US President Barack Obama’s maiden trip to China contained some very troubling aspects for Taiwan. Obama allowed the Chinese leadership to completely frame the interchanges on the Taiwan issue, and demonstrated a disregard of the US’ vital role in helping to keep Taiwan free of Chinese control or rule.
At one point, Obama came within a split-second of declaring that Taiwan is part of China. Throughout the trip, the existence of the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) was virtually forgotten, and Obama ducked the issues of China’s military threat to Taiwan and the need for the US to help Taiwan defend itself.
His praise of cross-strait dialogue and business dealings dwarfed everything else. During a “town hall” meeting with students in Shanghai, Obama enthused that when people think “they can do business and make money ... [they do] not worry as much about ideology.” Or about democracy and Taiwan’s 23 million people?
In a joint press conference, Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) said Obama “on various occasions has reiterated” that the US “respects China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity when it comes to Taiwan,” and Obama echoed that commitment in the context of a one-China policy. Does that mean Obama winked and conceded China’s territorial claims to Taiwan during their private talks?
The same formula was used in the joint statement issued at the end of the visit in which the US side proclaimed that “respect for each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity is at the core of the three US-China joint communiques which guide US-China relations. Neither side supports any attempts by any force to undermine this principle.”
The TRA, which is the legally binding and moral underpinning of US-Taiwan relations, was ignored.
The most jarring moment came during the “town hall” session on Obama’s first day in China. The meeting was closely orchestrated by the Chinese leaders, and questions were tightly scripted. The Taiwan question was picked via the Internet from a Taiwan businessman operating in China, who said he is “worried” about US arms sales and that his business is doing well because of the Taiwanese government’s current cross-strait policy.
Obama said he backed a one-China policy, and praised the reduction in cross-strait tension, saying he hoped the improvement would continue “between Taiwan and the rest of — and the People’s Republic.” He was about to declare Taiwan to be part of China, reflective of a predilection to see reality in that way. It was, in the word of a leading Washington expert in China and Taiwan, a reflection of his “mind set.”
How did he get this “mind set?” Surely the administration’s experts on China know that “official” US policy is that the status of Taiwan is undetermined and solvable only with the approval of the Taiwanese people. They are too savvy to give him a bum steer.
Perhaps it’s the Geithners and Obama’s Chicago-bred advisors who know nothing about Taiwan who caught the president’s young ear.
What about from the Taiwanese government itself? We do not know what Taiwan’s representative office in Washington or its top representative, Jason Yuan (袁健生), tells the White House. We do know that as a Taiwanese official in the past Yuan has publicly advocated unification.
That came in 1999, when as head of Taiwan’s Los Angeles Taiwan office, he told a panel celebrating the 20th anniversary of the TRA that “Taiwan sees itself as an in integral part of China,” according to a Voice of America (VOA) report.
“It is important, because we are all Chinese, either mainland or Taiwan, we are the same people,” VOA recorded him as saying.
Obama’s emphasis on the joint communiques raised many eyebrows. What do these documents say? The 1972 Shanghai communique during US president Richard Nixon’s first trip to China, states “all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China.” That was not true at the time, and today it is nothing but a damaging fiction.
The 1982 communique signed by US president Ronald Reagan, declares that the US does not “seek to carry out a long-term policy of arms sales to Taiwan, that its arms sales to Taiwan will not exceed” the levels of the years since the switch of diplomatic relations to Beijing. The arms sales totaled US$455 million in 1980 and US$286 million in 1981 — not enough to buy even two PAC-3 missile systems today. Is that really the Obama administration’s policy?
The TRA, by contrast, commits the US to sell Taiwan all the defensive weapons it needs and pledges Washington to be prepared to defend Taiwan militarily against a Chinese attack. It also treats Taiwan separately from China in almost every other way.
Now that is what Obama’s Taiwan policy should be.
Charles Snyder is a former Washington correspondent for the Taipei Times.
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