Taiwan's economic and political achievements, including the peaceful transformation of a one-party dictatorship into a vibrant, multi-party democracy and the development of a prosperous free market economy, have earned the Taiwanese admiration from around the world. Taiwan's democratization and Taiwanization have also made the "one China" formulation increasingly untenable.
Well before the electoral victory of the DPP on March 18, John R Bolton, senior vice-president of the American Enterprise Institute and former assistant secretary of state during the Bush administration, proposed that the US extend full diplomatic recognition to Taiwan as part of a strategic realignment in East Asia (The Weekly Standard, Aug. 9, 1999).
Writing in the same journal on Feb. 14 of this year, critic John Derbyshire echoed the same idea. In an eloquent speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies on March 16, House Majority Whip Tom DeLay said the "one China" fiction has lost its utility and that the US cannot "under any circumstances allow ... China to impose a communist future on Taiwan." This view is shared by many in Congress.
While China's blatant threats and attempts to intimidate Taiwan voters were poorly received, the election of Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) has won applause in the US Congress and media and growing support for Taiwan's continuing efforts to perfect its young democracy.
Last week, the Congressional Advisory Board, which includes the president of the American Enterprise Institute, Christopher DeMuth, Heritage Foundation President Edwin Feulner, former UN Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, recommended prompt Senate approval of the Taiwan Security Enhancement Act so that US policy would be unambiguous.
While the Chen administration needs to take care it that does not provoke Beijing or the pro-China crowd in Washington, it is even more important for Taiwan to stand tall and proud and to insist that Taiwan's democracy is irreversible and only the 23 million people of Taiwan have the right to determine their own future.
Li Thian-hok is a board member at large of FAPA and chair of the diplomacy committee of WUFI-USA.
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