its role as a powerhouse in the economic development of the Mainland meant that the PRC had no interest in limiting its external trade. The PRC had to accept Taiwan as a member of the WTO in 2002, even if it did manage to impose conditions regarding Taiwan's name. Since then, China's economic growth and increasing political clout have changed the balance of power between the two sides. Before entering into a bilateral or multilateral agreement with Taiwan, any country will have to take China's position into account. This limits Taiwan's freedom in trade and economic policy. Where the internationalization of higher education is concerned, there is no significant limitation negatively affecting domestic sovereignty in terms of authority or control over the territory of Taiwan. Elections in Taiwan are internationally regarded as a democratic model, even though international support does not involve the presence of Western heads of state at a presidential inauguration there.
VI. Conclusion
A common feature of the conflicts over the international status of Abkhazia, Northern Cyprus, and Taiwan is that the contested state above all fears subordination, while the parent state fears permanent separation. These fears find direct expression in the conflicting parties' respective uses of the concept of sovereignty and related formulae when describing their preferred status. They also use the concept of sovereignty to indicate the red lines that status negotiations are not expected to cross.
Abkhazia's 1999 declaration of independence ruled out further status negotiations with Tbilisi based on Georgia's territorial integrity. In the case of negotiations on the reunification of Cyprus, half a century of UN negotiations failed to bridge the gap between the parties' positions on sovereignty. The UN Annan Plan for reunification in the form of a federation was accepted by the Turkish Cypriot community, but rejected by the Greek Cypriots. In the case of cross-Strait relations, the PRC will negotiate with the Taiwanese leadership on bilateral agreements in functional domains such as trade only on condition that the Taiwanese side does not oppose the idea of "One China". It does, however, accept that both sides have different interpretations of this idea.
In all three cases, the positions of conflicting parties on the issue of sovereignty are mutually exclusive. This does not, however, mean that it is impossible to come to an agreement in any of them. The UN mediation in Cyprus made it possible to describe the mechanisms of a federation that would guarantee both the indivisibility of the sovereign state - as demanded by the Greek Cypriots - and political equality between the communities in the exercise of sovereignty, as demanded by the Turkish Cypriots. That plan was eventually defeated in a referendum, but it did nonetheless demonstrate that a compromise was possible in principle.
Conflicts on secession that have led to the creation of a contested state are characterized by a structural symmetry between the conflicting parties regarding the authority and effective control each of them has over a territory and a population. This corresponds to the sphere of domestic sovereignty. There is, however, a structural asymmetry between them regarding the resources they can mobilize from within the international community. This asymmetry is due to the importance of recognition in international relations.
The parent state can make use of its mobilization of external support and resources to challenge the contested state's exercise of competences in the international sphere, thereby also limiting that state's freedom of choice in domestic policies. This will undermine the contested state's rhetorical claims to domestic sovereignty. The contested state's policy of recognition can, on the contrary, aim to expand its exercise of competences at the domestic level to the international sphere, strengthening its claims not only to international but also to domestic sovereignty. This is the case for Northern Cyprus, which has strongly internationalized the whole sector of higher education. Northern Cyprus has also tried to establish direct trade links with the European Union: these, however, failed to materialize, due to the strong resistance of the Greek Cypriots and their allies within the EU.
Cross-Strait relations offer a contradictory picture with regard to the effects of mutual recognition between contested state and a parent state through agreements in particular spheres. Starting in 2008, the two sides agreed on a substantial number of agreements in trade, tourism, postal services, and other fields. At first this seemed to strengthen Taiwan's international and domestic sovereignty, but it ended up having the opposite effect. Public opinion in Taiwan voiced serious concerns about the growing economic dependence on the Mainland and its consequences for the island's democratic institutions. In this particular case, the recognition of a contested state by the parent state in certain spheres, or regarding particular competences, had the effect not of strengthening its domestic sovereignty but, on the contrary, weakening it.
The present article has analyzed the nonrecognition policies of parent states and the recognition policies of contested states in the fields of education, trade and elections. The nonrecognition policies of parent states strove to hinder the internationalization of higher education in Abkhazia and Northern Cyprus. Georgia was quite effective in obstructing the internationalization of the Abkhaz State University, but this lack of internationalization is also caused by Abkhazia's lack of initiatives to secure international recognition for its higher education courses and qualifications - the resultant lack of international academic standards undermining Abkhazia's rhetorical claim to domestic sovereignty. A very different picture emerges in Northern Cyprus, where, after tourism, higher education became the main source of income, despite the vigorous nonrecognition policy pursued by the Greek Cypriot government. The PRC, by contrast, has never attempted to halt the internationalization of Taiwanese universities, which are well integrated into the global educational space.
Likewise, a differentiated picture emerges regarding parent states' policies on international trade. Traditionally, China set no limits on international trade, which it views as nonpolitical by definition and further considers to be profitable for both sides. There was a strong shift in the PRC's attitude, however, when Taiwan attempted to become economically less dependent on the Mainland by seeking new trade relations, both bilateral and multilateral. China has put effective constraints on such policies. Georgia opposes the establishment of such links in principle, but it has few means to stop Abkhazia's international trade with Russia or even with Turkey. The Greek Cypriot
authorities, in line with their particular policy of nonrecogntion, succeeded in sinking a direct trade agreement between Northern Cyprus and the EU.
Nonrecognition of statehood implies nonrecognition of the constitutional order of the contested state, including its electoral system. This does not necessarily mean that states following such a policy of nonrecognition do not regard elections themselves as free and fair. Those held in Taiwan or Northern Cyprus are considered - even by the respective parent states - to meet these standards. Nonetheless, they will not be seen as fully legitimate, at least not formally. In Taiwan and Northern Cyprus, the inauguration of heads of state will not be attended by representatives of countries that refuse to recognize them. In the case of Abkhazia, by contrast, elections are condemned by Georgia and its allies as being completely illegitimate - with negative consequences for the Abkhaz demand to have its sovereignty recognized internationally and also for its rhetorical claim to domestic sovereignty.
It may be concluded that sovereignty is an important tool for both parties to a conflict. It is a concept that frames the parent states' policy of nonrecognition designed to prevent permanent separation. It also frames the contested states' policy of recognition designed to prevent subordination. Sovereignty will also be a key concept in the search for a compromise between conflicting parties seeking a political settlement. Such a compromise was not possible in any of the three cases analyzed in this article. As demonstrated by the Annan Plan, this does not mean, however, that compromises on the status question in terms of sovereignty can be ruled out in principle.
ENDNOTES
1 Coppieters B. Abkhazia, Transnistria and North Cyprus: recognition and non-recognition in ceasefire and trade agreements // The Ideology and Politics Journal. 2019. V. 12. No. 1. P. 10-38.
2 Bartelson J. On the indivisibility of sovereignty // Republic of Letters: A Journal for the Study of Knowledge, Politics, and the Arts. 2011. V. 2. No. 2. P. 85-94.
3 Bartelson J. A Genealogy of Sovereignty. - Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. P. 41.
4 Hobbes T. Leviathan or the Matter, Forme and Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil. - London: Andrew Crooke, 1651. P. 1.
5 For more detail on the concept of "de facto" states, see the article by Pal Kolst0 in this special issue: Kolst0 P. What's in a name? "De facto states", terminological choices and normative consequences // Pathways to Peace and Security. 2022. No. 1 (62). Special Issue: Peace Processes, Violence, and De Facto States. P. 30-46.
6 Bartelson J. A Genealogy of Sovereignty. P. 26-28, 39.
7 Hinsley F.H. Sovereignty. - Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. P. 35-36, 116, 121-124.
8 See Bartelson J. A Genealogy of Sovereignty. P. 44-52.
9 Ibid.
10 Ibid.
11 See Coppieters B. The Georgian-Abkhaz conflict // Journal on Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues in Europe. 2004. No. 1. P. 191-232; The Abkhazians: A Handbook. Ed. G.Hewitt. - London: Routledge, 2013.
12 International sovereignty had political significance only for the union republics of Belarus and Ukraine which were both members of the United Nations.
13 The Constitution of Abkhazia. URL: https://unpo.org/article/697 (accessed 02.06.2022).
14 The Georgians translate certain place names in Abkhazia into English with the ending "i" and the Abkhaz without. This is the reason why the wording used in this article is Kodor(i) and Sukhum(i).
15 Coppieters B. "Statehood", "de facto authorities" and "occupation": contested concepts and the EU's engagement in its European neighbourhood // Ethnopolitics. 2018. V. 17. No. 4. P. 343-361.
16 Coppieters B. A struggle over recognition and nonrecognition: the internationalization of the Abkhaz State University // Nationalities Papers. 2021 [FirstView]. P. 1-22. URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/ nationalities-papers/article/struggle-over-recognition-and-nonrecognition-the-internationalization-of-the-abkhaz-state-university/E9614D012CC1C948E72757E02ACAD3BA (accessed 03.06.2022).
17 Richmond O.P. Mediating in Cyprus: The Cypriot Communities and the United Nations. - London; Portland: Frank Cass, 1998. P. 77-79; Hannay D. Cyprus: The Search for a Solution. - London; New York: I.B.Tauris, 2005. P. 4.
18 Papadakis Y., Peristianis N., Welz G. Introduction: modernity, history, and conflict in divided Cyprus // Divided Cyprus: Modernity, History and an Island in Conflict. Eds. Y.Papadakis, N.Peristianis, G.Welz. -Bloomington; Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2006. P. 2.
19 Richmond O.P. Op. cit. P. 76.
20 Papadakis Y., Peristianis N., Welz G. Op. cit. P. 3.
21 UN SC Res. 541 (1983) of 18 November 1983. URL: http://unscr.com/en/resolutions/541 (accessed 02.06.2022).
22 For the text of the Annan plan, see: URL: http://www.hri.org/docs/annan/Annan_Plan_Text.html (accessed 02.06.2022).
23 Yakinthou C. Consociational democracy and Cyprus: the house that Annan built? // Reunifying Cyprus: The Annan Plan and Beyond. Eds. A.Varnava and H.Faustmann. - London; New York: I.B.Tauris, 2009. P. 33.
24 Hannay D. Op. cit. P. 42, 151.
25 Ibid. P. 41, 151; Dodd C.H. New perspectives: discussion and conclusions // Cyprus: The Need for New Perspectives. Ed. C.H.Dodd. - Huntingdon: The Eothen Press, 1999. P. 301.
26 Stavrinides Z. Greek Cypriot perceptions // Cyprus: The Need for New Perspectives. P. 81-82.
27 Kyriakides K.A. Contra: the political workability of the Annan plan // Reunifying Cyprus: The Annan plan and Beyond. P. 73-74.
28 Hannay D. Op. cit. P. 183; Trimiklioniotis N. Pro: rethinking the UN-viability of the constitutional arrangement // Reunifying Cyprus: The Annan Plan and Beyond. P. 112.
29 "Sovereignly" is not a legal term. See Kaymak E. The Turkish Cypriot views on Annan V // Reunifying Cyprus: The Annan Plan and Beyond. P. 148.
30 Trimiklioniotis N. Op. cit. P. 112.
31 The author of this article was responsible for a seminar program organized on March 2-8, 2002 in Brussels for a delegation of Turkish and Greek Cypriots - known as the Dialogue Forum - to explore the applicability of Belgian federal solutions to Cyprus. This group was set up by the Peace Research Institute (PRIO) in Oslo. The future Turkish Cypriot president Mustafa Akinci took part in the seminar. The Brussels model of personal federalism, according to which each community living on the same territory has its own institutions for cultural and educational affairs, was considered too complicated and conflict-prone by the Cypriots. Nonetheless, they showed strong interest in the way that the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs coordinated the positions of the constituent entities of the Belgian federation at the EU level, and in the treaty-making powers of the constituent entities. These federal mechanisms convinced the Turkish Cypriots that EU membership would not necessarily reduce the powers and autonomy their community would be granted on the domestic level. According to the former British Special Representative for Cyprus, David Hannay, the paper "Some characteristics of the Belgian state that may apply to the new partnership state of Cyprus" that was presented to the UN in June 2002 and included proposals on the coordination of Cyprus with the European Union was "the single most convincing and influential paper the Turkish Cypriots tabled throughout the negotiations". (Hannay D. Op. cit. P. 172). The author of this non-paper, dated 26 June 2002, was Ergun Olgun. According to Hannay, many of these ideas found their way into the Annan plan.
32 For the text of the April 8, 2004 televised speech by Cyprus President Tassos Papadopoulos criticizing the Annan plan, see: Cyprus President says "No" to Annan plan in view of referendum // Cyprus News Agency: News in English. 04.04.07. URL: http://www.hri.org/news/cyprus/cna/2004/04-04-07_2.cna.html (accessed 02.06.2022).
33 See: Coppieters B. Conflict resolution after the 2008 Georgia-Russia war: the Taiwan and Kosovo models as tools for mobilization and comparison // Nationalities Papers. 2012. V. 40. No. 5. P. 677-701.
34 Quoted in: Maizland L. Why China-Taiwan Relations Are So Tense. Council on Foreign Relations Backgrounder. 26 May 2022. URL: https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/china-taiwan-relations-tension-us-policy-biden (accessed 02.06.2022).
35 Wu Y.-S. The evolution of the KMT's stance on the One China principle // Taiwanese Identity in the Twenty-First century: Domestic, Regional and Global Perspectives. Eds. G.Schubert and J.Damm. - London; New York: Routledge, 2011. P. 59.
36 Su C. Taiwan's Relations with Mainland China: A Tail Wagging Two Dogs. - London; New York: Routledge, 2011. P. 52.
37 Phillips S. Building a Taiwanese Republic: the Independence Movement, 1945 - Present // Dangerous Strait: The U.S.-Taiwan-China Crisis. Ed. N.B.Tucker. - New York: Columbia University Press, 2005. P. 66.
38 Su C. Op. cit. P. 265.
39 Bush L. Lee Teng-hui and "separatism" // Dangerous Strait: The U.S.-Taiwan-China Crisis. P. 84.
40 Su C. Op. cit. P. 59.
41 Myers R.H., Zhang J. The Struggle across the Taiwan Strait: The Divided China Problem. - Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 2006. P. 38-39.
42 See the letter from Mainland's ARATS to SEF dated 16 November 1992 in: Su C. Op. cit. P. 1.
43 Lee D.T. The Making of the Taiwan Relations Act: Twenty Years in Retrospect. - Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. P. 37.
44 Su C. Op. cit. P. 152.
45 Tucker N.B. Strait Talk: United States-Taiwan Relations and the Crisis with China. - Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press, 2009. P. 4.
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