A recent editorial in the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) discussed the importance of enhancing Taiwan’s visibility in the world. I could not agree more with this idea.
On Dec. 2, 2016, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and then-US president-elect Donald Trump had a 10-minute telephone call. The entire world was watching, as the call marked the first such direct interaction between the presidents — or soon-to-be president — of the two nations since 1979. What the world did not know was that the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO) in the US had made it happen.
The Tsai-Trump call was by no means an impromptu act and TECRO personnel were on the front line. Before the call, we were afraid of any sudden change and unsure of success.
Washington Post foreign policy columnist Josh Rogin writes in his book Chaos Under Heaven: Trump, Xi and the Battle for the Twenty-First Century that the phone call was an “accident.”
Rogin writes that thanks to the confusion during the transition of the US presidency, an official of a pro-Taiwan think tank reached out to a Republican staffer in the US Congress who was also a member of Trump’s transition team. Soon after, Tsai appeared on Trump’s call sheet.
From TECRO’s perspective, Rogin’s account is just one version of the wider story. It is incomplete because he is unable to see the forest for the trees.
His version fails to consider the low-profile and yet intensive communications between Taiwan and the US. We and our US friends had been making preparations for the call for half a year.
In July 2016, Trump won the Republican nomination for the presidential election. Causing a great sensation, Trump’s run was indeed unprecedented.
We were in Washington at the time. In addition to collecting intelligence, we started reaching out to our Republican friends and asked them to connect us with Trump’s campaign team.
As soon as we learned of the election result on Nov. 8 that year, we immediately took the initiative to engage with his team. We employed every means, directly and indirectly, declaring that we would like to speak with high-level officials in any form, be it a video meeting or a phone call.
Due to the 13-hour time difference between New York and Taipei, TECRO had to be precise with the timing before reporting to Taipei.
At the time, we had the phone number of Trump’s office in New York. Carefully and anxiously, I was holding a small piece of paper with the numbers on it at all times.
On the night of Dec. 1 that year, I could barely sleep. I was afraid that all of a sudden, Trump would modify the schedule or change his mind, or that a technical problem would get in the way.
On Dec. 2, at 10am in New York, or 11pm in Taipei, accompanied by the then-National Security Council secretary-general Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) and the then-minister of foreign affairs David Lee (李大維), Tsai dialed the number.
The call went through. Tsai and Trump spoke on the phone in a jovial mood for 10 minutes, much longer than the scheduled five minutes. Before long, photographs of Tsai, Wu and Lee smiling radiantly were published in news media in Taiwan.
The TECRO team in Washington did not participate in the actual phone call. When we learned that the call had gone well, my colleagues and I had a lunch party to celebrate the success. I bent the rules for us and had a huge glass of beer.
I still have the small piece of paper with the contact numbers of Trump’s office.
Before the call, few people in Washington were informed of the details. The news media in Taipei made many guesses about the key person arranging the call, but the professionalism of the Tsai administration was also to be applauded.
The National Security Council, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and TECRO had cooperated with one another, removed every obstacle and enabled the 10-minute call. Together, we made history.
As one of the crucial participants throughout the entire process, I believe that it would be more sensible to acknowledge everyone, on the Taiwanese and US sides, who organized and facilitated the call. They should be given credit for making it happen.
The unprecedented call was a collective effort.
As philosopher and writer Hu Shih (胡適) said: “The success does not depend on me, but no effort is ever in vain.”
How the relationship between Taiwan and the US changed during Trump’s four years in office is another story.
After US President Joe Biden assumed office, the solid relationship between Washington and Taipei entered another phase.
However, the Tsai-Trump call manifested the sensitivity of ties between Taiwan, the US and China.
Political scripts are written with suspense, mystery and chance. Diplomacy is the art of making the impossible possible. We cannot sit and wait for a miracle, and we are confident that our diplomats will continue to devote themselves to fighting for our interests.
Even when the international political climate is not in our favor, we should be capable of finding a way to achieve our goals, and we will.
Stanley Kao was representative to the US from 2016 to 2020.
Translated by Liu Yi-hung
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