Fri, Sep 03, 1999 page12

• EDITORIAL: Mr Burghardt goes to Taipei

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  The new director of the Taiwan office of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), Raymond Burghardt, arrived in Taipei this week to take up his post. Yesterday he paid his first official visit to Minister of Foreign Affairs Jason Hu (胡志強) and was received in a ceremony suitably dignified for the de facto ambassador of the world's only superpower.

  However, we feel that we need to remind our countrymen to not exaggerate the significance of these events. After all, Burghardt is only a diplomat, albeit apparently a very skilled and experienced one. A certain French president once observed: "Diplomats are only good in fair weather; as soon as it rains, they drown in every raindrop." With all due respect to Burghardt, it is simply a fact that, on the bilateral issues of greatest concern to the Taiwanese people -- for example, admission to the World Trade Organization or, even more so, the response of the US to a Chinese military attack -- the critical decisions will all be taken in Washington, most likely in the White House itself. Whatever his skills, Burghardt will not be able to exert significant influence over the process.

  That said, when the sun shines, in other words, in the normal, day-to-day interaction between our two countries, Burghardt can certainly play a very constructive role. In order to do so, he will of course first have to develop a broad and deep understanding of Taiwan. Because this is something of a cliche, we need to elaborate.

  All too often, Taiwan is viewed by foriegners, particularly policy elites, as a single-issue place. All information and news about Taiwan is filtered through the prism of cross-strait relations. This flawed analytic framework inevitably generates frequent misunderstandings, as the actual conduct of Taiwanese people and their leaders often fails to conform to models of international relations.

  In order to avoid this pitfall, and thereby to fulfil his potential as a conduit for understanding between our two countries, we urge Burghardt not to spend most of his time deconstructing the meaning of the word "special" as applied to "state-to-state" relations, or calculating the precise date of his friend Wang Daohan's (汪道涵) visit. We know that he is already extremely well-versed in these issues, both through study and through concrete experience. Therefore, it is more important now that he focus steadily on trying to gain the same proficiency -- also including direct experience -- of the swirling dynamics of Taiwan. In this process, social and cultural factors should not be neglected at the expense of political and economic ones.

  The most important message we try to send to all who come to visit our island is that ours is a diverse, ever-changing society. Although it looks small on the map, Taiwan's population is not tiny; since it began to open up, Taiwanese society has rapidly pluralized across many dimensions simultaneously. It is dangerous to generalize about it, for example by observing one part of Taipei, or worse, by transferring one's experience elsewhere, especially in China, to Taiwan. To do so is to misunderstand what the people here are really about.

  If Burghardt applies himself in this manner, we are sure that we will gain not only a helpful counterpart, but also a new friend. We apologize in advance for the awfully frequent rain in Taipei.
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