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At Large
The Country the World Forgot
Only four years after World War II had ended and two years after modern India, Pakistan and Israel were created, the Republic of China (ROC), originally established in 1911, was reborn on Taiwan in 1949. Since then it has grown from a refugee haven for people fleeing Communist China to a thriving nation of over 23 million citizens -- and today it is rarely remarked upon in the western media.
On April 10 this once Dutch, then Chinese, then Japanese island colony will celebrate thirty years of the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) -- the legal action by the United States Congress that protected the existence of this still dynamic, productive nation and at the same time effectively condemned it to a state of international political limbo.
From the standpoint of the United States, the driving force behind the TRA was Washington's desire to prevent the communist People's Republic of China (PRC) from having an internationally accepted political justification to attack the island of Taiwan and take it over.
President Jimmy Carter's removal of diplomatic recognition of Taiwan (ROC) and the shift of that recognition to the mainland's PRC in December 1978 required that a device be established that allowed for a continuation of the American commitment to anti-communist Chinese interests in East Asia. Ironically the Taiwan Relations Act became the building block on which future U.S. trade and political relations with the Beijing communist government also would gain a solid footing.
The ROC on Taiwan had been an invaluable support point for U.S. military forces first during the Korean War and then during the Vietnam War. It is foolish to ignore the mutually valuable relationship that grew between Taiwan and the United States in that period. Those who referred to Taiwan as America's unsinkable aircraft carrier in East Asia were not too far off the mark.
While Jimmy Carter actually took the final steps initiated by Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon, it was the strong growth of democracy and a commitment to protect their new democracy by the people of Taiwan that made it possible for the American policy embodied in the TRA to work.
It is particularly interesting that the Kuomintang Party (KMT) that had been the original dominant force has returned to power after eight years of self-inflicted loss of popularity. The KMT's principal rival, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), beat the drum of independence in an effort to hold on to popular support. In the end all it accomplished was to draw the ire of Beijing and threats of military action.
More damaging for the DPP, however, were charges of corruption hurled successfully at its leader, Chen Shui-bien. Finally in March 2008 the KMT came roaring back on a reform platform that included, among other things, a promise of better and more cooperative relations with the PRC. This was a political sea change for the original party of China's nationalist leader, Chiang Kai-shek, the hated enemy of Communist China.
The PRC has never accepted the TRA and periodically rails against American sales to Taiwan's government, the ROC, of defensive weapons (allowed by the Act) to Taiwan. In spite of these objections Beijing has refrained from military action. While agreeing with the PRC on the "one China" concept, Washington preserves the "strategic ambiguity" of retaining the right to intervene in order "to resist any resort to force or other form of coercion that would jeopardize the security or the social or the economic system of the people of Taiwan." (Quoted from the Taiwan Relations Act.)
The reality is that Taiwan is a thriving independent entity, whether or not it is accepted as a sovereign nation by the United Nations. According to U.S. State Department statistics, the United States is Taiwan's third largest trading partner after China and Japan. Taiwan exports 60.2% of its products to the same three countries and imports 46.6% from them. The rest is divided worldwide. Total trade for 2008 is approximated at between $450-$500 billion.
Importantly there is in excess of $100 billion of Taiwanese investment in the PRC both directly and indirectly. This considerable investment in Chinese industry by business interests in Taiwan has resulted in a substantial economic relationship between the democratically run Taiwan and the communist nation of the People's Republic of China.
The Taiwan Relations Act has provided a firm base of support for all concerned: The United States has retained a valuable ally in a key geo-strategic part of the world. Taiwan may lack broad diplomatic recognition but nonetheless plays an important economic -- and thus political -- role internationally. And the PRC has been able to maintain its claim of sovereignty over this large island that it never conquered, while at the same time having the advantage of trade and investment.
A win-win all based on a thirty-year-old congressional act that hardly anyone remembers relative to a country that everyone conveniently forgets!
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Pingback| 3.20.09 @ 8:57AM
Topics about Airplanes » Archive » The Country the World Forgot links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
RT| 3.20.09 @ 9:41AM
Great article. Thanks.
Thomas| 3.20.09 @ 7:20PM
The mainland Chinese have not forgotten Taiwan. And the current administration had better remind them that neither have we. Or things could get sticky.
Michele San Pietro| 3.21.09 @ 4:27AM
It's normal the international community forgets about countries like Taiwan, just because they are free, indepentent, and anti-communist. And Obama, you bet, has no intention of resuming thinking about such beautiful countries.
Chinaman| 3.21.09 @ 5:11AM
Americans like Wittman still talk of Taiwan in terms of the Cold War (Vietnam, Korea) and somewhere in their ideology sees it as a right (moral? universal?), by local legislation and through military power, to poke its nose anywhere in the world by invoking the world. Then there are people like "Thomas" who coughs after Wittman insinuating with veiled threats (sticky?). But we'll see...
J David| 3.21.09 @ 1:04PM
We can't even protect ourselves, and have just relegated our own selves to third world nation status from an economic/financial standpoint. China is now in a position to daily bitch-slap the USA over our HUGE and growing debt to them, and if those debts were called, right now, we would cease to exist. Taiwan is SO safe with the USA as an ally, and I'm sure they sleep ever so peacefully at night in that knowledge. sarc/
It is laughable that otherwise intelligent men don't comprehend where we now are, laughable meaning agonizing/painful/terrifying.
J David| 3.21.09 @ 1:07PM
Would that the US were in a position to be forgotten by the world, instead of the biggest debtor in the entire known universe.
Michele San Pietro| 3.21.09 @ 2:29PM
If the situation in the US is so "terrible", then why don't we simply abolish the US once and for all? It's incredible how enemies of America, many of which, quite unfortunately, are within America itself, have been repeating the same crap for decades...
Thomas| 3.21.09 @ 4:14PM
Chinaman misses a few point here. The first being that the United States did not set up the Republic of China. It did however, acquiesce to the desires of the leaders of that country for America to provide protection for the fledgling nation. In recent times, the ROC has been negotiating with the PRC on possible assimilation of the ROC by the PRC. Should they decide to follow that course of action, then the U.S. will not stand in the way.
The danger lies in the fact that the PRC has been making threats of forcible assimilation of the ROC, by military means. The fact that the PRC has a current military force much larger than is needed either for defense or to meets its minuscule foreign defense treaty obligations, tends to concern strategic planners in other countries. Why have such a large force if it is unneeded? Should the PRC embark upon such a course, it would place the US in the position of either abandoning a legitimate defense agreement or going to war with the PRC. Neither option is a positive. The ball is in the PRC's court and anything that the US does will be only in reaction to actions of the PRC.
I make no threats, veiled or otherwise. My point is that it would be unwise for the leadership of the PRC to assume that the US would not react to any "invasion" of Taiwan by Mainland China. In this case the PRC would be much better served by adopting a diplomatic approach with the leadership of the ROC and limit acts of provocation against the US. There is a significant likely hood that a peaceful assimilation of the people of Taiwan by the PRC in the very near future. Patience is a virtue long ascribed to the people of China and it is one that should be used at this time.
RobertinSeattle| 3.21.09 @ 11:50PM
And so perhaps it may well prove wiser to forget about Taiwan. Eventually, it WILL be integrated back into the PRC as have been Hong Kong and Macau in spite of the skepticism that preceded those historic moments. This article - along with the thousands of historically inaccurate myths that Western (specifically American) history books continue to perpetuate. Few people will remember, let alone even know about the departure of Chiang Kai-Shek from China to the Island of Formosa (as Taiwan was called then). With the coming of Mao, the Chinese elite left quickly, taking with them as much of their wealth as possible, going so far ass to loot many of the country's national treasures with them as well. That action alone was taken to be one final snub to the communists were attempting to overthrow the wealthy upper class and royalty who had run China for millenia. Small wonder the Mainland Chinese have hard feelings for the Taiwanese.
To make matters worse - and this is how history was re-written - the American-educated Madame Chiang befriended Claire Booth-Luce and his wife (of Time-Life fortune). Through clever politics and public relations, the Chiangs managed to spread the fear of communism through some of the most powerful media families in America even as Mao and his followers struggled to feed and educate the millions of poor citizens that were left behind when the rich citizens left for Taiwan with their country's wealth. It was thievery on a grand scale that went virtually unreported in the major media because of the Chiangs friendships with their American counterparts.
Fast-forward to today and now China has become a powerhouse that trades on a massive scale with most countries globally. And Taiwan has started to become another victim of its own earlier successes after its smaller population has shifted into a middle-class apathy after its brief growth as a manufacturing powerhouse (just as happened in Japan and Korea where the working class also progressed into middle class lives). So now that Taiwan is less of a strong partner to US business, they find themselves pondering the inevitability of being absorbed back into China where it belongs. While no one ever thought that Hong Kong and Macau would ever be merged back into China, the world is finally beginning to understand the long memory and patience of China. And it WILL be done peacefully and with little fanfare or saber rattling. Of this we can be sure.
Thomas| 3.22.09 @ 12:00PM
Ignoring the sugar-coating of the Communist regime in China by RobertinSeattle, times change and so do nations. The United States has made numerous efforts to make it clear that this country has no objections to a peaceful, bi-lateral assimilation of the ROC with the PRC. We are, after all, a democratic republic. The danger lies in the possible decision of the leadership of the PRC to forcibly assimilate [read as invade] the ROC. Should this happen, the US would be forced to make a decision as to whether to honor its agreement to defend the ROC and in what manner. The PRC has, on several occasions directly threatened to assimilate the ROC by force. In the last few years, the PRC have vastly increased their military establishment and their military development has been geared more to engagement with the US, rather than the forces of Russia. There has been a marked increase in incidents of harassment of US military and intelligence interests, in international waters and airspace by the PRC. Even the worldwide economic activities of the PRC have been designed to marginalize the US, in particular the logistical needs of its military. There are military hardliners in all countries and the PRC is not exempt. Therefor the cause for concern is that certain factions within the PRC may see the forced assimilation of the ROC as a means to solidify military control of Eastern Asia, by showing that the US can not be depended upon to provide its promised protection. This has been the basis of the actions of Presidents Nixon and Carter with regards to both the PRC and the ROC.
Now, whether Taiwan "belongs" to the PRC is debatable. That the people of Taiwan will decide to assimilate with the mainland PRC is extremely likely. They have had ten years to witness how Hong Kong fared after its return to the PRC and will likely decide that, with certain safeguards in place, it will continue to operate in much the same way that it does today. Being a part of mainland China would have several advantages for the people of Taiwan. Not the least of which would be not having to worry about being invaded by the PRC.
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