Much has been written about the "one China" policy, what it is -- and isn't.
One hears arguments that it has contributed to peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, and that it should therefore not be changed.
However, if asked, government officials are hard-pressed to give a precise definition.
US Assistant Secretary for East Asia and the Pacific James Kelly in an April 2004 hearing before the House International Relations Committee stated:
"When it comes to our `one China' [policy], I did not really define it. I'm not sure I very easily could define it. However, I can tell you what it is not. It is not the `one China' policy or principle that Beijing suggests, and it may not be the definition that some would have in Taiwan."
When asked what US policy towards Taiwan is, State Department spokesmen these days generally recite a mantra along the following lines: "We have a `one China' policy in accordance with the Three Communiques and the Taiwan Relations Act."
While the Kelly quote makes the very essential distinction between the US "one China" policy and the PRC's "one China" principle (a distinction often lost on many in the news media and policymakers in Washington), the State Department's mantra glosses over some essential differences between the Communiques themselves, and between the Communiques as a group and the Taiwan Relations Act.
Also, over time, additional elements have been added, making the policy increasingly anachronistic. In order to recapture the essence of the difference between the original policy and the present unwieldy concoction, one needs to go back the basics -- to the late 1960s and early 1970s, when the present policy came into being.
At that time, there were two governments claiming to be the real government of China: the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) authorities in Taipei, who had come over from China after its 1949 defeat, and Mao Zedong's (
The Nixon/Kissinger opening to China resulted in a shift of recognition "as government of China" from the KMT authorities to the CCP authorities.
"One China" in those days thus meant that we only recognized one government as the government of China, and not two.
On Taiwan's status, the basic position taken by the US and other Western nations was that these nations "acknowledged" or "took note" of the Chinese position, but did not take that position themselves.
It was emphasized time and again by US officials and officials of other nations that the issue needed to be "resolved peacefully," and some added: "with the consent/assent" of the people on the island.
This position taken by the US and Western Europe was an extension of the decisions of the San Francisco Peace Treaty, when Japan ceded sovereignty over Taiwan.
At the time, most representatives emphasized that the future status of the island needed to be determined "in accord with the Purposes and Principles as enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations."
In the early 1950s, this clearly meant self-determination and independence.
Thus, from 1979 through the mid-1990s, US policy towards Taiwan was indeed based on the Three Communiques and the Taiwan Relations Act, but was captured by one phrase: "peaceful resolution."
The US was agnostic to the future status of the island: it neither supported nor opposed independence, and neither supported nor opposed unification. It was simply insisting on a peaceful process.
However, in the mid-1990s a shift took place, which culminated in president Bill Clinton's "Three Noes" during his June 1998 visit to China: No support for a one-China, one-Taiwan or a two-China policy.
No support for Taiwan independence, and no support for Taiwanese membership in organizations that require statehood.
Needless to say this constituted a dramatic shift as compared to the previous policy. Congress went on record as strongly disagreeing with Clinton: on July 10, 1998, the Senate passed the Resolution 107 by a vote of 92-0, while on July 20, 1998, the House passed Resolution 301 by an overwhelming vote of 390 to 1.
In a major editorial, the Washington Post commented: "Mr Clinton's statements are ... what China wants to hear," and that it did constitute a change of policy, "and not for the better," ("Siding with the dictators," July 2, 1998).
Still, in spite of the Congressional opposition and strong criticism in the news media, Clinton's statement became part and parcel of the US policy mantra, and remains so to this day.
We thus have a confusing policy, subject to a variety of interpretations.
And even the basic premise -- that it has contributed to peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait -- must be questioned: If it had been successful in doing so, why then is the Taiwan Strait still a major flashpoint? If it was a "successful" policy, wouldn't the problem have been resolved by now?
The most important issue though, is that the situation on the ground has changed: "Taiwan" has changed from being ruled by an authoritarian regime claiming sovereignty over China, to a free and democratic nation, ruled by a democratic government elected by the people on the island.
Through an unfortunate fluke in its history -- occupation by the Chinese Nationalists after World War II -- the people of the island still see the future of their country being held hostage by a Civil War in which they had no part.
Taiwan is now a free and democratic nation, and if our basic principles of human rights and democracy are worth their salt, then the US and Europe need to ensure that the people on the island are truly free to determine their own future.
Support for the island's referendum to enter the UN under the name "Taiwan" would be a good start.
If the US and Western Europe allows Goliath China to dictate its terms on the "David of the Far East" Taiwan (as it's called in the Haaretz daily in Israel), then they are acquiescing in the perpetuation of coercive realpolitik over basic principles.
Gerrit van der Wees is the editor of Taiwan Communique.
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