During his first visit to Asia as US president, Barack Obama issued a joint statement with Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤). References to Taiwan in the statement suggest that the situation is evolving in a direction unfavorable to the country. In view of this, the government of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) should immediately seek clarification from Washington and try to remedy the situation.
There are several points to which Taiwan should pay attention. In his speeches in Japan, Obama did not mention Taiwan at all. At his “town hall” meeting in Shanghai, he only mentioned the three US-China joint communiques and avoided the issues of China’s military threat and US arms sales. At the press conference following his meeting with Hu, although he mentioned the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) in the same sentence as the three joint communiques, he also talked about respect for China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
The joint statement itself makes no mention of the TRA, while the two countries’ respect for one another’s sovereignty and territorial integrity is stated twice, as well as a wish for the two sides of the Taiwan Strait to “increase dialogues and interactions in economic, political, and other fields.”
The TRA provides the legal basis for US policy on Taiwan. Section 4 of the Act states that, despite the absence of diplomatic relations between the US and Taiwan, “Whenever the laws of the United States refer or relate to foreign countries, nations, states, governments, or similar entities, such terms shall include and such laws shall apply with such respect to Taiwan.”
This amounts to regarding Taiwan as a de facto independent state. The six assurances delivered to president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) in 1982 by then-director of the American Institute in Taiwan James Lilley on behalf of US president Ronald Reagan included the point that the US had not altered its position regarding sovereignty over Taiwan, implying that it did not recognize China’s claim of sovereignty over Taiwan. These assurances, along with the TRA, are the most important foundations for the maintenance of Taiwan-US relations.
However, the Obama-Hu joint statement says: “China emphasized that the Taiwan issue concerns China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity ... [The US and China] reiterated that the fundamental principle of 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 wording of the joint statement clearly departs from what is mandated by the TRA, as well as the spirit of Reagan’s six assurances. While Taiwan has in the past been viewed as a de facto sovereign independent state, the wording of the joint statement shows that its status is now being seriously challenged.
In view of this, it is very sad to see Ma happily claiming that Taiwan-US relations are better than they have been in 60 years and that mutual trust between the countries has been completely restored.
Besides, before the Obama-Hu talks, the Chinese side privately expressed the wish that the US would support dialogue across the Taiwan Strait. China wants US approval for the six points Hu proposed on the Taiwan issue on New Year’s Eve last year, which seek by hook or by crook to confine Taiwan within a “one China” framework. It wants to create an environment of cross-strait political consultation that would work in its own favor, and to reduce Taiwan’s maneuvering room.
Obviously this situation is not good for Taiwan.
The Obama-Hu talks have indeed been a big diplomatic victory for China. With regard to Taiwan, however, the Ma administration has accepted the idea of “one China.” At the same time, it is dismantling Taiwan’s strongest line of defense — its democracy. When so much has been given away, what grounds can we have for demanding that the US not accept China’s claim to sovereignty over Taiwan? Seemingly we are left with no choice but to swallow the bitter fruit of the Obama-Hu talks.
Joseph Wu is an adviser to the Taiwan Thinktank and a research fellow at the Institute of International Relations at National Chengchi University.
TRANSLATED BY JULIAN CLEGG
On Sept. 3 in Tiananmen Square, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) rolled out a parade of new weapons in PLA service that threaten Taiwan — some of that Taiwan is addressing with added and new military investments and some of which it cannot, having to rely on the initiative of allies like the United States. The CCP’s goal of replacing US leadership on the global stage was advanced by the military parade, but also by China hosting in Tianjin an August 31-Sept. 1 summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which since 2001 has specialized
The narrative surrounding Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s attendance at last week’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit — where he held hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin and chatted amiably with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) — was widely framed as a signal of Modi distancing himself from the US and edging closer to regional autocrats. It was depicted as Modi reacting to the levying of high US tariffs, burying the hatchet over border disputes with China, and heralding less engagement with the Quadrilateral Security dialogue (Quad) composed of the US, India, Japan and Australia. With Modi in China for the
The Jamestown Foundation last week published an article exposing Beijing’s oil rigs and other potential dual-use platforms in waters near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙島). China’s activities there resembled what they did in the East China Sea, inside the exclusive economic zones of Japan and South Korea, as well as with other South China Sea claimants. However, the most surprising element of the report was that the authors’ government contacts and Jamestown’s own evinced little awareness of China’s activities. That Beijing’s testing of Taiwanese (and its allies) situational awareness seemingly went unnoticed strongly suggests the need for more intelligence. Taiwan’s naval
A large part of the discourse about Taiwan as a sovereign, independent nation has centered on conventions of international law and international agreements between outside powers — such as between the US, UK, Russia, the Republic of China (ROC) and Japan at the end of World War II, and between the US and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) since recognition of the PRC as the sole representative of China at the UN. Internationally, the narrative on the PRC and Taiwan has changed considerably since the days of the first term of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) of the Democratic
RSS