On March 16, US President Donald Trump signed the Taiwan Travel Act into law. The act allows all US military and government officials to travel to Taiwan and visit its government, and it represents the US Congress’ first legal interpretation of the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) since it was enacted 39 years ago.
The TRA stipulates that the US should “maintain the capacity ... to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security, social or economic system of the people on Taiwan,” but what constitutes such danger and whether the US should interfere is at the discretion of US president; Taiwan’s government and people cannot take the initiative.
For decades, China has threatened Taiwan via missile tests, its “Anti-Secession” Law, declaring an air defense identification zone, dispatching fighter jets to encircle the nation, infiltrating it, stealing confidential data and undermining Taiwanese sovereignty whenever it could.
These actions alarmed the public, but US presidents have done nothing, with the exception of sending an aircraft carrier during the 1996 Taiwan Strait Crisis.
The US Congress believed this was the result of a lack of direct communication between senior US and Taiwanese officials, and that a law was needed to authorize US national security officials, military officers and administration officials to visit Taiwan for discussion whenever necessary, while also allowing high-ranking Taiwanese government officials to visit the US and meet their counterparts in the Department of State and other agencies.
To prevent awkward incidents, such as former Taiwanese president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) receiving a US envoy in pajamas to protest his treatment during a transit stop in Honolulu on the way to Costa Rica in 1994, the Taiwan Travel Act stipulates that US departments must receive high-level Taiwanese officials “under conditions which demonstrate appropriate respect for the dignity of such officials.”
The preamble to the Taiwan Travel Act says the TRA has never prohibited exchanges between senior US and Taiwanese officials, and that relations “have suffered from insufficient high-level communication due to the self-imposed restrictions.”
Moreover, while the US recognizes that there is “one China,” the TRA does not contravene the principle of absolute territorial sovereignty in international law, nor does it contravene the Declaration on the Inadmissibility of Intervention and Interference in the Internal Affairs of States or the Declaration on Principles of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations adopted by the UN General Assembly, because Taiwan is not part of China.
Nevertheless, while the Taiwan Travel Act refers to Taiwan as “country,” it does not recognize Taiwan or the Republic of China as an independent state.
Although the TRA stipulates that Taiwan should be treated as a country in US law, in international law Taiwan is only a temporary international de facto entity. A decision to become an independent nation should be decided by the public.
According to the TRA, the US is legally required to preserve and enhance the rights of all Taiwanese, including the right to self-determination and establishing an independent nation.
The binding power of the Taiwan Travel Act is even stronger: Every 180 days, “the Secretary of State shall submit to the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate and the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives a report on travel by United States executive branch officials to Taiwan,” which expands Congress’ rights to be involved in Taiwan’s defense.
Chris Huang is a professor at National Tsing Hua University’s Institute of Law for Science and Technology.
Translated by Chang Ho-ming
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
The military is conducting its annual Han Kuang exercises in phases. The minister of national defense recently said that this year’s scenarios would simulate defending the nation against possible actions the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) might take in an invasion of Taiwan, making the threat of a speculated Chinese invasion in 2027 a heated agenda item again. That year, also referred to as the “Davidson window,” is named after then-US Indo-Pacific Command Admiral Philip Davidson, who in 2021 warned that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had instructed the PLA to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. Xi in 2017