US President George W. Bush will meet with Chinese President Jiang Zemin (江澤民) at Bush's Texas ranch today. One of the issues he should raise with Jiang is the gradual but inevitable demise of the US' "one China" policy.
Why this demise?
Because, the more Taiwan democratizes, the more the policy becomes untenable. The continued democratization of Taiwan will compel the US to abandon this Cold War relic completely within the next decade or so, or replace it with a policy of "one China, one Taiwan."
A brief reminder of history is in order.
Born of the late US president Richard Nixon's need for a Chinese compromise on the Vietnam War, the US' "one China" policy, introduced in 1972, has always been fatally flawed, in that it accepted Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) and his KMT's vision for Taiwan's future as one and the same as that of the Taiwanese people. This premise was questioned by former secretary of state William Rogers in 1972 and has been thoroughly unmasked by Taiwan's dramatic democratic transformation of the last decade.
In his book, About Face, Jim Mann unearthed the key deal Nixon made with the late premier Chou Enlai (周恩來), calling it the "Taiwan-Vietnam-trade-off." This was the basic idea: "Your people expect action on Taiwan, our people expect action on Vietnam. Neither actions can happen immediately, but both are inevitable. Let us not embarrass each other."
In their first meeting in 1971, Chou had warned Nixon's national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, that the first item must be US acceptance of Chinese sovereignty over Taiwan. He demanded that the US "unreservedly recognize the PRC as the sole legitimate government of China and not make any exceptions," just as China recognizes US sovereignty over both Hawaii and Long Island.
Kissinger bowed in the direction Chou wanted. "As for the political future of Taiwan, we are not advocating a `two Chinas' solution or a `one China, one Taiwan' solution," Kissinger stated. "As a student of history, one's prediction would have to be that the political evolution is likely to be in the direction which Prime Minister Chou Enlai indicated to me."
Timing would be a bit of a problem, Kissinger indicated. The political question of formal recognition of the PRC and its claims to Taiwan could be settled "within the earlier part of the president's second term. Certainly, we can begin evolution in that direction before [then]."
In other words, what Kissinger meant was: "you help us get out of Southeast Asia with some dignity and we'll get out of the way regarding Taiwan."
During his 1972 visit, Nixon summarized his understanding of the Chou-Kissinger agreement. Small wonder, then, that Chou Enlai thought he had a good deal and Chinese leaders from Chou to Jiang Zemin have tried to hold the US to the Kissinger/Nixon promises.
Nixon, shrewd politician that he was, knew that he had a problem with this promise. He told Chou, "I do not want to be forced when I return to the United States, in a press conference or by Congressional leaders, to make a strong, basically pro-Taiwan statement because of what has been said here. This is because it will make it very difficult to deliver on the policy which I have already determined I shall follow." To buy time to "deliver on the policy," Nixon and Kissinger settled on the use of "acknowledges" rather than "recognizes" in the Shanghai Communique of Feb. 28, 1972. The US, the communique states, "acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and Taiwan is part of China."
The Chinese version of the communique uses the verb "recognizes" here, but in subsequent clarifications, State Department policy makers have been adamant in insisting that the English version is the one accepted by the US and that "acknowledges" is diplomatic language for "we take note of this position without necessarily agreeing with it."
Even so, Rogers, who had been purposefully cut out of negotiations by Kissinger, objected to the text, noting that many native Taiwanese did not agree with the KMT's position. Rogers argued that the text should simply say, "Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait," rather than "all Chinese."
Although he was determined to deliver on the policy, time ran out on Nixon. Forced to resign over the Watergate scandal, neither he nor Kissinger could "control the bureaucracy" and Taiwan's status as "undetermined" continued to be US policy. Subsequent administrations have continued to try to have it both ways repeating that the US has a "one China policy," but stating that it is up to both sides to agree on what "one China" means. During his most recent visit to China, President George W. Bush emphasized that US policy was one of "peaceful resolution" of the Taiwan Strait issue.
As President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) has stated, Taiwan has chosen to walk the road of democracy, freedom, human rights and peace. "Taiwan is not part of any other country, nor is it a local government or province of another country. In short," Chen declared, "with Taiwan and China standing on opposite sides of the Strait, there is one country on each side."
Chen has been quite clear about Taiwan's future (and needs to continue to be so). "The decision to change the status quo for Taiwan cannot be made for us by any country, any government, any political party, or any single individual. Only the 23 million people of Taiwan have the right to decide the future, fate, and status of Taiwan."
Chen and the people of Taiwan have taken a page out of US history with this firm commitment of that country's founding fathers to the principle of self-determination.
It is high time, then, to put the US one-China policy to rest. A true win-win-win situation for the US, Taiwan and the PRC is a US policy that unambiguously recognizes the legitimacy of the democratic government of Taiwan as well as recognizing the PRC as the legitimate government of China.
Wu Ming-chi is the president of the Formosa Association of Public Affairs.
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