The US Congress enacted in the spring of 1979, in the wake of then-US president Jimmy Carter’s move to recognize Beijing and sever official relations with the Republic of China (ROC), the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA), which Carter was politically compelled to sign. The TRA is unique in diplomatic history, as it is a domestic US law, but governs US relations with Taiwan and China.
It mandates the US “to provide Taiwan with arms of defensive character” by committing the US to Taiwan’s security and restores a semblance of sovereignty to Taiwan’s status. It also openly declares an intention to “resist any resort to force” against the people of Taiwan and puts Beijing on notice that any use of coercion to change Taiwan’s status would be a matter “of grave concern to the United States.”
In a real sense, the TRA is very much a “function substitute” for the US-ROC Mutual Defense Treaty, which came into force in 1955, but had to be terminated at the end of 1979 at Beijing’s demand, as it incorporated in substance the same protective relationship the US had maintained with Taiwan since the 1950s.
In recent years, there has been an alarming tendency by officials in the administration of US President Barack Obama to disregard provisions in the TRA, especially with reference to Taiwan’s defense, in obvious submission to Beijing’s persistent lobbying and threats.
William Bader, a former chief of staff of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, decried the fact that the Obama administration had “shown little to no knowledge or real interest” in the TRA.
Former US Department of State and US Department of Defense official Randall Shriver also complained in a congressional hearing last month that the Obama administration did not have high enough aspirations for Taiwan and castigated it for having severely neglected US responsibilities under the TRA to provide arms to Taipei and help Taiwan meet its defense needs.
Whereas the TRA clearly stipulates the US’ obligation to provide Taiwan with “such defense articles and defense services in such quantity as may be necessary” for Taiwan’s defense, concern over China’s reaction has prevented the Obama administration from moving forward on Taiwan’s repeated requests for the sale of F-16C/D aircraft and submarines.
It is in such a context that US Representative Ilena Ros-Lehtinen, chairperson of the Foreign Relations Committee of the US House of Representatives, told a special hearing titled “Why Taiwan Matters” on June 16 that she would soon introduce new legislation “to enhance the Taiwan Relations Act.”
Ros-Lehtinen stated emphatically: “It is strongly in America’s national interest to re-energize and upgrade relations between our two peoples.”
In a wide-ranging speech delivered in Los Angeles on June 11, Ros-Lehtinen said that it was long overdue for Obama to sell F-16C/D aircraft to Taiwan and to work to improve relations with Taiwan, a great beacon of democracy in East Asia and an important US ally. She warned that the military balance across the Taiwan Strait continued to shift in favor of China, while Taiwan’s defense spending has been cut below 3 percent of GDP under President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).
She is apprehensive that Taiwan appears to have become an afterthought in the Obama adminisration’s larger aims of engagement with China and there is “a new spirit of appeasement in the air.”
Is it possible for Ros-Lehtinen and her like-minded colleagues to enact new legislation to enhance the TRA and bolster US-Taiwan security ties? This is almost a mission impossible, judging from the history of the Taiwan Security Enhancement Act (TSEA).
In March 1999, Republican senators Jesse Helms and Frank Murkowski and Democratic senator Robert Torricelli co-sponsored the TSEA to boost US-Taiwan security ties and to mandate the US to upgrade sales of advanced defensive weapons and technology to Taiwan, in an effort to override the objections of the administration of then-US president Bill Clinton.
The TSEA draft was taken up by the House of Representatives and, after some debate and amendments, was approved by a majority, albeit not veto-free, in March 2000. In the US Senate, however, the going was much tougher and several senators opposed to the TSEA were able to resort to a special senatorial rule to “hold” it, thereby obstructing its deliberation and ultimately killing it. In April 2001, three months after then-US president George W. Bush came into office, he announced a big package of arms sales to Taiwan, but refused to support the TSEA, because it could tie his hands in the future.
Does this mean Congress is powerless to affect the US-Taiwan relations? Absolutely not.
As Congress controls the purse strings, it is able to use allocation of resources to persuade, if not force, the executive branch to act. It could attach to the Defense Authorization Act a binding request for the Pentagon to provide a detailed report on the security situation in the Taiwan Strait and a complete review of Taiwan’s defense needs. Such a report would likely show the alarming military imbalance and China’s clear and present threat against Taiwan, and will thus have critical policy implications for the US under the TRA.
It is no secret that Chinese diplomats in Washington and visiting ranking officials from Beijing are actively lobbying the Obama administration and Congress. In contrast, officials at the Taiwan Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Washington have been relatively passive in accordance with the Ma government’s “diplomatic truce.” It is therefore imperative that Taiwan’s civic organizations, including the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), take up the job on behalf of Taiwan. It is incumbent on us to inform our US friends that our two peoples share the values of freedom and democracy and appeal to them to help us safeguard our independence and maintain the “status quo.”
Now that the DPP has nominated party Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) as its candidate in next year’s presidential election, it would be well advised to re-establish the party’s office in the US, as it was called the “DPP Mission in Washington” from 1995 to 2000. Now, as then, the office would communicate with and inform the US and the media where a future DPP government stands on Taiwan’s relations with the US, China, Japan and the EU, as well as the major planks of its policy platform. It must reassure the US that Taiwan, under a DPP government, would be a valuable, trustworthy, democratic friend that, unlike the Ma government, would not submit to China’s whims.
Parris Chang, professor emeritus of political science at Pennsylvania State University, is chair professor of general studies at Toko University and chief executive of the Taiwan Institute of Political, Economic and Strategic Studies.
Saudi Arabian largesse is flooding Egypt’s cultural scene, but the reception is mixed. Some welcome new “cooperation” between two regional powerhouses, while others fear a hostile takeover by Riyadh. In Cairo, historically the cultural capital of the Arab world, Egyptian Minister of Culture Nevine al-Kilany recently hosted Saudi Arabian General Entertainment Authority chairman Turki al-Sheikh. The deep-pocketed al-Sheikh has emerged as a Medici-like patron for Egypt’s cultural elite, courted by Cairo’s top talent to produce a slew of forthcoming films. A new three-way agreement between al-Sheikh, Kilany and United Media Services — a multi-media conglomerate linked to state intelligence that owns much of
The US and other countries should take concrete steps to confront the threats from Beijing to avoid war, US Representative Mario Diaz-Balart said in an interview with Voice of America on March 13. The US should use “every diplomatic economic tool at our disposal to treat China as what it is... to avoid war,” Diaz-Balart said. Giving an example of what the US could do, he said that it has to be more aggressive in its military sales to Taiwan. Actions by cross-party US lawmakers in the past few years such as meeting with Taiwanese officials in Washington and Taipei, and
The Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan has no official diplomatic allies in the EU. With the exception of the Vatican, it has no official allies in Europe at all. This does not prevent the ROC — Taiwan — from having close relations with EU member states and other European countries. The exact nature of the relationship does bear revisiting, if only to clarify what is a very complicated and sensitive idea, the details of which leave considerable room for misunderstanding, misrepresentation and disagreement. Only this week, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) received members of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations
Denmark’s “one China” policy more and more resembles Beijing’s “one China” principle. At least, this is how things appear. In recent interactions with the Danish state, such as applying for residency permits, a Taiwanese’s nationality would be listed as “China.” That designation occurs for a Taiwanese student coming to Denmark or a Danish citizen arriving in Denmark with, for example, their Taiwanese partner. Details of this were published on Sunday in an article in the Danish daily Berlingske written by Alexander Sjoberg and Tobias Reinwald. The pretext for this new practice is that Denmark does not recognize Taiwan as a state under