Hawai’i isn’t the only colonial possession to get the inset treatment.

 Although the authors of the Duck of Minerva do not condone, endorse, or even take seriously this proposal, we do want to bring to our readers’ attention a petition urging President Obama to return Taiwan to the Emperor of Japan.

This is not entirely crazy, just 99.98 percent insane. Taiwan, of course, was a part of the Japanese Empire after the cession of Formosa in the Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895. Less well known in the  West is the depth of pro-Japanese sentiment in Taiwan; former president Lee Teng-hui, for instance, was graduated from Kyoto University in 1946. More immediately important for D.C.-area sports fans was the fact that the Japanese introduced Taiwan to baseball, thereby indirectly leading to the Nationals’ pitching staff including Chien-Ming Wang (see also).

The petition’s unique one-state solution to the Formosa problem deserves consideration at least as in-depth as this blog post.