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!
