How the US sees the legal status of Taiwan has an important influence on the state of affairs in East Asia. A common opinion internationally is that the US uses Taiwan as a flexible chip to dominate East Asian affairs. Only by viewing the status of Taiwan as undetermined can the US use uncertainty in East Asia to its advantage. This opinion only looks at the situation from the US position, with the US' particular strategic considerations in mind.
If we look at Washington's position on Taiwan since the Korean War, the US has always used Taiwan as a check and balance on China. The US has left the Taiwan issue hanging and its legal status unsettled. Some aspects of this dual tactic won the approval of the government in Taipei, which adopted some measures that were in accordance with US policy.
For example, when Republic of China (ROC) ambassador to the US Wellington Koo (顧維鈞) engaged in secret talks with the US State Department's political adviser John Foster Dulles about Taiwan's legal status, they agreed it should be left undetermined.
Dictator Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) went along with this stance, agreeing that the peace treaty between China and Japan stipulated that Tokyo had "renounced all right, title and claim" to Taiwan and Penghu, but did not specify which country the islands were granted to.
At the time the US and the ROC signed the Mutual Defense Treaty, the US had already acknowledged in writing that Taiwan and Penghu were ruled by the ROC. But Dulles later told a press conference that "technical sovereignty over [Taiwan] and [Penghu] has never been settled."
The US Senate passed a resolution stating that the signing of the treaty should not influence the legal status of Taiwan. Dulles' statement represented the position of the US government. So on one hand the US had signed a Mutual Defense Treaty with the ROC; on the other hand it made statements saying that Taiwan's status was still undetermined.
On Feb. 28, 1972, when US president Richard Nixon and his Chinese hosts issued what became known as the Shanghai Communique, it stipulated that "the United States acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China."
On March 1, 1972, ROC ambassador to the US James Shen (沈劍虹) met with US national security advisor Henry Kissinger. According to the transcript of the meeting, Shen asked Kissinger why the US government did not challenge Beijing's claim to represent all China in the communique. Kissinger said this was not the US position. He said that since the ROC's position was that it represented all China and that there was only one China, their understanding was thatBeijing and Taipei both agreed that there was only one China.
The US position as stated in the communique, Kissinger said, was simply that the US does not challenge the Chinese claims that there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China.
Shen said that Taipei had interpreted the US statement to mean that the US now recognized the People's Republic of China's (PRC) claim to Taiwan.
Kissinger said that this was foolish, that the US position as stated in the communique definitely did not do anything of the sort. He said the US position, as stated, was consistent with the position that the US had taken during the debate over Chinese representation in the UN General Assembly the year before -- one China, two governments.
Shen said that people now had the impression the ROC was not a country and asked if this was the US' intent. Kissinger replied that Shen had his word that it was not.
On March 8, 1972, then US secretary of state William Rogers sent Nixon a memorandum about the US' Taiwan policy that said in order to avoid Taiwan becoming an obstacle to US-PRC relations, the US should think of a way to either encourage Taiwan to reintegrate with the Chinese mainland through peaceful means, or try to get the PRC to accept some form of separate status for Taiwan.
Rogers proposed "avoiding legalistic formulations whenever possible regarding the status of Taiwan, and [speaking] increasingly of the PRC as `China' and the ROC as `Taiwan.'"
Afterwards, Marshall Green, the assistant secretary of state for East Asian affairs, denied that the Shanghai Communique represented a change in the US position held since 1950. He believed that the status of Taiwan was still undetermined. His opinion most likely influenced US policy towards Taiwan from that time on.
However, the US does not have to keep up this dual tactic. From 1950 on, the US supported the Chiang government, and later signed a Mutual Defense Treaty with the ROC. Throughout the Cold War and problems such has North Burma, the Sumatra incident and the Vietnam War, the US continued to cooperate closely with Taiwan.
Now in the post-Cold War era, there's no need for the US to avoid the Taiwan issue. It should continue to acknowledge that Taiwan is governed by its own government and belongs to the people of Taiwan.
The more the US avoids the Taiwan issue, or keeps putting off taking a stand, the more pressure it will face from Beijing. This is not good for the US or Taiwan. Washington should not keep reiterating that Taiwan should maintain the status quo.
If the US takes the position that it respects the will of the Taiwanese people and allows the UN to intervene in a crisis, then this position will win the support of the majority of countries and people, at keep curbing Beijing's military might in check.
It's been 18 years since the US broke off diplomatic relations with the ROC. Now it's time for the US to reconsider its policy toward Taiwan in response to the changing climate in East Asia.
Chen Hurng-yu is a professor at Tamkang University.
Translated by Anna Stiggelbout
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