Template talk:Governments in exile

Philippines

I'm not sure what is meant in saying the Philippine government was "certainly not considered as a gov't in exile alongside Poland, Czechoslovakia etc". It was an existing government that was evacuated from a country, and while in exile it participated in allied war councils and signed the Declaration by United Nations, much like the exiled governments of Czechoslovakia and Poland. CMD (talk) 01:45, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

Hi Chipmunkdavis, thanks for taking this to talk. I meant that the Philippines was non-self-governing and could not have a "government" in the modern use of the term. The obvious comparison would be the colonial administrations of Burma and the Dutch East Indies in "exile" in Australia and India. I don't doubt that they merit articles of their own, or even inclusion in this template, but not on the same level as the governments in exile of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Netherlands etc. (These are conventionally treated as "the" governments in exile, see this study for example.) On your point about the Philippines being included in international declarations, I'd also note that the Declaration by United Nations was also signed by British India and various French mandates which were really included to make up numbers. As far as I can tell, there were no Allied diplomatic representatives to the Philippine government?

As a way forward, I would argue there are two options. The first would be to leave out the Philippines and perhaps re-name this template to make it clear that it does not encompass all exile factions during World War II. The alternative might be to add a line for non-self-governing territories to which the Philippines (and eventually the others) could be added to make their different status clear? —Brigade Piron (talk) 08:07, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

The link you provided is exclusively focused on European governments, and so isn't helpful for the current discussion. The Philippines became self-governing in 1935, and its government was certainly a government in the modern use of the term. It would be wrong to equate it to the Burmese and Dutch East Indies governments, which were still led by foreign Governors. I'm not sure what you mean by allied representation. The Government was based in Washington D.C., so it would have interacted with representations there. CMD (talk) 09:19, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

It is true that "self-government" is not the right term. However, it is still clear that the Philippines had a semi-colonial status (a point I believe is made explicitly here about the government in exile) and was certainly more comparable with, for instance, French-controlled Greater Lebanon (which also signed the 1942 declaration) than independent Poland. The comparison with the Dutch East Indies (which also had limited self-government from 1918) is reasonable. The existence or not of a foreign governor-general is not particularly significant - Canada or Australia did have British Governors but were nonetheless emphatically independent states.

On the diplomatic representation point, do you mean that there were foreign (non-US) diplomats accredited specifically to the Philippine government in exile as there were to those in London? —Brigade Piron (talk) 10:27, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

I'm not that familiar with the Governmental system of French Lebanon at the time, but in no way was the Philippine Commonwealth equivalent in level of self-government to the post-1918 Dutch East Indies. A Governor is significant in that it's a leader from outside the country. Australia and Canada were not emphatically independent at the time, and the dates of their independence remain subject to debate to this day. Australia had not even adopted the Statue of Westminster upon the outbreak of the war. I am unfamiliar with whether anyone was accredited or not to the Philippine Government in Washington DC. CMD (talk) 12:35, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

There's a broader issue in that this template refers to List of governments in exile during World War II but includes only a small portion of the entries there. CMD (talk) 12:04, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

Tthere is a lot of dubious WP:OR at List of governments in exile during World War II which includes plenty of entries that were certainly not governments in exile in any legal or political sense - the Free Thai Movement seems a particularly clear example. The Danish Freedom Council is listed alongside a sourced note (!) that states that Denmark "did not establish a government in exile"! —Brigade Piron (talk) 12:21, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

I see that the Philippines has returned to the Table without consensus here. I would only quote the following passage from this reliable source:

"The governments in exile of Burma (in Simla, India), the Philippines (in Washington), and the Netherlands East Indies (in Brisbane, Australia) during the Second World War [...] were not governments in exile in the sense of international law and were not recognized as such. These governments were rather maintained (or established) as a symbol showing that the colonial or administering power regarded the loss of its territory only as temporary. In no way were they to imply a change of status of the territories. For example, on 8 September 1943 US Secretary of State Cordell Hull wrote that the ‘Philippine Commonwealth Government in exile’ was not a ‘separate and distinct government’ from the Government of the United States which ‘exercises de jure sovereign rights in the Philippines’."

On this basis, I think it can be removed. —Brigade Piron (talk) 13:31, 28 June 2023 (UTC)